Day 3-4: Shabbos and the Reordering of Time

Before I begin describing Shabbos, I thought I’d take a moment to discuss the issue of cats. Apparently they used to have a rat problem in Jerusalem, so they brought in cats to solve it. Now they have a cat problem. I am not joking when I say that there are probably 2-3 stray cats for every square block in Jerusalem. And while I know that they are dirty, mangy, rat disposals, every time I saw one, my heart still went soft and gooey and I remembered my little munchkin back in Los Angeles. And some of these cats are really very cute. Some are mangy and ugly, but they’re really few and far between. I can understand, however, how they would represent something else for those who live in the city. That being said... Sabbath! :)
If you haven’t already noticed, I use both the word Sabbath and Shabbos to describe the unique period of time between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday. I also could use the word Shabbes. They all mean the same thing and are transliterations of the Hebrew for the word. I tend to use Shabbos because it reminds me of the very distinctive break from the rest of the week that I’ve come to experience with my Jewish friends. To me, Sabbath is still very Christian, and doesn’t yet have that sacredness drawn around it.
After sitting in the middle of the Old City drinking freshly pressed juice on Friday afternoon, we walked back towards Jaffa Gate. We stopped for a bit of coffee at a little cafe and watched the sun go down. Then we went our merry way for a long trek through the new city to the house where we would celebrate Friday night dinner. Up and down many hills, it was a long walk, but here’s the peculiar thing. The town had literally almost stopped. We probably saw about 3 cars driving by in the half hour we were walking. And everyone was walking somewhere. Some people were dressed up. We saw many of those with the Eastern European hats. There were big black brimmed hats and the round fuzzy ones. Some women had their heads covered, some didn’t. The variety of celebrants was incredible, but the feeling in the city was the same. There was a peace and stillness that descended across the city at the same time that darkness descended. Very peculiar, and completely out of whack with life in Los Angeles. There is somewhat of a similar feeling here in Dublin on Sunday morning, but in general life normally picks up after noon.
When we arrived at Aaron & Glenda Amit’s house, Aaron, the scholar, was sitting quietly with his kids and some books. We were warned that this was most unusual. When I heard that they had 5 boys, I was not surprised! Our friends in Oregon, the Thompsons, have 5 boys, and it’s always a live-action adventure... so Aaron and I were ready. The graciousness of our hosts was outstanding. Glenda had broken her foot or sprained her ankle the day before, but still had enough food for the 15 or so people joining us for dinner. And apparently this is a weekly preparation for her! I mean, in general, most of the people I know don’t have two people over to their homes very often, must less doubling in size every Friday night! The house smelled amazing, and the kids were quite friendly. Aaron Amit is a Talmud scholar. He also is beginning a new project looking at Paul in relationship to the Talmud. I was so excited to talk to him I could hardly bear it! I know that I’m very nerdy, but I just get so excited to talk to Jewish scholars. And the criticisms of Christian theologians are so valid! I love it. It’s absolutely brilliant. And connecting personally with someone like that means that when it comes time for me to study the Talmud for PhD or other projects, I will have an actual mentor who will help me exegete the text authentically, outside the context of the Christian faith. Alright, alright, I know that I can never leave my Christianity at the door, but to be taught by someone who stands in the Rabbinical tradition rather than the Christian gives me a new way to read the text and helps me stay faithful to the communities rather than reading Jesus into everything. I love Jesus, but academically, I love the challenge of learning from different perspectives. So anyhow, Aaron & I sparked up a fascinating conversation about the New Testament, Paul, and Talmud. It was brilliant.
