G-d created the Shamayim and the Aretz - the heavens and the
earth. From this point, the Torah continues with occurrences on the land - that which takes place in the heavens is not mentioned. Curiously enough, this did not put an end to revelations about G-d, through-out human history.
Rav Kook, in writing his commentary to a Jewish prayerbook explains that HaShem reveals Himself to the entire world via Israel - He is called "HaShem, Elohei Yisrael," (The Lord, The G-d of Israel). Here, Am Israel (the People of Israel) become sort of a pipeline, or conduit, from which HaShem discloses Himself to all humanity. HaShem is revealed to mankind in the Shamayim and the Aretz, the material and the spiritual, but the doorway has always been Yerushali'im which explains why it is called "The City of the Great King."
Tzion
How was the world created?
When Hashem created the world, He didn't create it as a vast expanse of existence all at once. Rather, He created a single point, and from there, He drew out the entire universe. In other words, there was a single point of contact between the world above and this world.
We know where that place, that first point, is. It is behind the Kotel,
the "Western/Wailing Wall," on a hill where now sits a mosque. But in that same place, there is a stone. That stone is called the Even Shetia -- literally "the Foundation Stone."
The site of that stone was the place where the Tree of Life once stood. Adam and Hava were created and lived under the shadow of this Tree. It is the same place where HaShem tested Avraham by commanding him to bring up his son Yitzchak as a sacrifice; that stone is the site where Ya'acov dreamed of a ladder connecting Heaven and Earth and angels going up and down on it.
Around that stone stood the two Holy Temples. In the first Temple, the Holy Ark sat on top of that Foundation Stone, and around it was the Kodesh HaKdosh'im, "the Holy of Holies;" around the Holy of Holies was the Sanctuary; around the Sanctuary was the Courtyard of the Temple; around that was Jerusalem; and around Jerusalem -- the universe.
And it is around that stone that we long to see the Third and final Temple which the Mashiach Himself will build.
You can never describe a beautiful sunset to a person who has been sightless all his life. You can never describe Brahms' First Symphony to someone who has always been deaf. And we can never imagine the majesty and the awesomeness of the Holy Temple since we live in a world without it.
Thus we know that when the Holy Temple was destroyed, the connection between Heaven and Earth was severed. From then on, we perceive Heaven and Earth as totally separate entities. There is nothing left to show us the connection. Ya'acov's ladder is no longer. Yet the Mashiach will one day soon reestablish that connection.
Connecting Worlds
In Psalm 50, it says: "Out of Tzion, consummation of beauty, G-d appeared."
What does it mean that G-d "appeared" in this world out of Tzion? It means that there is a place called "Tzion" that connects the world above to this world. Tzion is the place of the foundation stone. They are one and the same -- the gateway to that which is beyond this world.
The word "Tzion" is an interesting word. It is related to the verb
"L'tzaiyen" -- meaning "to mark," "to indicate," of "to show something."
When we say that the world was founded on that point called Tzion, it means that the whole world stands on the principle that its very existence is to "mitzaiyen" -- to be indicative of something, to call out or show something.
When you found a nation, a club or a company, you make a declaration of its goals. When the American Colonies seceded, they drew up a "Declaration of Independence." That was the foundation of the United States. The foundation of something necessarily includes the aspirations and the ultimate purpose of that which has been founded. In other words, when we say that the world is founded on the point called Tzion, not only is Zion its point of departure -- the place from which it emanates and spreads out
-- but it is also its purpose.
The purpose of Tzion is to mark. To mark that there is something which protrudes above the vast trackless expanse of nothingness; to indicate that there is a world above this one.
And how might we best approach that world?
By a ladder. Seems practical enough.
Nothing in the Torah is coincidental. What is the idea of a ladder? A
ladder is that which connects one place to another. Ya'acov's ladder tells us that there is a place -- a place called Tsion -- that reveals a
connection between the upper and the lower.
Restoring the Former Glory
In the Torah, Moshe called HaShem "the Great, the Mighty, and the Awesome."
When the prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) witnessed the destruction of the Holy Temple by the Babylonians he said "Foreigners are cavorting in HaShem's Sanctuary -- Where is His Awesomeness? Don't call HaShem `Awesome' anymore."
Yirmiyahu was saying that he could not relate to HaShem as "Awesome" anymore because foreigners were profaning the holiest place on this earth.
Although the prophet said that Hashem's "Awesomeness" was no longer visible in the world, some seventy years later, when Ezra came back from the Babylonian exile, he saw things from a different vantage point.
The very survival of the Jewish People to him, was "Awesome." This was how HaShem's Awesomeness would be revealed in a world without a Holy Temple.
