Zion!

Based on: The Primordial Reality of Zion

Few words carry as much heat today as Zion. For some, it evokes belonging, memory, and return. For others, it is heard through the language of politics, conflict, and accusation. In public debate, the word is often used so heavily that it becomes difficult to hear it at all.

But before Zion became a slogan, a battleground, or a banner, it was a biblical word.

That is where this article begins. Not with modern politics, and not with competing ideologies, but with a simpler and older question: what did Zion mean in Tanakh when it first appeared? Was it always just another name for Jerusalem, or did it first refer to something more precise — a distinct sacred point that later gave its name to something larger?

This question matters because words that become politically charged are often flattened. Their older meanings are buried under modern arguments. Yet in the logic of Tanakh, halakhah, and Jewish Kabbalah, Zion appears not merely as a poetic flourish but as a distinct sacred locus that Isaiah 52:8 preserves in restoration language too sharp to be neutralized. David first encounters Zion as a fortified, water-linked objective. Later, the name broadens in royal usage. Yet exactness in sacred law ensures the place of the altar at a sacred boundary that is also Zion. On that basis, the eastern ridge of Mount Moriah above the Gihon remains the strongest candidate for the recovery of Zion as a real and exact point. 

Modern readings often treat Zion as just another name for Jerusalem, and then allow mystical meaning only as metaphor. But the Jewish tradition works in the opposite direction. Sacred place is not holy because people later imagine it so. It is holy because it reflects a prior order: covenant, Presence, kingship, sacrifice, and transmission.

That is why Zion and Jerusalem should not be collapsed into one flat term. In the inner tradition, they are joined but not identical. Zion names concentration, foundation, and covenantal fixing. Jerusalem names kingdom, manifestation, and extension into history. If that distinction is real, then one should expect it to leave traces in text, law, and terrain.

The mystical reading does not float above Tanakh. It arises from the way Tanakh itself is built. The Mishkan, the Temple, the altar, the Holy of Holies, tribal boundaries, and laws of approach all assume that holiness is structured, graded, and locative. So when later tradition distinguishes Zion and Jerusalem, it is not indulging in poetic excess. It is reading a distinction already embedded in sacred order. Zion, on this reading, is concentrated sanctity: the place where relation is fixed, covenant is anchored, and Presence is not diffuse.

That also explains why the term “Zion” could later broaden. The name of the core can radiate outward to the larger body. But that later broadening does not prove that the original core never existed.

Isaiah 52:8 is the prophetic center of the question: בְּשׁוּב יְהוָה צִיּוֹן. The usual smoothing is “when God returns to Zion.” But the force of the Hebrew, "when God returns Zion" is sharper than that translation suggests.

The point is not that grammar alone settles every question. The point is that the verse refuses to let Zion become passive scenery. Zion stands in the line as the locus of restoration. The watchmen see “eye to eye” because what is described is concrete and manifest, not merely inward. This is where the mystical reading becomes stronger, not weaker. If Zion is a real point of covenantal alignment, exile is not only political displacement. It is dislocation between Presence and place. To say “God returns Zion” is therefore not rhetorical excess. It is a fitting expression of restored alignment.

Zion first appears in 2 Samuel 5 in a concrete setting. David captures the stronghold of Zion, and the action is tied to the tzinor, the water approach. Zion therefore enters Tanakh not as a vague symbol but as a fortified, water-linked objective. That matters. First appearances preserve profile. Even if later usage broadens, the first appearance shows what kind of place Zion originally was.

Yes, 1 Kings 8:1 later says that the City of David is Zion. But that proves later consolidation of the name, not necessarily original semantic breadth. A sacred name can expand outward from a more exact point. The strongest support for this argument is not mysticism alone, but halakhah. Rambam rules that the altar’s place is exact and may never be changed. This means sacred geography in Jerusalem is not arbitrary. That exactness matters. If altar-place is fixed, then boundaries matter, slopes matter, springs matter, and location matters. Holiness in Israel is not only intense. It is bounded.

This is why Joshua’s boundary texts and the rabbinic discussion in Zevachim matter. They preserve a memory that sacred layout was not symbolic drift but lawful structure. The southeast altar logic in particular shows that form itself carries tribal-boundary meaning.

God's presence settles in the west,
therefore mirror the image so left swaps right.

Once the question is framed this way, the eastern ridge above the Gihon is no longer an eccentric proposal. It becomes the one place where the main elements converge: water access, fortification, early monumental occupation, relation to the tzinor tradition, and fit with the Judah-Benjamin boundary logic. That does not mean every archaeological claim is beyond dispute. But it does mean the eastern ridge is the strongest setting in which Zion’s earliest profile still makes coherent sense.