We chatted while we waited for the other guests to arrive. They began trickling in: a young woman adventuring in Jerusalem for the year and her mother from America, our friends Deborah and Josh, and Gabe - visiting on his “birthright” trip. For those who don’t know, there are various organizations in the world which believe that it is the “birthright” of every Jewish person to see Israel. Thus, they foot the bill for people to adventure in Israel as long as they have never been. So Gabe was in the Holy Land for his first time. Each of these people had a story to tell, and I was so blessed to sit among them. I began to really remember the connection I had with Jesus and hanging out with the so-called outcasts. Because the “different” people are the ones with the most powerful stories. How sad it is that to the Christian church the Jewish community has at times become “outsiders!” The cultural memory of the people at this table is remarkable. Even Glenda, from Brazil, has been so thoroughly integrated into the community that her cultural memory is influenced and informed by the Jewish people and history. I envy that kind of cultural memory. I envy that people can tell stories about 200 years ago and still feel psychologically connected to it. This happens in Ireland, too. They talk about the Potato Famine and battles and Cromwell as if it were yesterday. I just don’t have cultural memory as a Southern Californian. I think I’ve been trying to find it in the church, but it’s hard to connect to a cultural memory when people fear the word “Tradition” and are always trying to move to more “contemporary” things. I think that this may be why I have veered so far away from contemporary services and held so tightly to the high liturgy that the Presbyterian church does have. Because somewhere in that liturgy and practice, there is a cultural memory to be had! I just have such a hard time uncovering it!
So instead, I discover bits of the ancient Christian memory by placing myself in the Rabbinical tradition. By remembering Shabbos and learning about those things that were part of the world of Jesus. We blessed the cup, washed our hands, and blessed the bread, then tucked in to a mighty feast of fantastic flavor and variety. Bless Glenda! The prayers were all in Hebrew, and I had a blast remembering how to read it. Some words were sung, and Lizzi’s voice rang out so beautifully over the table. The meal went literally for hours. Over dinner conversation topics ranged across the board. We talked about the abuse that various people have suffered at the hands of evangelical Christians, and even looked at the definition of Evangelical. We talked about prayer, and I was astonished to learn that Judaism, for all its rich heritage of prayer, at times envies the Protestant ability to spontaneously pray and pray intercessorily without any fixed prayers. While I’m busy envying their liturgy! I guess we all have things to learn from one another, right? But here’s an example. I had a date(the fruit) for the first time. And I said in my head, something along the lines of “God, way to go! That’s a good fruit you made!” But while I was thinking this, Glenda asks, “Doesn’t the Christian Church have a prayer for the first time you try a new fruit?” Stumped, I replied, “No, I don’t think so.” Apparently, there is a Jewish liturgical prayer that blesses God for the experience of trying a new fruit for the first time. Prayers have been developed for thousands of years reflecting humankind’s experiences with God and nature. I love the connection between the reality of the planet and the reality of God’s goodness and existence. It tempers the rampant gnosticism of today. There is so much more I could say about the conversations we had that night, but suffice it to say that I was ridiculously blessed. I felt loved, honored, and welcomed to a table that could then *become* part of my cultural memory. These amazing 15 people invited me to share that memory with them in a way that was significant, personal, and intentional. Incredible. With that, I’ll move onwards.
Exhausted, we trekked home, bumping into Benj and Emma, who were excited to learn that I was living in Ireland and interested to hear about our Bethlehem experiences. Benj works with Encounter, a group that is aiming towards peacebuilding in the territories. He mentioned something that we were unaware of, that the Palestinians are paid (at near poverty level) in dollars. Thus, when the US dollar tanked, their wages dropped below poverty level. So the financial difficulty with America, tied with the support of Israel creates a sort of tension between desiring the tourist dollar and needing to stand against it. Apparently before the Intifadas, the only way people could express their defiance was by throwing rocks -- after all, there are a lot of them in Israel. So we, on our walk, became a way for these children to express the anger, hostility and defiance that their parents were feeling. Because they don’t understand the nuance, they reflect the feelings bubbling just under the surface. After promising to meet up the next day so that Benj could hear about my experience in Belfast, we finally arrived back to Lizzi’s in order to fall blissfully and completely asleep.
