1967, the moment of Jerusalem’s liberation. Among the first Israelis to enter the walled city was Shlomo Goren, the chief chaplain of the Israeli army, the same rabbi who accompanied the soldiers onto the Temple Mount and then at the Western Wall, and who spoke the first blessings of the first prayer service there.
“As he stood on the ancient holy sites, his mind turned to a relative, his father-in-law. His father-in-law was also a rabbi and was known throughout the nation for his piety and deep yearning for Jerusalem’s restoration. And now it had happened. Goren believed that it was right that his father-in-law should be there in the Holy City to witness the moment of its liberation. So he sent his assistant to bring him there. With the road from Jerusalem to the rabbi’s house still under enemy fire, Goren’s assistant borrowed a military jeep with a recoilless rifle and set out to find the rabbi.
“Upon arriving at the rabbi’s home, Goren’s assistant told him he had come to bring him to the Holy City. The rabbi was so overcome with emotion that he left his house without putting his shoes on. The assistant then drove with the rabbi to the home of another revered rabbi, also known for his zeal for the redemption of Jerusalem. They found him deep in prayer. They beckoned him to come to the liberated city. The rabbi seemed dazed, as if not comprehending the moment, but went along anyway. Goren’s assistant now headed out with the two rabbis in his jeep to bring them inside the walls of the Old City. 1 Now what is it,” asked the Oracle, “that must take place in the year of Jubilee?”
“Each must return to his possession.”
“And Jerusalem was the city of the priests. Therefore, could the year of Jubilee involve the priests returning to Jerusalem?”
“It couldn’t have happened before?”
“1967 was the first Jubilee in which Israel returned to Jerusalem as its own possession. So it was the first time the priests could return in kind. And June 7 was the first day of that return. The man who drove the jeep that day was seeking only to carry out the command of his superior to bless two revered rabbis. But without knowing it, he was taking part in an ancient mystery. Rabbi Goren’s father-in-law was Rabbi David HaCohen. Cohen comes from the Hebrew word kohanim. It means priest. He was a descendant of Aaron, the brother of Moses, a priest of Israel. So in the year of Jubilee, when each is to return to his possession, and on the day of Jerusalem’s restoration the priest returned to Jerusalem.
“But then there was the other passenger. He was Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook. Three weeks before the Six-Day War, on the anniversary of Israel’s birth, he gave a speech that shocked its hearers. He cried out in pained longing for the restoration of the nation’s ancestral possessions, the holy places and cities from which the nation was now separated.” 2
“As in the singing of the song ‘Jerusalem of Gold.’”
“Yes. Both prophetic messages went forth at the time of Israel’s anniversary, within a day of each other. And less than thirty days after the rabbi spoke, the Six-Day War broke out, and Israeli soldiers would be standing on the very same places of which he had spoken that night. In fact, on the very night on which he spoke those words, Egyptian military forces were mobilized for the first time for the war that would bring it all about.
“But Rabbi Kook was also known as Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda HaCohen Kook. He was also a descendant of Aaron. He was also a priest.”
“And the priest was to herald the coming of the Jubilee. So in giving that prophetic word, he was heralding the Jubilee.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “and now in a jeep heading to the Holy City, he was witnessing its fulfillment. It was the third day of the Six-Day War. People were hiding in their houses. Gunfire was still in the air. And in the midst of all that one jeep filled with ammunition and a rifle brought back two descendants of Israel’s ancient priesthood to their ancestral possession.
“Two thousand years earlier, in the wake of the Roman destruction, the priests of Jerusalem fled the city, were taken captive, or were killed. For two thousand years they lived in exile from their inheritance. But in the year of Jubilee the separation is undone. At the beginning of the age the