When Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (Nachmanides / the Ramban) arrived in Jerusalem in 1267, he found ruins — desolation after centuries of foreign conquest.
Instead of despair, he saw something extraordinary. The Land had refused to accept any other people since the Jews were exiled.
He wrote:
“Many are Israel’s forsaken places, and great is the desecration. The more sacred the place, the greater the devastation it has suffered. Jerusalem is the most desolate place of all.”
And then the profound truth:
“Our Land will not accept our enemies ... Since the time that we left it, [the Land] has not accepted any nation or people, and they all try to settle it ... This is a great proof and assurance to us.”
At age 72, after fleeing Christian persecution in Spain, Nachmanides immediately began rebuilding Jewish life. He established the Ramban Synagogue and a yeshiva that drew students once again.
That small but determined effort helped rekindle nearly 700 years of continuous Jewish presence in Jerusalem — until the Jordanians destroyed the Jewish Quarter and ethnically cleansed its Jewish residents in 1948.
After the liberation of the Old City in 1967, the Ramban Synagogue was rebuilt on the site of the ruins.
Even in exile and ruin, one of Judaism’s greatest minds understood the eternal reality:
The Land knows its children.
@CptAllenHistory
