Adele Berlin

What did it feel like to stand inside the gates of ancient Jerusalem at the height of its glory? A postexilic psalm imagines just that—revisiting a bustling city filled with pilgrims, justice, and divine presence. Blending memory, longing, and hope, Psalm 122 transforms Jerusalem into both a vivid past reality and a future ideal, culminating in its enduring call: שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם, “Seek the peace of Jerusalem.”

An emotionally evocative window into the suffering experienced by the victims of the siege of Jerusalem.

Dathan and Abiram’s civic rebellion against Moses and Aaron was independent of the Levites’ challenge to their religious demotion in relation to the Aaronides. The composite narrative underscores, more emphatically than either story could do alone, the principle that divinely-appointed leaders are to be accepted by the nation of Israel.