The day began cool and cloudy, and by mid-morning sprinkles were turning into showers. After lunch it started to seriously rain, the geshem gushed from blackened skies while thunder and lightening erupted all over the city for several hours.By late afternoon the skies had cleared and hundreds of thousands of Israelis crowded into the streets of Downtown Jerusalem, singing and dancing and moving very, very, very slowly towards the Old City. The goal: get to the Kotel without getting trampled or out of sorts while trying not to suffocate in a crowd of enthusiastic patriots, many of them carrying rifles.
It is a documented and undisputed fact that G_d Himself is personally involved in the weather of Israel specifically, and Jerusalem in particular.
His choice of a dramatic pre-Mincha thunderstorm may have been to cleanse the air and thouroughly purify it, as it is said in the Talmud:
"The air of Eretz Yisrael causes wisdom," - Bara Batra, 158B
This year on Jerusalem Day we celebrate 40 years since East Jerusalem, including the Old City, and much of Biblical Judea and Samaria as well as the Sinai and the Golan Heights were liberated from Arab control by the Israeli Army during the June 1967 "6-Day War." No one disputes the war was won miraculously. May all Jews everywhere and all of Israel partake of the wisdom that the air of Eretz Yisrael causes, and may we use that wisdom to usher in an era of strong and righteous leadership in this country and the world - Amen!
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