So on my first full day in Jerusalem I board the #21 public bus for Bethlehem. (The particular ‘#21’ bus brought back such fond memories of childhood when I would hop on a bus headed for downtown Cincinnati with my cousin Doug from our suburban Westwood homes—it was also the #21 bus.) It is infinitely cheaper to take a public bus than a taxi, and certainly it offers local ‘color,’ but you run the risk of getting off at the wrong stop, not seeing/understanding signs, or you might not have enough of the correct local change, and of course, people might talk to you.
I was on the bus a few minutes when an older woman got on. She spoke Arabic phrases to people around her, but she spoke Arabic the way I speak Arabic: carefully chosen phrases and polite bonbons to act courteous. She turned to me, and asked in English: “Where are you from?” I said I lived in Jordan now but before that I had lived in New York. She gave me a look of utter disbelief. “Is there a problem?” I asked. She harrumphed and said, “If that’s the truth!” It seemed so odd to me, but I offered, “I wish I had a more concealed truth to confess to you!” She asked, “What brought you to Palestine?” and I said I was here as a tourist for a long weekend. She introduced herself as Margaret Johns, from Wales. I told her that a whole wing of my family had been from Wales, and we talked about Wales and my grandmother and life in Wales, and too many pubs and teen pregnancies in Wales. I recited for her the lines I remembered from the Welsh national anthem. We chatted on and on for some time as we rode to Bethlehem. I got back to where we started, and asked her, “So what brought you to Palestine?” She replied, “A relationship,” and after a pause finished her statement, “A relationship…with the living God.”
That exchange with Margaret Johns is perhaps the best summation of this trip to Jerusalem. There is an aura of disbelief and suspicion enveloping this place, but also a deep seeking, as Margaret said so earnestly, “a relationship with the living God,” lies at the core of understanding the heartbeat of Jerusalem.
The most striking portion of this trip was Friday afternoon and evening. I stumbled onto worship services for three different faiths, and I got to see first-hand, while a bit voyeuristically, what goes on in Jerusalem.
Let me do a quick overview of about 4,000 years of history of Jerusalem first. It will help make all of this even richer and denser. According to the biblical texts, about 4,000 years ago, Abraham came to Jerusalem with his son Isaac. He came to a place where God called him, to Mount Moriah. It is on this place where Abraham built a make-shift temple/altar and prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac as God had commanded. Whoosh! Jump about 1,000 years. David comes to this same place from Hebron, and God commanded him to reunite the kingdoms of the Jews. David’s son Solomon builds a temple on the reputed spot of Abraham and Isaac. Whoosh! Jump about 1,000 years. Jesus spends the last week of his life in Jerusalem, ending with his crucifixion on Golgotha. Whoosh! Jump about 1,000 years. The Roman Catholic Pope has declared a Crusade to reclaim this Holy City from the feral Muslims and in 1099 the pilgrim forces reclaim Jerusalem. Whoosh! Jump about 1,000 years. Here we are in 2009 and the Old City is divided into four quarters, with about 2,000 Armenians living in the Armenian Quarter, about 3,000 Jews living in the Jewish Quarter, about 4,500 Christians living in the Christian Quarter, and about 28,000 Muslims living in the Muslim Quarter.
Being in Jerusalem is a little surreal, what with all of these Bible names every few feet. I mean you walk by the “Mount of Olives Pharmacy,” and then the “Garden of Gethsemane Deli,” and then the “Holy Rock Café”…all real places by the way…
But on that Friday, as I roamed inside the Old City of Jerusalem, I inadvertently captured the pulse of this tense city. I ended up at three different worship services over the course of a few hours. I watched people of three different faiths pray. I saw so many different “costumes” but it is truly the similarities of all of these worship experiences that really struck me.