It had been our intention to attend shul with Lizzi, Abe, Rebecca, and Josh, but we opted for the Shabbos rest of sleep instead. We woke up at 11am, praise the Lord! and got ready to head over to Abe and Rebecca’s to eat the meal we had prepared the day before. Upon arriving, we blessed the cup and waited for little Odelia (Oh-dell-ee-ya) at three weeks old, to finish her lunch with mom, Rebecca. Conversation again flowed, and it was good to be among friends. This was just the beautiful reality of the day. Everything happens at a different pace. So lunch took awhile to get eaten (about 4 hours, really) and we just had some amazing conversations. We talked a bit about school and life and the conversation that day was really more catching up among friends. It was exciting to hear about the joys of parenthood and to chat about the Ecumenical program here in Ireland. After lunch, we took a walk in their neighborhood, which is on the hills overlooking the valley of Jerusalem. We’re really hoping that they’re able to make it up to Dublin sometime this summer, as we’d love to share it with them.
Around 5pm, we got ready to leave, and had a discussion about the politics about building walls. It does seem peculiar that the wall in Israel has been turned into a tool of aggressive warfare rather than a tool of national self-defense. After all, aren’t walls supposed to be built on your own territory to keep people in and safe and keep intruders out? Why then would you build it on someone else’s territory and install a checkpoint, complete with some serious military backup, unless you were making claims about that territory in the first place? Hmmmmm. Something to think about. Well, here are a few photos.
In the one on the left, look at the top, and you’ll see the great grey scar wounding the countryside. In the right side picture, you can see the Dome of the Rock and the wall of the Old City which is pretty much older than everything "historical" in the US and many in Europe!

We moved onwards to our friend Amitai’s house. I had only ever super-nerded with Ami before this trip, him helping me with interpretation of numbers in Daniel, and I helping him with interpretations of genealogies in the New Testament. So our knowledge of each other was purely cerebral, until agreeing to meet for Havdalah, the ceremony in which you say goodbye to Shabbos and drink wine, smell spices, and light a candle to preserve the feeling of Shabbos through the next week until it comes again. There is a beautiful sadness to this ceremony, because after 24 hours of peaceful Shabbos, I didn’t want to go back to normal. I can’t wait for the eternity, mainly because I imagine it will be something very much like Shabbos. Conversation, food, peace, and camaraderie all infused with the very real presence of God and prayers and praise to God. Afterwards we went to dinner (dairy again!) and had another lovely three hour meal of conversation, discussing Messiah, exclusivity and inclusivity in traditions, and after Benj’s arrival, we discussed the power of the peace process in Northern Ireland. Benj’s interest in the conflict and peace process mostly had to do with his fascination with Irish folk music, but also stemmed from his work in Palestine, and the comments by people that perhaps Northern Ireland might be a model for Israel-Palestine.
And here’s my two cents on the whole thing, in case you were interested. First, it won’t be solved overnight. Northern Ireland took about 75 years to accomplish just speaking to the other side without killing each other. The peace process is going, but funding also doesn’t tend to follow up past 5 years, and reconciliation is a much longer process. Also, until both sides are willing to recognize first their own history and mistakes, and second the humanity and inherent dignity in the other people group, nothing is really going to move forward. I also do not believe that a two state solution will work. The city, the countryside, everything is so multi-national. I agree with a friend of mine who explained that it’s already culturally and economically interdependent and somewhat globalized. To attempt to separate that interdependence would probably cause more harm than good at this point. I also, however, believe that the government needs to start recognizing Palestinians as citizens (either of Palestine or Israel, I don’t care), because by keeping them politically “other” in the way they have, they have created the perfect environment in which Palestinians can grow terrorists. If you have no government or social or political processes to be invested in, then tribal connections and ethnic affinity and the violent political activity often fostered can be the only outlet for a political voice. So I think that there are errors on both sides, that it’s going to take at least another twenty-five years to sort out and it will take a revolutionary peacemaker to come in and build bridges between the people groups. So there. :)
I’ll tell you all about the Dead Sea and Masada next installment. That night, we finished up our evening by packing up at Lizzi’s and heading to Deborah’s empty apartment with the soft, delicious bed of delightful softness and loveliness. We slept incredibly well.