More than that, it fits the sacred pattern. A foundational point would be expected to come first, then be covered over by broader royal and cultic expansion. That is exactly the kind of relation this ridge seems to preserve. 1 Kings 8:1 shows that by the Solomonic order, “Zion” had become an established designation for the City of David. But that may reflect transfer of the name from an original sacred core to the wider royal-sacral whole. That matters because exile is not only removal from land. It is also broadening without center. A name remains, a symbol remains, a city remains, but the exact point of alignment is obscured.

That is why restoration language remains so pointed. The memory of the core survives even when the name has spread outward. Zion should not be reduced to a loose synonym for Jerusalem, nor dissolved into a purely inward symbol. The stronger reading is that Zion is a differentiated sacred locus: foundational in the metaphysics of holiness and therefore capable of textual, legal, and topographic trace.

Isaiah 52:8 preserves restoration language too sharp to be neutralized. David first encounters Zion as a bounded, water-linked objective. Rambam preserves the exactitude of sacred place. Joshua and Zevachim preserve the boundary logic of holiness. The eastern ridge above the Gihon is the one terrain where these lines still cohere.

And this convergence does not end in a general preference for the ridge. It narrows to a candidate. Temple Zero names that point: a rock-cut sacred complex on the eastern slope above the Gihon, with reservoir, plastered water channel, cultic rooms, standing stone, and altar-related foundation. Here the water-linked setting of David’s Zion, the exactitude of altar law, the Judah-Benjamin boundary logic, and the inner demand for a concentrated point of Foundation cease to stand apart and begin to read as one stone grammar.

On that reading, Temple Zero is not merely another eastern-slope shrine. It is the strongest specific Zion candidate and its on the ridge above the Gihon: the place where prophetic restoration, altar-memory, the matzevah, and the antecedent pattern of later Temple design most nearly meet.

Therefore “when God returns Zion” should be heard as more than rhetoric. It is the language of the present day restoring of the foundational sacred point from which Jerusalem’s broader holiness radiated. To seek Zion in this way is not to subordinate mysticism to archaeology. It is to insist that the inner order of Torah leaves real traces in text, law, and land.

The video describes archaeology at the City of David location

Contract With Destiny

BS”D

Orthodox students of Torah (Bible) know that G-d entered the sea to a conditional contract in preparation for its creation on the third day. Against nature, the sea would be obligated to divide when at a future time the Israelite people would desire to cross it. According to Torah and Jewish tradition, the sea honored its contract with Destiny during the Israelites’ hurried exodus from Egypt. 

Moses led Israel out of their exile through the divided sea, but he was denied entry into their promised land because on one occasion he showed disregard to G-d’s Destiny. Torah refers to this incident as the “waters of dispute” so-named when Moses hit a rock, twice, perhaps the wrong rock, instead he should have spoken to it, then destiny would have been realized and the rock would have released its water. But,  G-d’s attention was turned to the different outcome, as a result Moses pleaded 515 times to amend the contract written in Torah and permit him to enter the land. It wasn’t to be.

430 years prior to these events, before the Torah was revealed to the Jewish people, Abraham entered a covenant of parts during which he was told that his future descendants would be exiled after which they would be qualified to inherit their promised land. A question was raised about Abraham’s descendants that also included the nations that descended from Esau and Ishmael: Why didn’t they inherit Abraham’s land? Because they had departed from their tribal obligation to Abraham’s covenant of parts, they abandoned the land and disconnected from the progeny of Isaac and Jacob (Israel). On Israel's circuitous, redemptive return from exile some of these other Abrahamic descendent nations contested Israel’s inheritance, battled the tired and weary nation, but they were defeated with ease. 

Of all the Biblical characters, why is Joseph the only one referred to as righteous? The reason becomes obvious through his dramatic life, yet Joseph never messed with destiny. Despite losing his mother as a young boy, being kidnapped, sold by his brothers and framed by his master’s wife, after her unsuccessful attempt to seduce him, he positively endured his imprisonment. Knowing events of his life were predestined he retained his happy demeanor, delighting in every moment. Out of his imprisonment he rose to the administrative head of the most powerful nation, second only to Pharaoh, lured his Israelite family to Egypt, played his central role in their destiny and eventual return to the promised land.

