At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart. Jeremiah 3:17
In his book Israel An Echo of Eternity Abraham Joshua Heschel speaks about how “the holiness of the land of Israel is derived from the holiness of the people of Israel" (Heschel, pg. 11). At a time that Jerusalem is at the center of much turmoil in the Holy Land, we must turn to mysticism to give us some perspective. The future hope for Israel and its capital Jerusalem can only come when we turn to the Jewish understanding of the heavenly Jerusalem.
The Dead Sea Scrolls speak of a New Jerusalem in connection with the Biblical book of Ezekiel, just like the sectarian apocalypse of the Notzrim. When comparing the fragments found at Qumran to that of Ezekiel, one may find several parallels. Description of the New Jerusalem is found in fragments in caves 1, 2, 4, 5, and 11.
Influenced by I Enoch 90:28–29 and IV Ezra 7:26, 10:54, these texts provided further inspiration to the Rabbis. One midrash, imagines the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem uniting as one at the end of time. Their union comes from an interpretation of Tehilim 122:3 which discusses that, “Jerusalem built up, (and become) a city knit together.”
Rabbinic writers described the earthly Jerusalem as reaching the throne of Divine Majesty (PdRK 143b; and see Tanh., Ẓav, 12; PR 41: 173a) and in later apocalyptic literature the heavenly Jerusalem is seen as coming down to earth in entirety (Nistarot de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai in Beit ha-Midrash, 3 (1938), 74f., 80; Sefer Eliyahu, ibid., 67).
Another midrash portrays the heavenly Jerusalem as a template of the earthly Jerusalem, Rabbi Yochanan believed that only when the earthly Jerusalem is restored fully that the heavenly Jerusalem will be inhabited by God. Talmud Bavli, Taanith 5a states: “The Holy One (said, I will not enter) heavenly Jerusalem until I can enter the earthly Jerusalem.”
Jerusalem is also believed to be the focus of Isaiah 60:1-3, which says the following: Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the peoples; but upon thee the LORD will arise, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. And nations shall walk at thy light, and kings at the brightness of thy rising.
Let this passage of the Tanak be our prayer for Yerushalayim!