Shamrocker Tour February 15-17

Shamrocker Tours is a smaller organization that runs budget tours around Ireland and is part of a larger corporation that runs budget tours all around Europe. We received an excellent rate for our last-minute adventure on the 3-day “Southern Rocker.” The only drawback to this tour? Early mornings. We had to arrive at Kinlay House Hostel around 8:00am on Friday, February 15. Upon arrival to the hostel, we went into the breakfast room where we finished our coffee and pastry from Queen of Tarts (a local bakery that is to-die-for good). We also looked at the many young people who looked to be joining us on our tour. We signed in around 8:15 with our tour guide Seán.
Now, I must give a bit of background before I continue. When we first arrived, occasionally, we would hear people say “Americans!” with a tone of love, exasperation, and mild condescension all in one. It was never rude or hostile, always affectionate, but we always wondered what exactly had let these people to know that we were American. As we were standing in the lobby of Kinlay House Hostel, after having checked in, we hear something that all of a sudden made that expression crystal clear. We hear in a high-pitched voice, full of youth and enthusiasm, “Oh my gosh! This is going to be the best tour EVER!” And Aaron & I, having lived in Dublin for the last six months and mellowed out considerably, looked at each other and said, “Americans!” These two lovely ladies were part of the affectionately named “Team Wisconsin.” 30 young people (18-23ish, with a couple exceptions), part of a three month study-abroad program in London, had ventured off to Dublin for a tour about the island. We also had two Australians, named Richard and Annaliese. We had a Canadian, named Gale, who is currently teaching at Lancaster in the UK. We also had “Team Ireland” consisting of Seán, the tour guide, John the tour guide in training, and Paul the bus driver. Aaron and I found our niche outside of “Team Wisconsin.”
We left between 8:30 and 9:00am, and started driving out of the city. We were on the road for a little while, heading towards Locke’s Distillery, one of the oldest in Ireland. It’s situated on a river, and still makes pretty potent stuff. We had an opportunity to taste un-distilled whiskey, something I will never try again. It was so alcoholic that it evaporated almost before swallowing. During the ride, we introduced ourselves to the rest of the people on the bus. It was a little peculiar becoming part of a group that had already established its social dynamics and cliques. There were a few people who became dubbed the “Pussycat Dolls” mainly because they were a little high-maintenance. It also was interesting seeing social dynamics in action. Because they had already established their circles, those of us on the outside were predominantly left to our own devices.
After the distillery, we headed to Clonmacnoise, an ancient abbey at the predominant travel crossroads of ancient Ireland. At this point, the mountain ridge forming the primary west-east route and the Shannon River, forming the primary north-south route meet. It has four high crosses, and is an exquisite place to visit. The remains of the monastery are incredible, and the vistas are incredible.
Since we had a long drive, we continued onward, stopping at a Fairy Circle. In Ireland, lore and myth are often as important as history. Bureaucratic plans have been put entirely on hold by the belief that a tree or circular mound are inhabited by the Tuatha de Dannan (the fairy rulers of primordial Ireland). These stories are real to many people, and so have power to affect their reality. I wish sometimes that as Christians, our stories held the same power. We also stopped at a Portal Domen, or standing stones that are burial sites for ancient Irish. They also have many myths and legends attached to them.