G-d’s Torah contract with Destiny reflects a perfect line, which one should be careful not to disrupt because the consequences to restore Destiny's perfection may be ominous. No doubt that happens continuously and sometimes destiny is even changed for the better. However, righteous individuals who are finely tuned to Torah’s laws and their ties to Destiny, wisely limit interruptions. In this sense Torah’s rules for Divine synchronicity is our timeless blueprint! 

The United Kingdom of Israel

There are only two instances in the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible where the commonly used word 'toldot' (generations) is perfected. The first relates creation as a preparation for the souls that would follow into the world. The second declared the purpose of the first; a soul, through Judah and Tamar of the generations from Peretz to Boaz and Ruth (the second perfect spelling) from whom King David, the Messianic root descended. But, according to Kabbala, this would be preceded by the messianic soul of Joseph.

R'Shmuel, ben Nachman said: "The brothers were busy selling Joseph; Reuben was busy with his sackcloth and fasting; Jacob was busy with his sackcloth and fasting; Judah was busy taking a wife for himself; and God was busy creating the light of King Messiah. 'And it came to pass at that time and Judah went down...' before the first slave is born, before the final redeemer is born.

Jacob's only daughter Dinah was raped, but Jacob delayed telling his sons until they returned from the fields. They were outraged by the defilement, but also their father's delay. They hated Dinah's baby and wanted to kill it. Jacob placed an amulet around her neck, took her to a mountain near the priests of Midyan, placed her in a 'SNeh' (bush) and sent a request to the high priest to care for her. She was named AeSNath, from 'SNeh' and SiNai (meaning hatred).

When Aesnath reached the age her mother was violated, the Midianite priests began transporting her to the ancestral home of Jacob's wives. Along that route they changed plans, traded her to Ishmaelites and joined their caravan heading south to Egypt. Curiously Torah tells the Ishmaelites were carrying an unusual cargo, נְכֹאת֙ וּצְרִ֣י וָלֹ֔ט : Spice, Gum and Balm. Rabbi Moses Ha-Kohen the Spaniard relates the word for Spice to a 'treasure house'. Separately Joseph's brothers kidnapped him and along that route to Egypt sold him to Midianites. Thus two caravans were separately transporting the people the brothers hated most; 17 year old Joseph and his 8 year old niece Aesnath, who he would later discover and marry.

Then, in the midst of the Joseph story Torah interjects the apparently unrelated story of Judah's descent from his brothers, his legitimate interlude with his ingenious daughter-in-law Tamar and the birth of their son Peretz that rescued the messianic line. The interjection exposed a low point of Judah's life juxtaposed with heights of immoveable messianic destiny. Jacob's wives, the house of Leah (through Dinah's daughter Aesnath) and the house of Rachel (Joseph) were ultimately united in marriage and the preceding messianic light of Joseph became firmly rooted for the Messianic redemption of Israel's tribes, the Jewish people.

The Torah returns us to the story. 22 years later, confronted by drought, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy supplies. They did not recognize Joseph who had become the Viceroy of Egypt, they presented him with Jacob's gift and bowed to him. At that moment Joseph realized his prophetic dreams, that had caused such hatred. But, Jacob's gift surprised him because it contained three of the same "unusual" elements צֳרִי֙ וּמְעַ֣ט דְּבַ֔שׁ נְכֹ֣את וָלֹ֔ט בָּטְנִ֖ים וּשְׁקֵדִֽים: of the "treasure house" that accompanied him on his caravan to Egypt. Perhaps a hint that his prophetic father had orchestrated the regional priestly diplomacy to ensure Aesnath accompanied Joseph on his exile in Egypt.

If even prophetically Jacob knew Joseph was alive, why did he mourn the 22 years of Joseph's absence? Because, his son's collectively lied about selling Joseph. And, Joseph was not innocent, free to communicate he chose not to reach out, for 22 years! In the brothers final confrontation with Joseph Judah assumed responsibility for Benjamin who was too young to be implicated in the devilish scheme his brothers perpetrated against Joseph. With that collective realization Judah bound Benjamin to the oath their brothers had once entered, never to reveal their darkest secret, about the sale of Joseph to their father and Joseph, admitting his own shortcoming, fell on the necks (Torah uses the plural) of his younger brother Benjamin. Together they wept over the trauma of their brotherly fracture that would result in the future destruction of Jerusalem's temples. But, the sons of Israel (Jacob) were united, bound by their collective silence.

Still seeking assurance, on his death bed Israel's sons assured him "Hear us, O' Israel The Lord is our God, The Lord is One" and Israel's final, parting response: Blessed be the glory of His kingdom for ever and ever! 

Who was Asenath?