A walk up to the Temple Mount is a time-honored privilege, sanctified by the millions of pilgrims who have trod this same path before you. There are few patches of ground as holy, or as disputed, as this piece of earth. According to Jewish lore, this piece of earth was identified as the foundation stone of the world, and the Talmud states that it was here that God gathered the earth to form Adam. And as I previously said, this spot marks where an angel spared Isaac from the sacrifice of his father Abraham. No wonder Solomon would want to build a fabulous temple here with the beloved Ark of the Covenant. King Herod eventually improved the site, building a wall around a newly leveled plaza and secured mount. Those cantankerous Romans destroyed the whole thing around 70 of the Common Era. Fast forward to the 7th century where in Mecca the prophet Muhammad announced that in a single night he had prayed at the Temple Mount and ascended to heaven. In the late 7th century Muslim leaders constructed the beautiful and elegant gold-plated Dome of the Rock. After the Six Day War in 1967 Israeli leaders reluctantly handed over control of the Temple Mount to the city’s Muslim leaders.
I discover that I am unable to go into the Dome of the Rock. I have seen pictures of it, but the new security measures allow only Muslim men over the age of 50 to worship in the Dome of the Rock (as its name suggests, the dome covers the slab of stone sacred to both Muslim and Jewish faiths—the rock upon which Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac and also from where Mohammad launched himself heavenward). However, I can look across the plaza and see the bright confection of mosaics and Koranic verses scrolled on the exterior. It is one of the most photographed buildings in the world, and simply stunning in the afternoon sun.
Oh, in the history lesson, I lost track of the worship experiences. I peeked into the plaza of the neighboring mosque, the Al-Aqsa mosque. (I learn I cannot go inside there because of rules since 1969 when it seems a deranged Australian Christian started a fire in the mosque). I am observing the mosque and plaza at the time of afternoon prayers, and in the next 10 minutes, there must be at least 5,000 Muslims who come to the plaza to pray. Beside the muzzein calling the worshippers, there is virtually no noise. I see the worshippers prostrate themselves on the ground and kiss the ground. Many of the worshippers are rocking as they hear the prayers from the loudspeaker in the minaret. This spot is undoubtedly a holy place for these worshippers, and it is a privilege to observe them.
I realized it must be about the time for the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, the Shabbat and walk around to see if I can observe that worship service. It is hardly a five-minute walk down a lane and around a corner and back down a parallel lane to enter the Jewish Quarter. And I find myself almost back where I started as I entered the security system to go to the Western Wall, also known as the Western Wall.
The builders of the Western wall could hardly have imagined that their modest creation of a retaining wall for the Jewish Temple would one day become the most important religious shrine for Jewish people. It served the purpose of a retaining wall for the Temple Mount upon which stood the second temple. After the Jewish Diaspora, and then as Jews returned to this hometown, they avoided the Temple Mount, fearing they might step on the “Holy of Holies,” the inner sanctum of the former temple. Instead Jews began praying at the exposed outer wall, where, according to religious texts, there is always a divine presence. The Wall grew in mythical stature as a place to mourn and lament. Indeed, it is often called “The Wailing Wall” due to the emotional responses to the Western wall. Today it is an open-air synagogue.
When I arrived near sunset, there were already at least 5,000 worshippers congregating. The men go to a large plaza, and the women congregate somewhere else. I do not mean to be irreverent, but as I looked onto that sea of worshippers, it looked like a thousand road companies of Fiddler on the Roof had descended on the plaza for a convention. It was overwhelming seeing the different costumes, the headgear, the elaborate hair and visual emblems of ancient Jewish worship, Sephardic and Ashkenazi and other groups. And as I watched them, there was a rocking backwards and forwards on their heels, and much kissing of the wall. This scene looked so much like the Muslim faithful I had seen just a half-hour before. I stayed at the plaza for about two hours watching the families and the waves of Jewish worshippers. Again, this spot is undoubtedly a holy place for these worshippers, and it is a privilege to observe them.
On my way out of the Old City, I peeked into a Russian Orthodox church in the Christian Quarter. It was the first Friday of Lent (in the Orthodox world it is a different calendar than the Latin-western calendar) and a service was underway. I stepped in and watched the somber faithful praying, and, true to the last few hours of my observations, fervent swaying and praying marked the service. I had glimpsed into three worship services in as many hours, and I was struck by the similarities—fervent prayer and swaying movement and kissing of stones. The three “people of the book” have so much more in common than we realize.
I see that this will have to be a tri-part postcard from Jerusalem. I am hardly surprised. It is not easy to sum up thousands of years and thousands of prayers in just a few pages.
Join me again soon as I sum up the trip to Jerusalem.
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