We arrived in Doolin early in the evening, and had a chance to check in to our B & B. Our host, Maeve, was a remarkably kind woman who was motherly and an icon of hospitality. She actually took orders for breakfast and our room was quite comfortable. We took a brief nap, and headed off to the pub for our evening of Irish pub entertainment. When we arrived, we had a bite to eat, and got to know some of the various others on the tour. Guinness was abundant, and there were some lessons transferred to some of the younger, less experienced drinkers -- one of them being: Do not drink with party-hearty Australians who are intent on getting you as plastered as possible. We also had a chance to get to know the tour guides better and some random other visitors from various places around the globe. Around 9:30, the music began. It was a true Irish session, meaning various people in the pub started up with the musicians as they desired, and there were even some girls dancing. Geraldine, the female vocalist, was exquisite in a very non-American-Idol way. Her voice created a hush in the very loud and boisterous pub. It was a mesmerizing experience that I can’t wait to repeat. We stayed out late, forgetting how early we had to wake up
The next morning, getting out of bed in time for breakfast was difficult, but Maeve had our interests at heart, and presented us with a french press of incredible coffee immediately upon sitting down to breakfast. We were picked up by the bus after breakfast, and thank goodness Seán had saved us seats in the front -- I can get quite carsick! Saturday was to be a very driving intensive day, as we had a lot to see! We started out at the Cliffs of Moher, which are an incredibly stark seascape. They are lovely and beautiful, and reminded me a bit of some of the cliffs on the big island in Hawaii. But they had a unique beauty all their own.
The fog was only out to the sea, so our view was unimpeded. From the Cliffs, we headed back towards the Shannon and ferried our way across. We headed for the town of Dingle. Dingle is best known for its dolphin, Fungi. It’s a sleepy little beach town, with a lovely vibe of quiet. We headed up the hill to the church of St. James, where we found incredible stained glass window art. The colors were beautiful, vivid, and extraordinarily put together. Then we had lunch and headed back on the bus for our voyage around the Dingle Peninsula.
The Dingle Peninsula is a miniature version of the well-known Ring of Kerry. We saw stone beehive huts, amazing coastline, and a few beaches (some of the Wisconsonites were even daring enough to jump in!) We again, heard stories and histories. The Potato Famine was so much more powerful to this little island than ever could be imagined. Their history is full of examples of oppression and domination. We wound our way around the peninsula
and headed back towards Dingle for a bathroom break before heading out to Killarney. Killarney was our stop for the night, and Aaron and Gale and I got checked into our B & B. Then Aaron & I took another nap before meeting the entire group for dinner at a little restaurant in downtown Killarney. Richard and some of the Wisconsonites had pre-partied a little, so they were already quite toasty. Following, we went to hear Pa. This was a fantastically funny storyteller complete with Irish humor. It wouldn’t be for everyone, because Irish humor is notoriously dry and doesn’t always have all its cards on the table, but I literally laughed so hard I almost fell off my chair. Half the time I was laughing because Pa was so funny, but the other half I was laughing because he kept cracking himself up! About 3 hours later, the group decided they wanted to hit the major party scene in Killarney, the Grand Hotel. I must admit, my party days are over, because immediately after entering this place, the “untz-untz” of the music and the crowds squishing us in together gave me agoraphobia. So we turned around and left. We had a moderately early evening and woke up the next morning refreshed and ready for our breakfast.
We met the group at the bus, and waited while the Aussie Richard overslept by a great deal. As we were waiting, stories flew round about all the festivities the night before, and I must admit, I was glad to be married and out of that scene. We finally got on the road, and headed towards Cork and the famous Blarney stone. I must admit, by the time of arrival, Aaron & I were so exhausted and unwilling to fight Team Wisconsin for the opportunity to kiss said stone that we had lunch and meandered around Blarney Woolen Mills instead, with a firm vow to one another that we would do it some other time, probably when my mom comes to visit in May. As we were running late, there really was only 1 hour to walk to the castle (20 min each way) which would have left us with 20 minutes scrambling to get in. Not our idea of a restful vacation.
