Actually, it was built over the course of millennia. The Temple, the Expulsion, the Crusades, the Longing, the Return, the Six Day War. Years of history built Jerusalem.
My parents remember the era of state-building, when they went to socialist schools in downtown Montreal and extolled the kibbutzniks who came first. The green and blue Jewish National Fund tzedakah (charity) box was perched on the windowsill as a reminder to support our homeland.
They want to Gan Yisroel or Moshava. All the state-building stuff. Maybe they even went on a trip to visit family in Israel and marveled that this... this... thing-- this small, developing, a little behind-the-times country could be our homeland? This miracle was our homeland! This miracle! The dreydels even said that a miracle happened here and not there.
And they remember the war of 67, when our miracle won. They remember the war of 73, when our miracle was close to not winning, but won! We had nowhere else to go, and that was our secret, and so we had to build our state.
But the days of state building are over.
We aren't kibbutzniks-- the land is already developed. We don't all have the JNF boxes, but we go on Birthright. The deep connection that we felt to a land being born, a land being developed, a land being watched on television as we prayed in shul for its survival needs revival.
My generation doesn't have that connection. We need to connect to Israel otherwise. And like the generation before us, we, too, want a part of its creation.
So let us create. Touring is well and good, but let us dig our stakes. Let us be passionate about self-confidence, animal rights or whatever. In Israel. Let us develop a state, and take part in its 21st century creation.
Jerusalem was not built in a day. Jerusalem was built over years. So give us a few more, and let us build Jerusalem.