By Rabbi Benjamin Blech – Last week the entire world was stunned by the announcement that the President of the United States officially kept his campaign promise and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. But when I looked at the Hebrew calendar I realized something far more profound than a political statement. Rabbinic scholars long ago taught us that with the end of prophecy, after the close of the Bible, God has another way in which to communicate with mankind. It is by way of the secret of time – the linkage of events occurring on exactly the same date that makes clear we are meant to understand divine messages. Coincidence, it’s been famously said, is God’s way of choosing to remain anonymous. In other words, it’s God’s way of testing our ability to concede the Almighty’s role in directing the remarkable twists and turns of history.
I’m certain that the President did not know the momentous significance of the day on which he chose to proclaim the historic change of America’s policy with regard to the status of Jerusalem. In Israel, it was the night of the 19th of Kislev when the United States finally acknowledged what King David thousands of years ago sanctified and what the Jewish people never failed to forsake in their daily prayers. And it was on this very same day, the 19th of Kislev, in 1949, that Prime Minister David Ben Gurion– just one year after the establishment of the State – wrote and subsequently announced that the government of Israel had unanimously agreed that Jerusalem would be the one and only capital of the state of Israel. READ MORE
