“Jerusalem built as a city that is joined together” (Tehillim 122:3).
The Yalkut Shimoni elaborates: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi taught that Jerusalem is a city that makes all Israel friends, not only during festivals but throughout the year.
When I was six years old, my father’s sabbatical brought our family to Jerusalem. We rented an apartment in Kiryat Shmuel, and I attended first grade at Evelina D’Rothschild on Rechov Ussishkin.
One day, I decided to take the crowded bus home. Unable to see through the mass of passengers, I missed my stop. By the time I realized what had happened, I was completely lost, a small child adrift in an unfamiliar city. Too frightened to exit, I remained on the bus until the end of the route.
The bus driver, noticing a little girl trying desperately not to panic, asked where I lived. Having learned enough Hebrew to respond, I told him. Without hesitation, he restarted the bus and drove me directly back to my apartment. At that moment, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi’s commentary on the words of David HaMelech came to life – Jerusalem truly was a city that made strangers into friends.
This first encounter with Jerusalem’s unique character planted a seed in my young consciousness. The city wasn’t just streets and buildings but a living embodiment of chesed (kindness). That bus driver became for me the face of Jerusalem itself: watchful, protective, and inherently connected to all who dwell within its bounds.
Eleven years later, I returned for another year in Jerusalem, this time as a twelfth-grade student in Bayit VeGan. On Yom Yerushalayim, we participated in a tiyul that traced the footsteps of the paratroopers who had liberated the Old City. Our journey concluded as dawn broke at the Kotel, where we prayed shacharit.
The feeling was overwhelming – pure joy and profound gratitude. The thrill of carrying the Israeli flag as our degel throughout our journey filled us with a sense of connection to both history and hope. This was the embodiment of the words of David HaMelech: “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the House of the L-rd’” (Tehillim 122:1).
That predawn walk transformed my relationship with Jerusalem. No longer was it just a place of personal kindness, but now a living testament to national redemption. The abstract connection I had formed as a child became concrete – my own footsteps now added to the countless others that had traversed these ancient stones. The joy described in the psalm wasn’t simply happiness but a profound spiritual elation that comes from being part of something eternal.
Another fifteen years passed before I returned again, this time on my own sabbatical with my husband and five children. We rented a house in Talpiyot next door to Beit Shai Agnon.
On Shavuot night, I took my two oldest daughters – ages ten and seven – to join our shul’s walk to the Kotel. We set out in pitch darkness with few others on the streets. As we headed north on Derech Chevron, we began to notice other groups trickling in to join along the way. The roads, empty when we began, gradually filled with fellow pilgrims.
As we climbed the hill to Sha’ar Yafo, the sky began to lighten, and what had been a trickle of people transformed into a stream, then into a throng. Entering the gate, we could barely move forward as countless Jews converged. Carefully, we made our way through the Jewish Quarter until we reached the Kotel.
In that moment, I witnessed the verse come alive: “For there the tribes ascend, the tribes of the L-rd – as a testimony for Israel – to give thanks to the name of the L-rd” (Tehillim 122:4).
We were no longer individuals or separate groups but had become one unified people, ascending together to give thanks, just as our ancestors had done for thousands of years.
This third experience completed a circle in my relationship with Jerusalem. As a child, I had been cared for by the city. As a young adult, I had celebrated its redemption. Now, as a parent, I was passing its legacy to the next generation. Watching my children’s eyes take in the same scene that had moved me years before, I understood Jerusalem not just as a place of personal memory or national significance, but as an eternal inheritance.
The ability to spend a year in Jerusalem had shaped me at each critical juncture of my life. My individual story was but one thread in the tapestry described by David HaMelech in Tehillim 122 – tribes ascending, joining together, becoming one. In Jerusalem, the personal and collective merge; every private moment of connection becomes part of an unbroken chain.
Jerusalem, the city that joins hearts together, had fulfilled its ancient promise.
Dr. Deena Rabinovich serves as the chair for the Rebecca Ivry Department of Jewish Studies at Stern College for Women. She works closely with future and new teachers as the director of the Legacy Heritage Jewish Educators Program at Stern and the director of PEP at Azrieli. She is fortunate to maintain regular visits to Jerusalem, strengthening her deep connection to the city.