Meir Soloveichik on Jerusalem’s Enduring Symbols
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2022
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jerusalem is perhaps the most interesting and spiritually important city in the world. For the Jewish people, it is the most treasured city in their long history. It is mentioned over 600 times in the Hebrew Bible; every time a Jew prays, he or she faces Jerusalem; at the end of every Passover seder, Jews sing out l’shanah haba b’Yerushaliym, “next year in Jerusalem.”
On this week’s podcast, we’re joined by Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, who just launched his new daily podcast, Jerusalem 365, a year-long examination of the history and significance of the holy city. For roughly 15 minutes each day, Soloveichik will explore Jerusalem’s buildings, its rulers, its people, and its role in the spiritual and cultural history of the Jewish people, the state of Israel, and the West. In this conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he walks listeners through some of the enduring cultural symbols that help illuminate the role Jerusalem has played in the minds of Jews throughout the ages.
You can click here to view a PDF with the various symbols, images, and texts referenced in the discussion.
Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | mentioned over 600 times in the Hebrew Bible, |
| 0:12.3 | Jerusalem is the most interesting city in the history of the West, |
| 0:16.5 | and for the Jewish people, it is the most treasured city in our nation's history, the focus of Jewish prayer, whose imprint is mapped onto the Jewish heart. |
| 0:26.1 | Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. This week, I'm joined to discuss the history and the significance of Jerusalem by the wonderful rabbi Mayor Sulevitchik as he launches his new podcast. |
| 0:39.9 | Jerusalem 365, a daily, year-long examination of the history and significance of this holy city. |
| 0:47.0 | In 15 or 20 minutes each day, Rabbi Solvecic will explore Jerusalem's buildings, |
| 0:53.5 | Jerusalem's rulers, Jerusalem's unique role |
| 0:56.2 | in the spiritual and cultural history of the Jewish people, the state of Israel, and the civilization |
| 1:02.1 | of the West that this very city helped to inspire. Why, he'll ask, were so many figures from |
| 1:08.8 | history entranced by this place, from the pharaohs of Egypt to David, Solomon, and the kings of Israel, from Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, and the rulers of the Roman Empire, all the way to the crusading kings of medieval Europe, Napoleon, Mark Twain, William Seward, Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill, Anwar Sadat. |
| 1:28.5 | By focusing on the mysterious and ongoing fascination with Jerusalem, you can glimpse a new |
| 1:34.9 | angle of vision onto the history of Western politics and culture. |
| 1:39.9 | Rabbi Silvecic's new podcast, Jerusalem 365, launched earlier this week. |
| 1:45.7 | And this Tuesday, I joined him in New York for a discussion about Jerusalem. |
| 1:49.8 | This week, we bring you that conversation recorded live. |
| 1:53.0 | If you'd like to subscribe to Jerusalem 365, you can do that by signing up at mayorsolvajik.com. |
| 2:00.1 | That is M-E-I-R-S-O-L-O-V-E-I-C-H-I-K dot com. |
| 2:09.1 | And if you enjoy this conversation, you can also subscribe to the TickF-F-Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify. |
| 2:17.3 | I hope you leave us a five-star review to help us |
| 2:19.9 | grow this community of ideas. I welcome your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes |
| 2:25.3 | at podcast at tickfa fund.org. And of course, if you want to learn more about our work at Tikva, |
| 2:31.9 | you can visit our website, Tikvafund.org, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. |
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