9th Av in Jerusalem

It’s difficult to admit to really mourning our lost Temple, if we don’t even appreciate what we have.

So last night I went to the Kotel, the western wall of the Temple  which was closest to the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple where only the High Priest ever entered.We are told, the Shechina, G’ds presence still rests there


These notices at the entrance explain the significance and importance of the site.

As you approach the Kotel you pass by the southern wall of the Temple

Despite it being late evening it was very crowded with  people arriving all the time.

The pigeons were gathering in the crevices of the wall as they always do at dusk

As I sat there saying my prayers it gradually got darker and darker

and by the time I finally went home the lights lit up the walls in a gentle, beautiful way





I have such mixed feelings about the 9th Av.
I mourn the Temple we don’t have – but I am so very, very happy and grateful for the privilege of living here and being able to enjoy what we do have.

It’s a dilemma many of us face.

We pray that we be considered worthy enough that our Temple will be restored to us “bim’heira be’yameinu” speedily and in our time.

JERUSALEM DAY 2012

I first came to Israel when I was 18 years old, a few years after the 1967  6 Day War during  which Jerusalem was  returned to the Jewish people.

When I arrived Jerusalem was already reunited, we had easy access to the Kotel and it was hard for me to imagine a Jerusalem that was split in two with no access for the Jewish people to their most sacred site.
As with most things which are handed to us on a plate, most of my generation and our children and grandchildren  take this  for granted.
But on a day like Jerusalem Day,  which this year is Sunday  May 20th,  we watch and listen to stories of that miraculous day, when against  all normal odds we captured back the last remnant of our holy Temple built 3000 years ago.
What the Kotel means to everyone

Jerusalem is an intriguing mix of the ancient and holy together with the everyday and modern.
People from all over the world come to place their prayers and wishes between the cracks in the stones of the Kotel. These are all eventually removed and buried.

The alleyways in the Old City

The model of Jerusalem as it was when the Temple stood which is now on the campus of  the Israel Museum

The Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls


The new ultra-sleek ultra-modern light rail


The new Mamilla Mall near Jaffa Gate at entrance to the Old City

And on Jerusalem Day in particular we thank G’d for bringing us back home and allowing us to live in HIs holy city

The Chief Chazan (Cantor) of the Israel Defense Forces singing the Prayer for the State of Israel  which is recited in most synagogues all over the world  every Shabbat.

JERUSALEM DAY – the reunification of Israel’s capital

Forty four years ago  the barriers which divided Jerusalem  into two came down and the city was once again united and open to anyone, of any religion, who wanted to visit and pray at the holy places.

Until then, Jews had only been able to gaze from afar at their holiest site, the Kotel, the  remains of the the Western Wall  of the Temple which was closest to the holiest spot inside  the Temple.

Now we are free again to come and pour our hearts out in prayer and  in thanks.

Prayers, dreams, hopes and wishes tucked into the crevices between the stones.

 

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t thank G’d for the privilege of living  here; of bringing up my children and grandchildren  here in the city that so many millions of  Jews  over the centuries could only dream of. There is nowhere else in the world where we feel so close  and connected to our past and to G’d.Nowhere in the world is it easier to be a Jew.

 

At Sukkot time most of the Jerusalem restaurants have a sukkah.

 

Tour guides  walk around with the Tenach in their hands as a guide book and point out places to to visitors that they had only heard about in Religious studies lessons.

Every day ‘new‘ artifacts from our past are being dug up showing us how our ancestors lived and connecting us irrevocably .  Below is a section of King David’s Palace in Ir David ( David’s City) which is being excavated in the valley below the Kotel

 

The Talmud tell us that “Ten measures of beauty descended to the world – nine were given to Jerusalem and one to the rest of the world”

Jerusalem is indeed  the most beautiful place in the world, both  physically and spiritually.

Walking along the alleyways of the Jewish Quarter . 

