Past, Present & Future

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Everyone needs to step away now and then. When winter tightens its grip, many northerners head south to Florida, searching for warmth and escape. Nothing against that. When I feel the need to breathe again, though, I go to Eretz Yisroel, to Yerushalayim.

That is where I feel most like myself, where the noise fades and something steadier takes its place. I don’t need much there. Even though every time I go, I make time to see a place I’ve never visited before, it is enough for me to walk Yerushalayim’s streets, worn smooth by thousands of footsteps, and watch its people go about their lives. I can do that for hours, until my feet give out and my thoughts quiet.

Last week, I returned once more. Just by standing at the Kosel, at the place from which the Shechinah has never departed, I felt recharged and was reminded why I had come. My tefillos slowed and sharpened, each word carrying more weight.

I traveled to Eretz Yisroel for what was meant to be a short visit. The plan was to spend Shabbos with my beloved mother-in-law and return on Sunday to produce the paper. Hashem had other plans, and thanks to the interference of the huge snowstorm, I did not make it back until Monday night.

Of course, everything Hashem does is for the good, and an extra, unplanned day in Yerushalayim was a gift.

Over the years, I have had the privilege of seeing much of what Yerushalayim has to offer. I have stood among the remnants of the churban haBayis, gazing at the massive stones toppled near the Kosel and the scorched city wall burned by the Romans. I have walked the very paths taken by the Bnei Yisroel in the days of the Bais Hamikdosh as they came up from Chevron and points south to be oleh regel. I have recited Tashlich at the Mayan Hashiloach, from where water was drawn for the nisuch hamayim of Sukkos and mayim chaim for parah adumah. I have stood where Dovid Hamelech is believed to have lived, moments that bring Tanach vividly to life.

Those experiences are very touching. Walking on the same path as our ancestors as they went to fulfill their obligations gives the neshomah a tingle and causes the heart to skip a few beats.

Seeing those huge stones, which comprised a strong defensive wall in the times of Nach that we study with much reverence, makes everything come alive, as does viewing the stalls that catered to the olei regel. Your imagination begins to stir as you envision millions of people standing in this very spot.

Seeing what is thought to have been the palace of Dovid Hamelech is another manifestation of bringing Dovid Hamelech alive and making everything about him so real that you can almost touch it.

And of course, there is the Kosel. Standing at the place from which the Shechinah has never departed, uttering the holy words written by Dovid Hamelech in tefillah, is always profoundly moving. As you daven Shemoneh Esrei before those eternal stones, distractions fall away and kavonah comes naturally, as it has for thousands of years.

As you daven, you feel the Shechinah nearby, and you know that He is listening to your tefillos at this special place.

All of that is deeply meaningful, but it is not what this piece is about.

This time, beyond the stones and the streets that always leave such a deep impression, the extra day afforded me the opportunity to take up an offer from my friends. Yitzchok Pindrus and Yehuda Soloveitchik took us to visit a place that, in its quiet way, embodied the same holiness and continuity I feel in Yerushalayim’s ancient walls.

We arrived at Har Tzion and learned about the extraordinary history of the area, and of the Diaspora Yeshiva located there, a yeshiva deeply tied to the Jewish presence in that part of Yerushalayim. We visited the yeshiva, which is headed by Rav Pindrus, and were given a guided tour by Rav Yitzchok Goldstein, who heads the Diaspora Yeshiva. Rav Yitzchok is a fascinating person whose life revolves around Torah and continuing the mission his father began when he took over the site after the Six Day War.

The yeshiva also maintains a Holocaust museum, the Marteif HaShoah, a place I had never visited and barely knew existed. Established by Holocaust survivors, it contains deeply moving artifacts, including the shofar that the Klausenberger Rebbe blew in the concentration camp, Sifrei Torah stained with the blood of kedoshim who were shot while holding them, and many other sacred remnants of a shattered world.