Dinah the wife of Lavan was the mother of Leah and Rachel, both of whom married Jacob. Lavan motivated a deception of Jacob to first marry Leah although Jacob always considered Rachel his first wife, his first choice. Leah's daughter was said to have been swapped from Rachel who instead bore Joseph, her first son, Leah named her daughter Dinah, presumably after her mother. 

At 8 years old, Jacob's daughter Dinah was raped by Shechem and she conceived. The teenage sons of Jacob wanted to kill the baby to cover their shame, but Jacob objected, instead he placed the baby in a 'sneh', written as סנה - a 'bush' in Midian. The region of Midian was named after the son of Abraham, it roughly stretched from modern Medina (Saudi Arabia) along the Gulf of Arabia to Eilat (Israel).  

The baby was raised by priests in Midian and at age 9 it was transferred, most likely by Midianites on a caravan traveling along the trade route north, then west at Gilead, toward Shechem, the Mediterranean coast and south to Egypt. On their journey the Midianites encountered an Ishmaelite caravan also travelling west through Gilead to the coast and Egypt, they began trading while they travelled to their ultimate destination. 

Joseph was disliked by his brothers. At age 17, near Shechem they threw him into a pit (Genesis 37:25). They concocted an idea to sell him to the approaching Ishmaelite caravan coming from Gilead (Genesis 37:28). Unusually the Ishmaelites were carrying sweet smelling balms when they would normally carry tanning hides and tar. The Midianite caravan arrived at the pit before the Ishmaelite caravan to whom the brothers intended the sale, they removed Joseph from the pit and abducted him.

In the middle of the Joseph story Torah interrupts with a seemingly unrelated story about Joseph's brother Yehuda's (Judah) one-time relationship with the daughter-in-law of his deceased son. Tamar, who was the daughter of a high-priest, disguised as a prostitute expressed her right over Yehuda to procreate from the blood line of her deceased husband. This led to the birth of Peretz from whom the Messianic House of David lineage arose (Genesis 38:1).

Then, just as suddenly Torah returns to the continuation of Joseph's story. The Midianites traded with the Ishmaelites several times on the way to Egypt, ultimately they delivered Joseph to the house of Egypt's designated high priest and chief slaughterer Potiphar.  

Joseph was 30 when Pharaoh made him Viceroy over Egypt and blessed him to marry Asenath, the adopted daughter of Potiphar. Joseph had recognized Aesnath as being Hebrew by the amulet around her neck. Asenath - אסנת, is written using the same two letter source as 'sneh' and 'Sinai'. Jacob named her when he placed an amulet around her neck and left her in the 'sneh' on Mount 'Sinai' for the priestly caste of Midian to care for her. 

Many commentators declare Asenath the daughter of Dinah from the rape by Shechem. One Yemenite source adds that the unusual balm's carried by the Ishmaelites was a hint to Asenath being on the same transport with Joseph to the House of Potiphar, the high priest in Egypt. Considering Torah's juxtaposition of Judah-Tamar and the prospect that Joseph-Asenath were on the same caravan motivates deeper enquiry for such blatant interjection and suggestion. 

Although Judah was Jacob's fourth son to Leah, he rose above the rights of his older brothers to obtain the status of Leah's firstborn. Joseph was firstborn to Jacobs chosen wife Rachel. Jacob's progeny would eventually give rise to the Messianic lineage through penultimate Joseph and ultimate Judah. This is a central tenant of Judaism, the lens through which many of the interpersonal relationships recorded in the Torah can be better understood. 

Providence ensured Asenath would be on the caravan with Joseph to Egypt, to the same home and their marriage some thirteen years later. This was the first intermarriage between Leah and Rachel's bloodlines and Torah's interjection of Judah-Tamar confirms the subtle messianic allusion to Aesenath daughter of Dinah, granddaughter of Jacob. 

The tumultuous journey of Dinah's soul, its intermingling with Shechem, elevation through Asenath and eventual ascension with Joseph in Egypt preceded the messianic moment of Judah and Tamar that gave rise to Peretz, Boaz (Ruth), Yishai and David who was crowned King and from whom future kings descend. 

The word 'toledot' refers to generations, it is used dozens of times in the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible. However, it is spelled perfectly in only two places; once in the first verses of Genesis (2:4) in reference to the creation of the souls of heaven and earth and once in the book of Ruth, naming the descendants of Peretz.

Torahs' finely woven words preserves the record of its deep seated interest in the messianic root for all who care to learn of its complete wisdom.

 

   

Jacob Knows!

