“Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem”: A Wartime Reflection
Behaaloscha 5785
It is 6:13 AM, Friday, June 13th (6/13). We are at war. We have been engaged in this conflict, both covertly and overtly, against a common enemy for years. This time, we hope and pray it concludes decisively and permanently. During this critical and historic moment, we fervently daven for the physical and emotional safety of all of Am Yisrael.
Below are some ideas I have begun putting together. They are timeless and always relevant, and I hope we can find resonance and relevance in them—especially now, in the times we are living through.
Earlier this week, there was something deep inside telling me that I needed a day off to be myself. I went to Jerusalem, headed to the old city and ended up in front of the Western Wall. It felt surreal.
I sat down with a Tehillim and began to daven. At some point, my soul surged with expression. Words that I’d said many times before suddenly opened up with new meaning. Maybe it was because of where I am in life right now. Or maybe it had to do with something in me that finally quieted down long enough to listen.
וְצִדְקָתְךָ אֱ-לֹהִים עַד מָרוֹם אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתָ גְדֹלוֹת אֱ-לֹהִים מִי כָמוֹךָ
Your beneficence, high as the heavens, O God,
You who have done great things—
O God, who is Your peer!
אֲשֶׁר הִרְאִיתַנִי צָרוֹת רַבּוֹת וְרָעוֹת תָּשׁוּב תְּחַיֵּנִי וּמִתְּהוֹמוֹת הָאָרֶץ תָּשׁוּב תַּעֲלֵנִי
You who have shown me many troubles and misfortunes
will revive me again,
and from the depths of the earth will raise me up.
תִּרְבָּה גְדֻלָּתִי וְתֹסֵף תְּנַחֲמֵנִי
You will increase my greatness
and turn again to comfort me.
גַּם אֲנִי אוֹדְךָ בִּכְלִי נֵבֶל אֲמִתְּךָ אֱ-לֹהָי אֲזַמְּרָה לְךָ בְּכִנּוֹר קְדוֹשׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל
Then I will praise You with the lyre for Your truth, O my God;
I will sing to You with the harp, O Holy One of Israel.
תָּרַנֵּנָה שְׂפָתַי כִּי אֲזַמְּרָה לָךְ וְנַפְשִׁי אֲשֶׁר פָּדִיתָ
My lips shall sing when I hymn to You,
and my soul, which You have redeemed.
גַּם לְשׁוֹנִי כָּל הַיּוֹם תֶּהְגֶּה צִדְקָתֶךָ כִּי בֹשׁוּ כִּי חָפְרוּ מְבַקְשֵׁי רָעָתִי
All day long my tongue shall utter Your righteousness,
for those who sought my ruin have been shamed and disgraced.
As low and constricted as we may feel, Hashem always has us. He always gives us a way back up. On the way up, the music begins to play.
Later that day, I wandered into the gardens of Yemin Moshe. The breeze was soft and the pine trees swayed gently overhead. Sparrows darted through the air like notes of a melody. Everything was beautiful and soothing, yet also awakening something deeper. In general, it is hard to just sit still and to really be present. However, the gift of Yerushalayim is that it is a patch of earth where birds, trees, and stones join in harmony. I found myself thinking that maybe growth is like a flame. It needs a balance of oil and air.
Whether we’re high or low, there is a yeshuah. That yeshuah always carries us toward a deeper, truer place.
Rav Moshe Dovid Vali explains1 that just as a Jew is composed of a body and a soul, so too is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim shel Mata is its body and Yerushalayim shel Maalah is its soul. When we come to Yerushalayim, we connect the physical and spiritual dimensions bringing together what was always meant to be whole. Our neshama finds its right place in Yerushalayim shel Maalah.
Elsewhere2, Rav Vali adds that when there is peace in Yerushalayim, there will be peace throughout the entire world. This is the ultimate harmony of body and soul, the lower and the upper realms.
It was for this reason that there was such simcha when people would come to Yerushalayim. This is the meaning of “Im eshkachech Yerushalayim… al rosh simchasi”, at every moment of joy, we remember the ultimate joy of Yerushalayim. We ask Hashem to restore it, because the highest joy is the return of the place where our bodies and souls (and the world itself) are once again united.