The Marteif HaShoah also contains memorial plaques, crafted like matzeivos, for the residents of 1,200 Jewish communities destroyed by the Nazis. Survivors would gather there on the yahrtzeits of their towns to say Kaddish and remember. Talmidei chachomim, including Maran Harav Shach, would learn there as a zechus for the neshamos of the martyrs. It is a hallowed place, well worth visiting when in Yerushalayim.

From there, we walked through the beauty of Har Tzion toward the Zilberman Cheder, the famous school known for its unique and remarkable method of learning based on the educational concepts of the Maharal and the Vilna Gaon.

We observed a class of five-year-old boys learning Parshas Vayeira. They were reading aloud with their rebbi, with full trup. Five-year-olds. Every boy was able to read, follow, and understand. But more than that, they knew all the pesukim from Bereishis bora until the parsha they were learning that day by heart, and they understood their meaning. They answered questions with clarity and confidence, living the words of Chazal: Ben chomeish l’mikra.

For whatever reason, most of our schools do not learn this way. Seeing it in action was astonishing, a living demonstration that children, even at a young age, are capable of absorbing and retaining Torah at a remarkably high level.

Rav Yosef Zilberman told me that the classes are not composed of geniuses. The student body reflects the same spectrum found everywhere: some very bright, some smart and some who aren’t, some average, and some weaker. But children are hungry for knowledge and are able to absorb much more than people think.

We observed older grades as well and saw the same success: boys who know Shishah Sidrei Mishnah by heart, and older ones who have learned sedorim of Shas and retain them.

It was a beautiful sight to see Bnei Yerushalayim so attached to Torah. Everyone there, from the rabbeim on down, carried a special look of satisfaction and geshmak.

The Brisker Rov would say that the true chein of Yerushalayim is not its buildings, but its children. On my “extra” day there, I felt that truth with complete clarity.

I am certain that children in chadorim throughout Yerushalayim are also blessed with tremendous chein and yedios, but this is the place we happened to see. In fact, at the home of Rav Dovid Cohen, I met my old friend, Rav Avrohom Pinzel, who heads Chochmas Shlomo, the largest cheder in Yerushalayim. He invited me to visit his school as well, something I hope to do during a future trip.

From the moment we entered the Zilberman Cheder, I was struck by the dedication, warmth, and energy that filled every corner. Walking the halls and watching children learn Torah with such enthusiasm, I felt a different kind of tingle — not the kind that comes from ancient stones, but the kind that comes from witnessing a living, breathing commitment to the future.

Here was the spirit of Yerushalayim, alive in a new generation, shaping hearts and minds in real time. It was inspiring, humbling, and deeply moving. It was a reminder that the holiness of Yerushalayim does not only live in its past, but is unfolding every day, in places like this unique yeshiva.

We traveled to the ancient city of Shiloh, where the Mishkon stood for 369 years. With the parshiyos of the Mishkon approaching, it felt like the right time to be there. I had visited once before, some fifteen years ago, before it had been developed into a formal site. Even then, it was powerful. Now, standing again on that ground, it was impossible not to feel the weight of what once stood there.

This is the place where the Mishkon itself is believed to have been situated. And nearby was the sha’ar — the gate — where Eli Hakohein is said to have been sitting when he heard the devastating words: ki nishbah Aron HaElokim — that the Pelishtim had captured the Aron. Upon hearing the news, he fell backward and was niftar.

The Novi tells us in Sefer Shmuel Alef (4) that the Bnei Yisroel were at war with the Pelishtim, and the battle was going badly. In desperation, the ziknei Yisroel sent for the Aron to be brought from Shiloh to the battlefield. It was a tragic mistake. Chofni and Pinchos, the sons of Eli who carried it, were killed, along with thirty thousand Jews. And when Eli heard what had happened, sitting at the gate opposite the Mishkon, his heart could not bear it.

To stand there — to see the site of the Mishkon and the place where Eli sat — is to feel the long, trembling story of Am Yisroel beneath your feet. The stones do not speak, but somehow they remember.