Autumn at the Botanical Gardens

 

Yad Vashem – memorial to the 6 millions Jews slaughtered during the Holocaust.

 

The model of Jerusalem during the time of the 2nd Temple, now housed in the grounds of The Israel Museum

 

Watch this  short film by Aish Haorah about what Jerusalem means to the Jewish people.

 

Israel’s 62nd Independence Day

                                      A replica of the golden menorah used in the Temple

Last week we commemorated the slaughter of six million Jews on the blood soaked lands of Europe, whose bodies went up in smoke through the chimneys of concentration camps.

This week the skies over Europe are paralyzed by a cloud of smoke descending from above, over their lands.                          Coincidence?

Last week the British Advertisng Authority declared that Israel wasn’t allowed to have photos of the Kotel, the Western Wall of the ancient Temple, its holiest site for over 3000 years, in its tourism advertisements, as it is hasn’t been decided that it’s really part of Israel. It is in ‘disputed territory’.

This week that hovering cloud of ash and smoke ensured that no British tourists left the U.K.                                            Coincidence?

The Kotel – The Western Wall of the Temple

Today is Israel’s  62nd Independence Day.

62 years of sovereignty and still fighting for the right to exist.

62 years of providing a home for any Jew from anywhere in the world persecuted and driven from their homes and wanted by no other country on the planet.

62 years of wars which never really end but just evolve into cold wars and unsure peace.

62 years of miracle after miracle that has kept this tiny country alive surrounded by millions of its enemies, winning unwinnable wars with the odds drastically against them, flourishing economically through global recession and thriving agriculturally despite being mostly desert and lacking in rain.

‘Coincidence’ or ‘chance’ don’t even come to mind when explaining our past.

Divine intervention comes closer .

EXITING THE KOTEL TUNNELS

Last week I visited the Kotel tunnels with a group of my students.

I always enjoy seeing the disbelief on their faces when new visitors to the tunnels discover just what a small percentage of the total Western Wall we can see from above ground and how long the real Wall is.

In the main large hall inside the tunnels there is a model of ancient Jerusalem and the Temple Mount ,with moving sections, showing how long and deep the wall really was and how over the years the Moslems gradually built their homes against the wall to cover it, in an attempt to ‘make it disappear’.
But it’s still there – all of it.
And we can now see all 500 meters of it.

There’s a section which is very long and narrow, with strong concrete supports on both sides.

Along the stone floor , in this passageway, there are two glass sections so that visitors can see all the way down to bedrock.
And there below we can see the actual stones that the Romans pushed off the outer western all of the Temple.
When they realized they couldn’t manage to completely destroy the whole wall they just gave up.
And those stones are still lying down there just where they landed on the day the Romans hurled them down as the Temple was being destroyed.

Another part of the tunnel brings you to the closest a Jew can get to the Kodesh Kodashim, the Holy of Holies, inside the Temple . You stand directly opposite the spot where only the High Priest was allowed to enter and then only on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the year.

We stopped here for a few moments to say our own private prayers.

Here in the depth of the tunnels opposite the holiest site in the world for Jews, we were closer to the Temple than we had ever stood – closer than we are at the Kotel itself.

Archaeologists had spent 20 years digging carefully beneath the Moselm Quarter, without causing any damage to anything above, discovering the hidden treasures of a time when we were privileged to have G-d’s presence rest amongst us in His Temple.

The Hasmonean aqueduct at then end of the tunnels.

And then we exited the tunnels …....... to reality.

The exit comes out onto the Via Dolorosa in the Moslem Quarter.

Here, non- Jewish tourists of every religion were running around happily shopping, eating and sightseeing - while our group of Jewish /Israeli students huddled in a corner awaiting our armed-guard to escort us home – back to the safety of the Jewish Quarter.

How sad reality sometimes is.

My fervent hope is that some day soon P.G. we will be able to wander around our own home where are ancestors walked thousands of years ago and from where G-d's presence has never left,, without needing an armed escort.