Yerushalayim shel Zahav: Jerusalm of Gold

Part Three of the Jerusalem Series

Again we sat on the crowded bus as we neared the holy city of Jerusalem. The landscape, as always, was dry and brown in every direction. We had been traveling for over two hours now and the air in the bus was beginning to hum. The mic clicked on as the teacher took the stage to usher us into this holy place. We woke our neighbors and listened to him talk, his calm steady voice always a comforting source of meditation-like peacefulness. We entered a long, high tunnel, lit by the orange glow of lights filling every corner. As his speech came to its gradual conclusion he said,

"there is a light at the end of every tunnel, but only at the end of this tunnel... is Jerusalem"

Suddenly we came out into the stunning light of the late evening, Matisyahu's Jerusalem blasting over the sound system. The golden sun was low and tinted by the desert sky, sending long shadows across the city as it fell upon hundreds upon hundreds of buildings, reflecting its own brilliance off every possible surface. From our vantage point on the road, we could look down on the boundless expanse of the city with easy view of every possible detail.In the center of it all was an enormous dome, glinting of real gold in the early evening light. I would later know this to be the Dome of the Rock.

The bus rounded an exit and parked at a small terrace where we sat to see the splendor of the city. We sat, we looked, and then we started to sing. There is a song in Israel called Yerushalayim shel Zahav, or Jerusalem of Gold. As Akiva taught us, it had been commissioned only a year or so before the Six Day War to fill the space of counting votes in the Israeli National Songwritting competition. The managers wanted a song to reflect their city, possibly bring some good publicity to the Jews in what looked like a hopeless time. No one they asked wanted the challenge of writing the song. Jerusalem has been written about by prophets and poets and kings, how could they compare? Finally they found a songwriter, Naomi Shemer, to write it and a singer, completely unknown (as insisted upon by the author) and they prepared the song. On the day of the festival, the girl took the stage alone with her guitar, the blinding lights stopping her from seeing the crowd, and she began to sing.

Yerushalayim shel Zahav veshel nechoshet veshel or
Ha'lo lechol shir'ayich ani kinor
Jerusalem of gold, of copper, of light
Behold I am your harp for all your songs

She sang until the song came to a close. She was met with complete, terror inducing silence. She stepped out of the light with no applause, scared that she had made some flaw and looked at the audience. Every person in the stands, every person that had come that day, was crying.

/this is the song we sang as we overlooked Jerusalem, as I viewed it for the first time. We sang and sang. We sang Deep Inside my Heart. We sang One Day. We sang Jerusalem. We danced we cheered. And we returned to the bus. The day was over. We had arrived.