When the final redemption comes, God will redeem Israel from one place only: Zion. Not from the desert, not from the waters, not from any place of exile — from the Temple Mount. "From Zion, perfection of beauty, God shines forth" (Psalm 50:2). The center of creation, the navel of the world, the stone from which God began building outward — that is where it ends.
The rabbis grounded this in Zechariah's vision of the Day of the Lord: "And His feet shall stand on that day upon the Mount of Olives" (Zechariah 14:4). The redemption is physical. The feet stand on a real mountain. The geography of salvation is not metaphorical. Jerusalem is the city where the final act is located — which is why exile from it is so devastating, and return to it is so longed for.
Aggadat Bereshit reads the Psalms of Ascent through this lens: "I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth" (Psalm 121:1-2). The mountains toward which Israel lifts its eyes are the mountains of Zion. The help comes from there not because the mountains have power but because God has made them the location of his promise. Every Jewish prayer that faces Jerusalem, every pilgrimage that ascends the Temple Mount, is an act of orientation toward the place where, the rabbis believed, the story would one day be completed.