After lunch, we were heading back to Dublin, and hurrying, too, because some of Team Wisconsin had a ridiculously early flight. We also had to drop off some of T.W. at the Guinness Plant. So our stop at the Hill of Cashel was cut quite short. Basically a pit stop with opportunity for pictures. We finished off our tour at the Mitchelstown Caves, unfortunately there were no pictures allowed! :( But they were phenomenal and beautiful, and we learned a bit about how these gorgeous caves were made through water pressure. A girl from T.W. sang in the caves, and it was lovely. I didn't sing because I wanted to give someone else the chance. :) Driving back into Dublin we hit traffic, but Paul the bus driver got us in on time. Afterwards, we had a long evening at a local pub, and the weekend ended well.
It seemed as though we were really just doing a discovery trip for all the things we’d like to see when next we rent a car and drive around the island.

Day 2: O Little Town of Bethlehem and Day 3/part one: Preparing for Shabbos

We decided to sleep in, in order to give our poor, nearly sick bodies a chance to catch up and feel better. We didn’t have much planned for this Thursday, as we just wanted to meander a bit through Bethlehem, a Palestinian territory. Around 11:30 we were up and fed and on our way in a taxi to the Checkpoint. The taxi driver talked about his experience with the Checkpoint. No Israeli citizens are allowed in the territories any longer. It’s a matter of national security that has torn families and friends apart. Our taxi driver had numerous friends who had to keep their distance or apply for special permits in order to visit the Holy City. We drove through the new developments of expensive housing orchestrated by various Israeli companies and citizens. It seems strange that a few years ago, these areas were all inhabited by Palestinians. The wall is clearly on Palestinian territory, and it causes one to wonder whether they’ve built the wall to secure the people within its walls or to make a political statement to those without. We arrived at the Checkpoint and began our contested journey through the Palestinian territory of Bethlehem.
The wall streaks across the Israeli countryside like an enormous grey scar. There are some drawings, and I was reminded of the wall in Belfast. The murals have not had time to emerge in the same scale, but given time, I’m sure they will. The French artists who make a point of arranging large-scale photographs of people “from the other side” making silly and goofy faces had managed to already decorate this wall. Going through the Checkpoint was an exercise in understanding the power of the USA passport. They barely glanced at us just seeing the fronts of our passports. We walked through these bleak, concrete structures, in which Israeli soldiers stood with automatic weapons at the ready. Emerging from the other side, it looked the same geographically, but it was evident immediately that this was an entirely different world. The Palestinians live in poverty literally 1 mile away from wealthy Israelis. The desperation of the citizens is evident. There were probably 20 taxi drivers who immediately clamored around us, hoping to get our business. They were pushing for an “all day tour” rate, when we just wanted to get to the heart of the town. We wound up having to walk away in order to secure a ride to the Church of the Nativity. The poor taxi driver who had to support us told us his own tale of sorrow. Apparently, times have been tough financially for the people of Bethlehem. The wall has led to financial hardship as tourism has decreased. The taxi driver told us that at noon, we were his first fare. Our fare equalled out to about $4. This was probably all that he would be able to bring home to his family. He continued to insist that he would wait for us. We arrived at the Tourism Office after driving through bomb-devastated and poverty-stricken neighborhoods.
At the Tourism Office, we were given maps and encouraged to see various things. We crossed the street and entered the Church of the Nativity, established by Constantine’s mother as a monument to the place where Jesus had been born. This became a theme. Churches and monuments built on sacred spaces. I think I’m more of a pagan than I let on, because a large part of me desires for sacred spaces to be left intact, as they were when they became holy. This is why the Western Wall was so incredible. It stands exactly as it did 2000 years ago. The Church of the Nativity was exquisite, however, and we managed to secure a tour guide. He showed us the various places believed to be the place of Jesus’ birth and his laying in the manger. There was a sense of holiness to the place, but whether that was from the thousands of years of pilgrimage or because it actually *was* the place of Jesus’ birth was unintelligible. The floor has a mosaic thousands of years old, and the grottoes were lovely and filled with icons.