You can almost hear Shmuel Hanovi calling out across the centuries, repeating his nevuah urging the people to do teshuvah and abandon their avodah zarah. They believed they were righteous. They refused to listen. And they were punished. The war was lost and the Aron was taken.

Standing there, I found myself wondering what Shmuel would say if he were alive today. What would his message be to us? What would he be admonishing us about? What would he be urging us to fix, to strengthen and to change in order to bring the geulah closer?

We are no longer blessed with nevi’im. But we still have their words. We have Nach. We have our rabbeim. We have the sifrei mussar and machshovah written over centuries, offering us guidance, perspective, and a Torah lens through which to view our lives and our responsibilities.

In just a few weeks, we will be learning the measurements of the Mishkon. And there in Shiloh, on an ancient mountain, stands a flat area, preserved and marked, measuring one hundred amos by fifty amos, the exact size of the Mishkon. You stand there and try to imagine it: the yerios, the two mizbeichos, the crowds lining up with their korbanos, the smoke rising to the heavens in a rei’ach nichoach, the kohanim moving swiftly, purposefully, immersed in avodah. And suddenly, you realize how much we are missing in golus.

But then you look down.

Scattered everywhere are shards of pottery, fragments of the very vessels in which people once ate their korbanos, vessels that became assur b’hana’ah because of the kedusha they had absorbed. They have been lying there for thousands of years, silent witnesses to the kedusha and taharah of Yidden, exactly as Chazal depicted and described.

And in that moment, something shifts. The Mishnayos we hureved over are no longer abstract. They are no longer theoretical. They are real. Alive. Tangible. What a chizuk in emunah.

You can bend down, pick up a broken piece of clay, and suddenly, history is not something you learn.

It is something you touch.

There is so much happening in the world today — in the wider world and in our own. Some of it is good. Much of it is not. People feel unsettled, unsure of what the future holds. Anti-Semitism is rising. The specter of war with Iran hovers.

For many frum families, simply making ends meet has become an ever-growing challenge: housing, tuition, clothing, food, insurance — the basic obligations of life weigh heavier each year. Beneath it all, there is a quiet sense of division and discontent that we struggle to mend.

Where will it all lead? How will it end?

There are opportunities for chizuk all around us, and in our daily lives we can often sense Hashem’s steady hand guiding us, sustaining us, carrying us forward. But sometimes, we need a change of scenery to see it. To step outside ourselves. To be reminded — not intellectually, but viscerally — of who we are and where we come from.

Walking among ancient shards of pottery in Shiloh, standing on the stones once trodden by the olei regel, facing the remaining walls of the Bais Hamikdosh, and watching Yerushalayim’s zekeinim and ne’arim move through its streets — all of it speaks quietly but powerfully. It tells the story of eternity. It reminds us that despite everything our people have endured, we are still here. Alive. Learning. Building. Dreaming.

We walk through the streets of the Eternal City and see before our eyes the living fulfillment of the nevuah of Zechariah Hanovi: “Od yeishvu zekeinim uzekeinos b’rechovos Yerushalayim… Urechovos ha’ir yimale’u yeladim v’yelados mesachakim b’rechovoseha.”

We stand in a city that was destroyed, emptied, burned and mourned, and now we see old people sitting peacefully along the streets and children playing in them.

And in that vision, we find our answer. Not to every question, but to the deepest one of all. We are not a people of endings. We are a people of continuity.

Other nations write histories that conclude with a rise and a fall, with glory followed by disappearance. Our story is quite different. For us, Am Yisroel, destruction is never the final word. Golus is never the last chapter. The dark moments become bridges to something good that follows each time.

That is what Yerushalayim teaches us when we walk its streets.

Am Yisroel exists in a story whose final word has not yet been written. And the story won’t end, as most stories do, with “The End,” but rather with “The Geulah.”

May we merit to see and experience it speedily in our days. Amein.