Ninety-two years ago, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook called for the establishment of a political movement by the name of Degel Yerushalayim, whose purpose would be to infuse holiness into the course of the Jewish national rebirth, which was then in its beginnings. Rabbi Kook had seen how the Zionist movement was being run in accordance with an ideology founded on secularism and "having nothing to do with religion." Rabbi Kook saw in this an enormous deficit in the process of rebirth of the Jewish People in the Land of Israel.

Three main goals stood before him in the establishment of Degel Yerushalayim:

1. A quantitative goal: to unite the religious and Chareidi publics - which had not joined the Zionist movement due to its distance from religion and Jewishness - into an influential political body that would be a partner in the process of rebirth. Had this process succeeded, it would have brought about a great wave of Aliyah amongst the Chareidi public in advance of the terrible Holocaust, and would have influenced the Jewish image of the state-in-the-making, and of the State of Israel today.

2. A qualitative goal: to breath a holy fire into the onset of the process of rebirth. Already back then, Zionism was lacking the dimension of holiness, and it viewed religion as a private matter, not a national matter at all. (Had Rabbi Kook succeeded, the worldview that separates church and state would never have gained political and public relevance.)

3. To bring the Jewish People and the world to recognize that the rebirth of the Jewish People in their land is a matter of importance for the whole world, just as all the prophets of Israel prophesied. Israel are the light of the world. Israel's recognizing their identity, uniqueness and destiny would breath a great spirit into them, and would give them the strength and ability to withstand the pressures of the nations, knowing why they had arisen to rebirth and established a state.

Scripture states, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning." (Psalms 137:5) On this Jerusalem Day, let us remember that Jerusalem is the holy city, the city in which holiness is revealed on earth. And in order that holiness should be so revealed, we must return to Rabbi Kook's plan to "raise up the flag of Jerusalem"; i.e., to establish a socio-political-religious movement that will infuse holy content into the entire process of national rebirth. And may we thereby merit to see with our own eyes how the words of the prophet will be revealed: "For out of Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the L-rd from Jerusalem." (Isaiah 2:4)

With blessings for a joyous Jerusalem Day.