Jerusalem is a busy city today. What is this blessing still asking for?
If you have been to Jerusalem, you know it is not a ruin. It has traffic, schools and crowds. So this blessing can sound out of date. But read what it asks for. It does not say "build a city." It asks that God return to Jerusalem and dwell in it, that it be built as an everlasting building, and that David's throne be set in it.
The Bach (Rabbi Yoel Sirkis, Poland, 1600s) says the return in mercy is "not for our own needs, but to raise up the Divine Presence in it." He adds that "rebuild it" covers the city and the Temple together. On his reading, what the blessing asks for is God's presence and the Temple.
Peninei Halakhah (a modern code of Jewish law by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, an Israeli rabbi) runs into this exact problem with Nachem, the Tisha B'Av paragraph. Nachem calls the city "desolate without inhabitants." That does not fit modern Jerusalem, he admits. He gives three reasons the words stay. We have no power to change what the Sages set. Sadly, the words can still be said about the Temple Mount. And next to what Jerusalem should be, "the capital of the world, perfect in beauty," it still counts as destroyed and desolate.
He adds that Rav Shlomo Goren (a Chief Rabbi of Israel, who died in 1994) wrote a version suited to our time, and anyone who wants may say it.
That is one rabbi's answer, about one paragraph. The sources in this unit do not say whether today's Jerusalem counts as the start of what this blessing asks for. They do tell you what the blessing asks for: God's presence, the Temple, a lasting building, and David's throne. How today fits against that stays open here.
Bach, Orach Chaim 118,Peninei Halakhah, Zemanim 10:16,Eichah 2:15, as quoted thereGod is everywhere. What does it mean to ask Him to return and dwell in one city?
The blessing says "return in mercy" and "dwell within it, as You have spoken." If God is everywhere, where did God go? The sources give more than one picture, and they do not match exactly.
Start with the words themselves. In Zecharyah, God says, "I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy," and "I have returned to Zion, and I will dwell within Jerusalem." Abudarham says "as You have spoken" points to that second verse. So the prayer asks God to do what the prophet has Him promise.
One picture is in the Gemara, and the Ribono Shel Olam prayer tells it. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (a sage of the Mishnah, 100s) taught that wherever Israel was exiled, the Divine Presence went with them, to Egypt and to Babylonia. When they are redeemed, God returns together with them.
The Rambam (Maimonides, who died in 1204) gives a different picture. He teaches that the holiness of the Temple and Jerusalem comes from the Divine Presence, and "the Divine Presence is not nullified." He notes the rabbis' reading of the verse "I will make your sanctuaries desolate": though desolate, they stay holy. For him the holiness never left.
The Bach adds a point about this line. The return in mercy, he says, is not for our own needs but to raise up the Divine Presence in the city. It is for God's sake.
The Gemara speaks of closeness. The Rambam speaks of holiness. The sources here do not join them into one answer, and what it means for God to be "in" a place stays partly open.
Zecharyah 1:16 and 8:3,Abudarham, Weekday Prayers, Amidah,Megillah 29a,Rambam, Laws of the Chosen Temple 6:16,Bach, Orach Chaim 118Why does a prayer about a city ask for a king's throne?
The next blessing is about David's shoot, the future king from his family. So why does this one already ask for "the throne of David, Your servant"? Two older explanations answer it.
The first is the order. The Gemara says that once Jerusalem is built, David comes, and quotes Hoshea 3:5: "Afterward the children of Israel will return and seek Hashem their God and David their king." The Tur uses that verse to explain why the blessing about David follows the one about Jerusalem.
The second is from the Bach, who was asked about this wording. He answers in two ways. First, the request is for God's sake: the throne of Hashem is not complete until David's throne is set in place in Jerusalem. Second, it is part of building the city. A capital needs a house of prayer and a seat for its king, so "set up the throne in it" belongs to rebuilding Jerusalem itself.
There is also an old pairing. In Grace After Meals, the Gemara says that someone who does not mention the kingdom of the house of David in the blessing for Jerusalem has not done his duty. That rule is about Grace After Meals, not the Amidah, but it shows David and Jerusalem were joined in a blessing from the time of the Gemara. The Grace After Meals wording you say today names both.
None of these sources argues for or against having a king today. They explain why the line sits in this blessing. The blessing about David himself is the next prayer in this siddur.
Megillah 17b and 18a; Hoshea 3:5,Tur, Orach Chaim 118,Bach, Orach Chaim 118,Berakhot 49a