Another strange characteristic to holy sites in the Holy Land is that they are normally inhabited by at least three denominations. The Church of the Nativity had three sections, one each for Roman Catholic, Armenian, and Greek Orthodox. Upon emerging, as we were paying our tour guide, we were surrounded by small children, with hopeless eyes. They kept begging for money, and upon receiving all we had to spare, continued following us as we began our walk down the hill to the Shepherd’s Field.

I normally have a pretty good sense of direction. Thus, when we decided to walk to the Shepherd’s Field, approximately 1.5 miles away, none of us were concerned. The map was quite clear. We followed the road into a residential neighborhood. As we were walking, we reached a fork in the road. Both forks led down to a road heading down the road. We met a few kids (maybe 8-12) who introduced themselves and seemed very friendly. As we walked down the right fork, they asked for money. We had already given it away to other children and told them so and kept walking. We realized that we had taken the wrong fork, so turned around and began walking the other way. At this point we began to notice that rocks were falling around us. We began to walk faster. This part is hard for me to write. Because I’m filled with compassion for these poor kids who don’t have safe places to be and people mentoring them to be better. They have pain and suffering and people teaching them acts of violence as defiance to unjust rule. But I was rather scared. I went to Jerusalem with the solemn belief that God would take care of us, and that if it was my time, then so be it. But this experience was worse. The rocks started coming faster, and at least they were skipping the stones along the ground, but we became more and more glad that they didn’t have any all-star pitchers in the group. We continued walking, and the rocks kept coming, Occasionally we would turn around to see if they had stopped. They began yelling epithets at us which were awful... “**** you, **** your mother” it was horrific. I have no idea who taught them these words, much less in English! I got hit in the leg, by a rather large rock, and Aaron got hit in the neck by a smaller one. Aaron turned around, as they were running up behind us and somehow diffused the situation by asking simply, “Why are you so angry?” This seemed to tone the situation down, and we kept walking quickly away as the kids dissipated. But we were still pretty frightened, shocked, and I was having to temper my anger. We survived, and God is good, but I must admit, I never have experienced such hate and anger turned into violence towards strangers.
At the bottom of the hill, we found the municipal offices of Shepherd’s Field, but still hadn’t found the holy site itself. We wandered for about another 30 minutes, with me having an absolute terror attack as a bus full of young kids drove by (I’ve never been scared of kids before!), until a cab driver took pity on us and took us the 100 yards in the other direction that we had somehow missed. He didn’t even charge us.
Shepherd’s Field is holy. There is no other way to describe it. They say that this is the place where multitudes of angels came down to announce the arrival of the Messiah to the shepherds. There are, again, two different sites, one for the Roman Catholic Church and one for the Greek Orthodox. We were at the Roman Catholic site. And there was a peace and holiness there that is simply from God. There were butterflies fluttering about, and I felt the presence remaining of a multitude of heavenly host. I felt as though the holiness, peace, and purity of the place washed the hatred, fear and anger out of my heart. It was a very good place.

By this time, we were exhausted, and needed to eat. We found a nearby restaurant and ate, then called our friendly cab driver to take us back to the Checkpoint. At the Checkpoint, we were harassed by various salespeople who wouldn’t leave us alone. At this point, I just kept walking. We went through the Checkpoint, watching various Palestinian people harassed for their papers. I understand the need for security, especially considering all that has erupted in the last few days, but it was still out of the ordinary.
We hopped on the Palestinian bus which would take us to Damascus Gate in the Old City. On our way back, we were stopped by the military, and everyone’s passports and papers were checked, again by a young woman in the military carrying a handgun and automatic weapon. Upon arrival at Damascus Gate, I was grateful to be back in some semblance of normalcy. Our plan was to venture through the Arab Shuk (marketplace) to pick up veggies and such for Shabbos.
