It is strange that, after praying for our return to the Land of Israel and the establishment of statehood, we make a separate request for Jerusalem, Israel’s capital and holiest city. But as we have seen throughout our analysis, the blessings of the Amidah seem to follow the same order as modern events that have actually transpired. In 1948, we returned to the Land of Israel, but we didn’t regain control of Jerusalem until the Six Day War of 1967. The blessing reads: And to Jerusalem, Your city, may You return in compassion, and dwell therein as You promised. And build it, soon in our days, into an eternal structure. And the throne of David establish within it. Blessed are You, YHVH, who builds Jerusalem. What exactly is Jerusalem, and why is it so special to deserve its own prayer? Jerusalem isn’t simply a city in Israel. Jerusalem represents the spiritual center of the Jewish nation—and indeed of the whole world. David ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, described Jerusalem as “the heart of Israel” and warned that if we lose the heart, we will lose all of Israel. In spiritual terms, we can imagine that half of Israel’s heart is its tzaddikim (the people of inspiration), while the other half is Jerusalem (the city of inspiration). We see the connection between tzaddikim and Jerusalem in the very first word of this blessing: “and.” This signifies that the prayer for Jerusalem is a continuation of the prayer for tzaddikim. First, we asked for the physical redemption of Israel, then its spiritual redemption. Jerusalem is the heart of the spiritual renaissance of the land and the tzaddikim are the heart of the spiritual renaissance of the people; they inspire our religious revival.