Re: Yerushalayim shel zahav

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

I don't mean or intend to get sidetracked into a discussion of settlements, 
etc.--surely not the place--but I do want to note, in re Lori's comment on 
(by comparison) "Al Kol Eyle," that "the last line of the chorus--"return us 
and we will be returned...to the good land"--expresses a core traditional 
Jewish value, iterated and reiterated (as Shlomo Riskin used to say) 
throughout the liturgy--including (Jewish calendar-wise) both the High 
Holidays liturgy and the Regalim (e.g., Sukkot) liturgy.  Obviously some may 
find support in that lyric for a particular political position--which really 
means a particular priority--that not all share, but I'm not sure what Lori 
means by the "original more general [meaning]."

Naomi Shemer may have appropriated the "Hashiveinu" line from Eits Chayim 
and Tanach and conjoined it to "the good land"--in the original context it 
refers to a more general "returning" (teshuvah) to G*d), so maybe that's 
what Lori means; but that Jews should return to the Land of Israel is, 
again, a core traditional value--not a political spin.

--Robert Cohen



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