There’s a rhythm woven through everything I’ve been feeling lately. It is a spiritual pulse that I now recognize as ratzoh v’shov, the soul’s constant motion of yearning upward and then returning downward with purpose. It’s the tension between transcendence and grounding, between the highs of Yerushalayim and the stillness of breath in a quiet garden.
As I walked through the streets of Yerushalayim, I realized that yes, there are good times and there are hard times, and that is exactly how it’s supposed to be. Yes, a song can help lift you up, and it is just as important to sing when you’re already on a high.
In order to connect to Yerushalayim even when everything is going well, requires remembering the splendor and majesty of Yerushalayim, as well as the loss and the rutty pits we’ve been in. We can reflect on the peace and the quiet holiness in its walls. We can remember that when there is peace in Yerushalayim, there is peace in the entire world.
Yerushalayim is above everything. It is even above my happiest moments, where there is a master plan. In the master plan, there is direction and order. I am exactly where I am meant to be, even if it seems random or stuck in a cycle.
When we connect to Yerushalayim, we are connecting to all of history. In this week’s parsha, we are alighting the Menora. Like a flame, we must be balanced and have both, a touch of heaven and a touch of earth. In the very essence of our souls, we are meant to experience both good times and hard times. We must remember that whatever seems bad, rutty, negative, or stressful, can be captured and transformed. It should be used to catapult us higher, to bring our Yerushalayims back together.
Like Yerushalayim itself, which is caught between its revealed physical city and its hidden spiritual essence, creative people are always dancing between the desire to be seen and the desire to hide. That tension, too, is part of ratzoh v’shov. The yearning to rise, and the need to return. The courage to be visible, and the humility to retreat inward.
The Rhythm of Behaaloscha:
This week’s parsha, Behaaloscha, seems to shift rapidly from topic to topic, kinda like this essay, but there’s an underlying current that ties it all together. That current is the rhythm of ratzoh v’shov, the soul’s movement of rising toward the divine and returning to the physical. It begins with Aharon lighting the Menorah, emphasizing the flame’s need to rise on its own, which is a clear metaphor for igniting spiritual light within physical vessels. The Leviim are inaugurated into their Temple service, and the laws of Pesach Sheni are introduced, showing how even missed opportunities can be reclaimed through desire and presence.
The people are then guided by the cloud of the Shechinah, a visual of Divine movement that instructs their earthly travels. Two silver trumpets help bridge this spiritual guidance with physical action as a perfect image of divine signal meeting human response. When Bnei Yisrael leave Sinai, they begin to struggle. They complain about the hardships and long for meat instead of manna. In response, Moshe feels overwhelmed, and Hashem tells him to appoint 70 elders to help lead, this is a shift from solitary spiritual leadership to shared, grounded guidance.
It’s at this moment that Eldad and Meidad prophesize in the camp, instead of by the Mishkan. They weren’t officially chosen, but the Shechina rested upon them anyway. This is a striking illustration of how spirituality can erupt in unexpected places, even in the midst of everyday life. The Divine pulses within the ordinary, waiting to rise. This is ratzoh v’shov, spiritual inspiration that doesn't escape the world, but moves back into it to transform it from within.
From there, the parsha brings us to Miriam’s fall, another example of this pattern. A prophetess and spiritual leader, Miriam stumbles in a very human way through speech. Her tzaraas is a physical consequence of a spiritual misstep. Yet the healing initiated by Moshe’s simple, heartfelt prayer and followed by the nation waiting for her, reflects a deep return, a reintegration. Even in descent, there is the potential for elevation.
In the haftarah for Behaaloscha, the prophet Zecharyah is awakened by an angel and shown a vision of a golden Menorah with seven lamps, two olive trees beside it, and pipes connecting them. Zecharyah is confused by what he sees and presses the angel for understanding. The angel cryptically responds, “You know,” to which Zecharyah answers, “I don’t know.”
The Alshich explains that the Menorah represents Am Yisrael at the time of the final redemption — unified and pure, the bowl symbolizing the crown of Mashiach, the lamps reflecting the three Avos and four Imahos. The olive trees are the anointed ones who serve before Hashem. This is a vision of a people fully integrated with their source, where even the oil is gathered and flows directly into the flame.
The message is a powerful one. When the Geulah comes, the olives will be picked and crushed and the oil will flow effortlessly. The entire process will be self-contained, organic, and whole. In that time, we will see clearly that the two voices, katnus and gadlus, human effort and divine grace, truly do come from the same place.
