Building Yerushalayim

The Malbim offers an explanation of these famous words of Dovid Hamelech.

^[1]אִֽם־אֶשְׁכָּחֵ֥ךְ יְֽרוּשָׁלִָ֗ם תִּשְׁכַּ֥ח יְמִינִֽי

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,

let my right hand wither

^[2]תִּדְבַּ֥ק־לְשׁוֹנִ֨י ׀ לְחִכִּי֮ אִם־לֹ֪א אֶ֫זְכְּרֵ֥כִי אִם־לֹ֣א אַ֭עֲלֶה אֶת־יְרוּשָׁלִַ֑ם עַ֝֗ל רֹ֣אשׁ שִׂמְחָתִֽי

let my tongue stick to my palate

if I cease to think of you,

if I do not keep Jerusalem in memory

even at my happiest hour.

The Malbim describes how it is impossible to forget the right hand, as one relies on the right hand for one’s movement and occupations; so too is “Yerushalayim” the most beloved of our movements and occupations.

This idea implies that one needs to shift, or make tangible movements in oneself to connect to Yerushalayim. This implies that one actually needs to make Yerushalayim his or her occupation as it is the most beloved.  One needs to understand that they need Yerushalayim, and it is essential for one’s existence just as one’s right arm is.  And it is inconceivable to forget Her, just as one would not forget one’s right arm.

And even more so, he says, that Dovid Hamelech says that all his speech is about Hashem, and not only in when he is without a place, exiled and disoriented, but Yerushalayim must be the as the basis of simcha, and  also when he is experiencing joys when having success of the world, Yerushalayim has to be above all the joy experienced in success of the world , and the worldly success is overturned to sadness at her destruction.

“If I am rejoicing in worldly success Jerusalem should be above it all^[3]”

QUESTIONS:

Q: If Yerushalayim is so essential to our being, and in fact one of the names of Hashem, what does Yerushalayim mean?  Is it simply the place? Is it a state of existence? or is there much more we need to understand?

Q: What is it about Yerushalayim to us that it is like our right arm?

Q:What does  the forgetting chas v’shalom of Yerushalayim look like, and ramifications of this ailment?

Q: How do we connect to and remember her?

Q: Is the Malbim saying somehow that  our movements, and shifts to attach to Hashem are part of this remembering of Yerushalayim?

Q: Dovid Hamelech emphasizes remembering Yerushalayim when he speaks. How does our speech connect to Yerushalayim?  Is our speech, and guarding our speech connected to Yerushalayim?

Q: Is it possible that the placement of the Bracha of Yerushalayim is after our requests of Hashem of all the things we want, to incorporate the remembering of Yerushalayim as above all joys?

Q: Is somehow the concept of not allowing one’s speech to be satisfied with the limited joy and pushing for a higher joy of Yerushalayim, a fixing of the “adding on^[4]” in the speech of Adam to Chava leading to sin?

Q:  Is the practice of Shmiras Halashon key to remembering Yerushalayim?

Q: Is the Malbim saying that joy without Yerushalayim as the foundation is not joy at all, and is such a severe ailment, befitting transformation of that type of joy into sadness?

 

May we find more and more ways,  in our words of Tefillah to seek Yerushalayim and prioritize Yerushalayim above all the joys as words of Emes, from Dovid Hamelech, adoneinu V’rabeinu.

 

 

^[1] Tehillim, 137:5

 

^[2] Tehillim, 137:6

^[3] Tehillim, 137:6 Malbim

^[4] Genesis, 3:3