Yerushalayim Oroh Shel Olam

(Picture from two years ago, rikud dgalim)

I have a final in twenty five minutes and, oddly, instead of cramming in every last morsel of information in these last few minutes I have before going to school, I went on youtube and looked up movies on Yom Yerushalayim. I really wanted to find one of the rikud dgalim that goes on in town. For whoever doesn't know, every year on Yom Yerushalayim in the center of town in Jerusalem, tons and tons of Jews get together, each one holding an Israeli flag, and march while singing and dancing towards the old city, where they stream in through all the various gates - even the ones we don't normally go through - to have a concert at the Kotel plaza.

I know that Yom Yerushalayim is a very meaningful day and the first few videos I found were serious, inspiring, but, well, I found them more in the nature of Yom Hazikaron than Yom Yerushalayim. So even though they're really short, I wanted to post on my blog two movies I found of quick snippets from rikud dgalim, which really was one of the highlights of my year in Israel two years ago.

When I titled this blog, I originally wrote 'Yom Yerushalayim' but at second thought, that seemed so dull to me. So in the two seconds I had to think of a better name, I decided on 'Yerushalayim Oroh Shel Olam.' Why? I think it might have something to with the fact that I'm stressing about a final I have in twenty minutes, I'm running on about three and a half hours of sleep, and yet ten minutes I go I decided to look at happy, festive videos of Yerushalayim. And you know what? It actually made my morning so much brighter. Because I know that when I'm in that classroom struggling over an essay about the Sans-Coulotte, in Israel, and especially in Yerushalayim, they're having festivities, parades, carnivals, you name it. And it made me smile, to think of that. It made me happy and excited for today, no matter how stressful this morning is for me. And that is why Yerushalayim Oroh Shel Olam. Yerushalayim is the light of the world. It is the light of the world as a whole, but it is also the light of my own, personal world. And I'm sure that's true for plenty of people reading this. So instead of sharing one of the more serious youtube movies, I'm going to share two happy ones.



Also, even though Ezzie already has this in his blog, I'd like to post a link to it again because I read/listened to it last night and it moved me almost to tears. It's a link to another blog which has the transcript and recording of the day the old city and the temple mount were recaptured in the 1967 war.

Everyone have an awesome Yom Yerushalayim, filled with much happiness and fun! Chag Sameach (and for those of you in YU/Stern, it's a chag for finishing finals, too)!!!