As Rav Chaim Willis writes in From Creation to Redemption, this vision of Zecharyah reassures a weary people that even in times of low spiritual stature, as in the early Second Temple era, the mission of the Kohanim, the Torah, and the Menorah remains essential. Yehoshua the Kohen Gadol, despite his flaws and his sons intermarrying, is forgiven.
Why? Because the light of the Menorah, of Torah and Divine wisdom, which is too important to let go. It flows from Hashem and through the vessel built by generations of Kohanim. Eventually, that light will overflow, reaching even the nations of the world, as Zecharyah says, “Many nations will attach themselves to Hashem.”
The olive oil, once symbolic of human refinement, becomes Divine wisdom itself. The flame reveals, instead of consuming. The Menorah is a reminder of what was and maybe more importantly, a vision of what will be.
Just as Zecharyah’s vision lifts us toward a future of seamless Divine flow, the parsha grounds us in the struggle of the present, the cravings of the people, the weight Moshe carries, and the tension between spirit and flesh.
As Bnei Yisrael transition away from Har Sinai, their yearning shifts from following Divine fire to desiring meat. The mann, which was bread from heaven, the food of angels, wasn’t cutting it anymore. According to the Sfas Emes and the Malbim, its form was physical, but its essence was spiritual. This translates into a litmus test of sorts because for those receptive, it offered divine insight and even prophecy, while for others, it was just food.
This tension between ruach and basar is the human challenge. As Rav Yehuda Amital noted, the parsha repeats each term ten times, which signals the delicate balance required to elevate the material while staying rooted in the spiritual3.
Moshe struggled to lead a people descending from Har Sinai into the messiness of life. Perhaps he thought he could only guide them at their highest. Hashem taught otherwise, as true leadership is not to remain above, but rather it is to descend with the people and raise them through their world. The appointment of 70 elders marks this shift, from singular transcendent leadership to diverse, grounded guidance.
Judaism has never demanded asceticism. We are meant to sanctify the physical. Reb Shaya’la of Kerestir exemplified this by elevating hungry bodies to nourish hungry souls. As Rav Kook reminds us, holiness emerges by strengthening the body and using it as a vessel for the spirit4.
Perhaps the hardest part is walking the tightrope between heaven and earth. We need to know when to eat and when to yearn. To discern when is the right time to serve with our bodies, and when its better to be lifted with our souls. We need to recognize, as Yechezkel prophesied, that a day will come when these aren’t two realities, only one: “I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh... and My spirit I will place within you”5.
The journey from Har Sinai to the Land of Israel, and from exile to redemption, is about transforming the physical, instead of escaping it. That is the paradigm shift and there is the work. I venture to say that is the calling of our generation.
Rav Moshe Dovid Vali (Ramdu), in his commentary on Behaaloscha, explains the seemingly excessive repetition about the clouds guiding the nation. Why not summarize in a single verse? Because, he says, the Torah wants to teach us two things. Firstly, the greatness of Dor De’ah, the generation of knowledge, who followed divine instruction without protest, even in desolation. Secondly, to model for future generations what it means to submit to Divine will, even when it's uncomfortable, uncertain, or prolonged.
Their travels were not random. Each encampment was spiritually ordered, meant to cleanse and elevate. Some stops required only a day. Others spanned months. But every step, every pause, was by Hashem’s design — a choreography of growth through discomfort.
Rav Vali writes that those who endure suffering with love will ultimately rise into the highest form of love. The wilderness was the path, not a detour.
In our lives today and in the life of our people, we often feel tossed from place to place, held in pauses we don’t understand. However, there is meaning and growth in the journey. That growth is the reason why, generation after generation, we survive. We endure because our suffering is never without elevation.
When we see our suffering through the lens of purpose, when we let the cloud move us, guide us, and protect us, we ascend. That clarity comes when history cracks open and we begin to arrive.
These days feel messianic, in the subtle unraveling of a deeper pattern. We are in a time of shaking and shifting, of exile and return, of nations aligning and unraveling, of spiritual hunger and national ache. The clouds are still moving. The question for us is - will we move with them? Will we trust that the stillness, the wandering, the war, the yearning, are all part of the choreography? Because if we can, then we begin to live with memory, and with vision. To move past survival and towards direction, with pain, and also with purpose.