The story of Yehuda and Tamar is a very strange juxtaposition to the kidnap and sale of Joseph. Many reasons are given, but I'd like to add more.

Joseph was 17 when he was sold, by his brothers to the Ishmaelites who traded with Midianites on their caravan journey to the house of Potiphar in Egypt. 

Genesis 37:25

(25) Then they (the brothers) sat down to a meal. Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels bearing gum, balm, and ladanum to be taken to Egypt.

כה) וַיֵּשְׁבוּ֮ לֶֽאֱכָל־לֶחֶם֒ וַיִּשְׂא֤וּ עֵֽינֵיהֶם֙ וַיִּרְא֔וּ וְהִנֵּה֙ אֹרְחַ֣ת יִשְׁמְעֵאלִ֔ים בָּאָ֖ה מִגִּלְעָ֑ד וּגְמַלֵּיהֶ֣ם נֹֽשְׂאִ֗ים נְכֹאת֙ וּצְרִ֣י וָלֹ֔ט הוֹלְכִ֖ים לְהוֹרִ֥יד מִצְרָֽיְמָה׃

Commentators raise the oddity of the Ishmaelite load, which would normally have been tars, not the fine balm's mentioned. A Yemenite midrashic source backs up my view that Torah is hinting at something very special.

The Ishmaelite caravan was trading with a Midianite caravan, traveling through Gilead as they separately journeyed to Egypt. The gum, balm and ladanum (נְכֹאת֙ וּצְרִ֣י וָלֹ֔ט - sweet smelling balm's) were a hint that Joseph's niece Aesnath (אסנת) who, 9 years earlier Jacob had placed in a 'sneh' (סנה), a bush in Midyan (perhaps Mount Sinai - סיניה) was traveling on the same caravan. Sneh is in fact the source of her name. Ultimately Joseph and Aesnath were traded into the House of Potiphar in Egypt.

However, the story of their journey is interjected and juxtaposed to the story about the death of Yehuda's two sons that led him to a relationship with is daughter in law, Tamar who birthed Peretz. Then oddly, immediately after the interjection, Torah returns to Joseph (of Rachel) who at 30 years was blessed by Pharaoh to marry Aesnath (from Dinah-Leah). This was the first time the bloodline of Jacob's two wives intermarried. 

Mystical Judaism introduces the idea that the Messianic son of Joseph will precede the Messianic son of Yehuda (David). That seems to be borne out of and supported by Joseph and Aesnath, on the same Caravan being interjected by and adjacent to Yehuda and Tamar (read the link for more about the Messianic soul).  

Later in the story, Joseph encountered his brothers and demanded they fetch the youngest brother  Binyamin from their father Jacob and bring him to Egypt. Reluctantly Jacob conceded, but he commanded his sons to return baring gifts of the land.

Genesis 43:11

(11) Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, do this: take some of the choice products of the land in your baggage, and carry them down as a gift for the man—some balm and some honey, gum, ladanum, pistachio nuts, and almonds.

יא) וַיֹּ֨אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֜ם יִשְׂרָאֵ֣ל אֲבִיהֶ֗ם אִם־כֵּ֣ן ׀ אֵפוֹא֮ זֹ֣את עֲשׂוּ֒ קְח֞וּ מִזִּמְרַ֤ת הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ בִּכְלֵיכֶ֔ם וְהוֹרִ֥ידוּ לָאִ֖ישׁ מִנְחָ֑ה מְעַ֤ט צֳרִי֙ וּמְעַ֣ט דְּבַ֔שׁ נְכֹ֣את וָלֹ֔ט בָּטְנִ֖ים וּשְׁקֵדִֽים׃

Three of the six gifts connect to the land, Honey (from dates), Pistachio and Almonds, but the remaining three are identical to and directly relate to the fine balm load carried by the Ishmaelites. Was Jacob hinting at something by sending these three specific gifts to Joseph? By Jacob connecting his gift to Aesnath he was hinting that he knew of her dispatch on the Midianite caravan to Egypt. 

The lofty, mystical pieces of this deeply spiritual world begin to be seen by us mortals. Jacob dispatched Aesnath and sent Joseph to find his brothers, the angel of Dothan delivered him into their hands. Torah juxtaposed the important event of Yehuda and Tamar. Jacob ultimately sent all his sons to Egypt and later the family of Israel immigrated. On Jacob's death bed, he anxiously wanted to tell them of the messianic roots he had set, but in unison his sons settled him saying "Hear O' Israel (as in Jacob) the Lord is God, the Lord is One" to which he responded "Blessed be the name of the glory of His Kingdom for ever and ever" then he left this world.