When we do the blessing after meals (birkat hamazon) on Shabbat, we begin with a joyous singing of shir hamalot: “When G-d returned us to Zion, we were like dreamers…” (Ps. 126). Shabbat is like a “taste of the world to come” and the return to Jerusalem is to space what Shabbat is to time.
The dynamic of exile and return continues in the course of the work week. Just as it’s customary to add Ps. 126 on Shabbat, so too is it customary (albeit less common) to preface the weekday birkat hamazon with Ps. 137: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept…may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth… if I do not hold Jerusalem above my highest joy.”
The yearning for Zion is incorporated into the weekday Amidah. Blessings 14, 15, and 17 are all about the return, intertwined with blessing 16, asking G-d to hear our prayers—implying these prayers in particular. (So much for Zionism being a 20th century political movement—we’ve been saying these prayers for nearly 20 centuries.) Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet Prefet (known as the Rivash), one of the giants of Spanish Jewry in the 14th century, wrote that “The settling of the Land of Israel is not a mitzvah given for one particular time only, but an eternal commandment, a mitzvah and a boon for all Israel.” (Responsa 101). The text of this blessing–”Return to Jerusalem your city in compassion, and dwell in its midst…rebuilt it in our day…establish David’s throne…blessed are You, G-d, who rebuilds Jerusalem”—reflects perfectly the hopes and expectations of all of Israel in the Rivash’s day.
He no doubt would be stunned seeing what modern prayer books did with this blessing. Utterly bedazzled by the prospect of political emancipation, the liberal Jews of the early 19th century shifted the language and meaning of this blessing away from an actual return to Zion. Instead they emphasized “salvation” broadly speaking, or how Torah had gone forth from Zion, or how Jews were meant to be a light unto the nations. Or else they simply ignored the parts of the blessing that didn’t fit their ideology.
G-d, Who obviously has a sense of humor, decided after almost 2000 years that it was time for the return. So in rapid succession we see Enlightenment, Political Emancipation, Modern Nationalism, National Self-Determination, and the Rise of the Ethno-State—each, inadvertently, paving the way for the fulfillment of the Zionist dream. And so now, if we truly want to be a light unto the nations, we have the opportunity to do it by creating an exemplary society in Israel. Thank G-d, we are on our way, but we aren’t there yet. So we can still pray to G-d who “rebuilds Jerusalem.”
(For more detailed information about this topic, please refer to My People’s Prayerbook, Vol. 2—a wonderful guide to the world of Jewish prayer. There, Rabbi Daniel Landes cites the Rivash. Rabbi David Ellenson surveys the liberal liturgies)