Moshe’s request for help in this week’s parsha is a model of greatness. When he feels despair, overwhelmed by the people’s complaints and regression, God empowers him by saying “Gather 70 elders.” Share the burden, share the light.
Shared responsibility is the deep leadership model of Behaaloscha. It is about a platform in place of a pedestal. “A great leader empowers, unifies, and strengthens.” A leader’s role is to ignite others, rather than shining alone.
The Menorah is the perfect image for this. It is narrow at the base, rooted in humility and then it rises tall, glowing with unified light. The flame of one candle can light another without losing any of its own strength. However, if it isolates and refuses to share, it burns out.
The same applies to people. When we isolate, when we hold it all alone, we dim. Yet when we are vulnerable enough to ask for help, and humble enough to give it, we grow.
Today, in this moment of war and national trauma, that may be the quiet truth for all of us. We are scared and tired. But we are not alone. When we empower one another, when we share our fire, we become a nation that, like the Menorah, shines its light outward — unified, strong, and steady.
Just as Moshe’s leadership needed to descend into the real and the raw, so too does Yerushalayim, a city of spirit and stone, remind us that holiness lives not only in ideals, but in the embodied and the here-and-now.
Last week, I wrote about the concept of mochin and how we are always existing in two states, one of constriction (katnus) and one of expansiveness (gadlus). I mentioned how we can access this state of gadlus through song, or even through deep, intentional breathing from the throat to the head.
This week, the parasha speaks about the lighting of the candles in the Mishkan. Interestingly, the word used for lighting isn’t hadlaka, but beha’alotcha—"when you raise up" the candles.
The nature of a flame is that it never stays still. It’s always bouncing, always moving. It’s not purely of earth nor purely of heaven, it lives somewhere in between. A flame allows us to see an expansive view of what is otherwise dark and constricted.
But, as mentioned, the flame doesn’t only rise, it also comes back down. It flickers and it returns. That’s the nature of a healthy soul, of a true spiritual rhythm. We are not meant to dwell forever in the expansive state. We will always, inevitably, return to earth and its constrictions. That’s not a failure, that’s the design.
As I was walking away from the Kotel, I passed by someone wearing a shirt that said “Both voices come from the same place.” What an odd and striking thing to see right then. But to me, it wasn’t just a message, it was a message from Hashem.
We’re on the right path. It feels confusing and there’s a lot going on. But the voice of constriction and the voice of expansiveness? They come from the same place. They both come from the flame that never goes out.
As mentioned last week in Parashas Naso, the Torah showed us how we can have two states of mind, katnus and gadlus. They are two ways of seeing, both valid, both holy, both ultimately united in their source.
I was recently talking with someone who shared how upset he was over something he felt was unholy and undignified. Later in our conversation, I tried showing him something on my phone, and when he noticed an image of my daughter, he told me he couldn’t look at it. He said there was a woman in the photo and therefore he had to avoid anything connected to it.
My first thought was that maybe he’s a tzaddik. A moment later, I realized that there is something wrong here. If simply seeing a child makes someone shut down completely, it doesn’t feel like kedusha. It feels creepy.
Yiddishkeit isn’t meant to be creepy.
Of course, we’re not meant to live stuck in katnus. But if your gadlus turns you into a creep, maybe it's time to find a middle ground.
That middle ground is what I believe I’ve been searching for. That’s where the flame rests. That’s where Yerushalayim meets us, and where we rise up to meet her.
Rashi tells us that Aharon did not deviate from what Moshe told him. But that begs the question of why would he? What’s the challenge in simply lighting a Menorah? Why is his obedience emphasized here?
The Sfas Emes6 explains that everything in creation contains a divine spark, a point of life from Hashem. But it is up to us, through our desire and avodah, to awaken that flame and guide it back to its source. Aharon’s greatness was that he aligned the external act of lighting with deep internal kavana. He elevated the ritual that he performed. That’s why the Torah says “beha’alotcha—when you raise them up” instead of “when you light the candles.”
Every object and moment in this world was created for Hashem’s glory. When we fully accept His sovereignty, all of creation, including even the yetzer hara, submits. The Midrash says even the yetzer itself seeks to be ruled by the righteous. This is how Moshe wielded authority, he was completely nullified before Hashem, unifying heaven and earth within himself. When we bring kavod shamayim into our actions, that truth is awakened and the inner flame is drawn upward.
