Creation of the Universe

by Uri Zvi Greenberg

One day in the year 5684 (1924 CE) I was privileged to go up to Jerusalem and step with my bare feet on the Temple Mount. Words cannot express the emotions, the primordial atmosphere, and all that my body and soul went through when I was fortunate to have such an awesome experience. I had much joyous song but few words. Forty years later I wonder at my inability to express the appearance of the Temple Mount, the source of my vitality and my breath. All beautiful sight belong to G-d, and the light of the stars shine upon them. There is no place free of G-dliness; however, the aura of the Temple Mount is greater than anything I have ever seen. This is definitely the place which G-d chose to intensely dwell, apparent from the Great Light that shines there. Even these words do not even "nearly" describe the taste of the sight of this light. I myself would wonder a G-dly wonder. Suddenly I felt that I came here in ancient times with my father to celebrate the pilgrimage holidays and to bow down by my father side. Suddenly, I knew to say that Jerusalem is the Heart of the Universe, not just the spiritual universe but hinted in the passing way of the Heart of Israel.

"In the beginning of G-d's creating" (Bereishit 1:1) Where did He stand when He created the world. It is if it is written, "here, on the Temple Mount," the exalted among mountains, measured by hidden wisdom; the mountain that the Creator has since chosen as His home, the house built on it forever-- even after the destructions, even when the House is not physically built on it, and even when no Jew's foot steps there. Its light is from the Seven Days of Creation. Here He commanded, "Let there be light." These is the unsubstituted light that extends from one end of the universe to the other. I remember I was not only short on words but short on thoughts. Silence was there, as if the clock for all generations had stopped ticking.

Until the local Arabs touched me and forever woke me up to our foreign existence. Oy to me and to all Israel for this, then and now, until the redeemers ascend the Mountain. Since I went down from the Mountain I knew, Jerusalem is ours if only for That Mountain... From the day I went down from the Temple Mount, I would walk and hear with all my limbs from the voices of the instruments that would be played in the Beit HaMikdash. All the music of beautiful Western instruments sunk in my chimes and was forgotten. It appeared to me that only the tunes I heard in my youth-- the zemirot we sang at home on Shabbat and holidays, our chanting of the Torah, Ashkenaz and Sfard prayers in synagogue, the pouring out of heart and soul at Kinot and Selichot, the music played at weddings-- they were all from the tune of the ancient instruments on the Temple Mount. Unfortunately these succeeding generations, there are Jews whose ears do not listen for the voices of our Kingdom and do not taste the tunes that come from here, FROM THE TEMPLE MOUNT.


			E-mail: info@saveisrael.com SaveIsrael.com P.O. Box 1901 Bensalem, PA 19020