The Maor Einayim adds that just as Shabbos gives a person strength to live the entire week with God-consciousness, so too the Menorah infuses the mundane with meaning. It allows us to see Hashem even in the weekday, to recognize holiness in our normal rhythm. The Menorah is about spiritual perspective. When we light life with intent, we draw everything back to its root.
This is what it means that when we keep Shabbos “twice,” geulah comes. When we learn to fully integrate katnus and gadlus, the external and the internal, the upper Yerushalayim and the lower Yerushalayim—then true peace can emerge. Aharon, the ultimate peacemaker, is the one uniquely suited to hold these extremes and unify them.
The Izhbitzer Rebbe, in Mei HaShiloach, takes it even further. He notes that although the Menorah is meant to eventually “shine on its own,” Aharon still lights it by hand. That tension between doing and allowing, between human effort and divine flow, is Aharon’s spiritual mission. He elevates and refines even the flawed actions of the Jewish people, acting as a conduit who lifts their deeds through prayer and holiness. Still, he makes it clear that each person is responsible to do their part from the start. “Don’t rely on me,” he warns. “Shine your own light. But if you falter—I’ll help you rise.”
The steady flame is the middle path, where kavana and action, light and vessel, human struggle and divine presence meet. The place where Yerushalayim lives beyond memories and within our being.
The Gemara7 recounts that Dovid Hamelech had a harp hanging above his bed. At midnight, a northern wind would blow, playing the harp on its own, awakening Dovid Hamelech to engage in Torah until dawn. Only at daybreak would he attend to the affairs of the kingdom—consulting the Sages, strategizing for the people’s welfare, and ultimately sending them to war, if needed, after consultation with Achitophel, the Sanhedrin, and the Urim VeTummim.
The pasuk, “Awake, my glory; awake, harp and lyre; I will awaken the dawn”8, is understood as Dovid being awakened by the music, not to wake up the dawn, but to wake himself to Torah.
Why did Dovid need the harp if he already knew when midnight was? The Gemara answers that it was to awaken him from sleep.
It wasn’t an alarm clock though, this was spiritual reorientation. Dovid Hamelech spent the day grounded in earthly affairs, but each night, he re-centered through sacred music and Torah learning.
Rebbe Nachman9 elaborates that midnight is the time for hitbodedut, for personal prayer and spiritual introspection. It’s the moment to extract the good ruach from the ra, the clarity from the confusion. Through sacred music, a person accesses memory, the awareness of his purpose in Olam HaBa, and guards it through song and joy. The music becomes the bridge that lifts the soul from sleep into consciousness, from forgetfulness into presence.
Dovid Hamelech’s harp, then, represents the inner instrument each of us holds. When struck by the winds of midnight, it reminds us that even if we are in a state of spiritual sleep, we can still rise. Even in constriction, there’s an invitation to return.
Dovid Hamelech wasn’t running from the day. He was preparing for it. The lyre did not remove him from earthly responsibility, but rather it reinfused him with purpose. The day began anew, with mochin d’gadlus reclaimed in the quiet night.
That’s the work of midnight and similarly, it is the work of the flame.
You can’t light a flame upside down. You can’t plant a tree that way either. Same with people. Growth begins when you’re rooted, steady, and facing the right direction. Then the rising begins.
Maybe that’s the quiet lesson of Behaaloscha. Maybe that’s the hidden melody of Yerushalayim.
Even in the tension, and in the unsure moments, when the body aches and the mind wanders, something is at work. Something deep, steady, and unspoken. That is shira. That is the song that lifts us, not always to the top, but always to the center, anchoring us where we’re meant to be.
And in that center, Hashem meets us. Again and again.
Even now, as we fight, as we fear, and as we pray, the flame still flickers. The rhythm still pulses and Hashem still meets us in the center. That is our song and we are still singing.
Tehillim, Telita 122
Tanyana 122
see Rav Amital on Bamidbar 11; see also Rav Kook, Shmona Kvatzim 3:273, Orot HaTeshuva 33
Shmona Kvatzim 3:273
Yechezkel 36:26–27
5633
Berachos 3–4
Tehillim 57:9
Likutei Moharan 54
There are not a lot of times when I read something deeply personal and think that reading it is worth consciously thanking Hashem that it came my way. This was one of those times.