Our first stop in the shuk was at the oil stand. I had forgotten how wonderful pure essential oils were! I procured a number of them, and we began walking down the market. 2 lbs of strawberries for $3! What a treat. The spice merchants had literally mountains of loose spices and seasonings, and the pastry merchants had goods dripping with sugar and nuts. There were also a number of Americana merchants, selling all the latest clothes, gadgets, and various must-haves of western culture. The shuk was remarkably wonderful after our rough afternoon in Bethlehem, until I received the lovely gift of a dropped garbage box. This time, I know it was simply an accident, as I heard a shout behind me to watch out. Luckily, it was just dust and paper waste, but it fell all along my head, shoulder, and arm. A day full of experiences in which my American identity meant good things (with Checkpoint control), bad things (with being stoned), and completely non-important things (the trash coulda hit anyone).
We happened upon the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, another location where three different churches inhabit the holy sites. In this Church, there are I think 3 crucifixion locations and at least two empty tombs. It was getting dark, so Aaron and I decided that we would just poke our noses in and then we should get back to get some food. We left through Jaffa Gate, taking a taxi back to Lizzi’s and then allowing me to get cleaned up. While we were there, Deborah (our second host) stopped by and we had a chat about conflict areas. She had grown up in the UK during the “Troubles” so understood my comparison of Bethlehem to Belfast. We then went to Te’enim, which is an incredible dairy restaurant with a gorgeous view of the Old City. We had a lovely, relaxing dinner, and tried to recover from our very eventful day. It took some time to make sense of some of it, but it was good to have some time to decompress. One thing that I loved about being with Lizzi, in Jerusalem, was the time we took to savor our dinners. Our evenings were always filled with amazing food, delicious coffee, tea, and dessert and phenomenal conversation. And they normally lasted about two or three hours.
We went home, and prepared for bed. Aaron & I stayed up a little longer, trying to fathom what had happened that afternoon. We went to bed.
I’m going to include part of Day 3 here, because Shabbos is very special and I want it all to be together. Friday morning, Lizzi and I woke up early, in order to go over to Abe and Rebecca’s to make the food for Saturday lunch. It was so exciting to meet little Odelia (the newest member of the Friedman family!) who is all of 3 weeks old. She was beautiful. While there, I learned how to cook in a kosher kitchen. For all you non-kosher people, I do not recommend even trying. Even though I practiced kashrut last year for Lent, and felt as though I understood it all, getting through it without mixing any pots and pans was a challenge. Especially because a great deal of what I prepared was what is known as Parve. This means that it is neither meat nor dairy. Which means it can be cooked in either pot, but it needed to be cooked in meat pans for this meal, because the meal was to be meat. Then, there were a few parve pans, but we had to make sure that we didn’t mix the utensils for the meat with the parve, or the pan would turn meat. The idea of cross-contamination gains a whole new meaning. Not to mention the fact that the pots had recently been rearranged, so it was a continual asking adventure to determine what each pot exactly was. THANK GOODNESS Abe was there to provide direction while giving little Odelia her bottle. We finished around 11:30 and headed back to the house to pick Aaron up. At this point, because we didn’t want Aaron to be near a 3-week old with nasty cooties, we had scheduled a doctor’s appointment just to make sure he didn’t need antibiotics. We wound up at the doctor’s, and he checked us both out for good measure, and behold! We were both fine, but he prescribed the following: lots of rest and fluids, lemon tea with honey, and an expectorant and cough suppressant with codeine. Now here is the miracle. Lizzi had gone shopping for baked goods and other such things while we were doing this, and I managed to use my broken, limited Hebrew to chat with the Pharmacist in his broken and limited English! But we did it! Phenomenal. Then we met Lizzi at the natural goods store and found our tea. She also had brought me a messy goodie of chocolate happiness. What a treat! We went our way back to her house to drop off our various things, and headed back to the old city for our pilgrimage down the Via Dolorosa.
Every Friday afternoon, at 3:00pm, the Franciscan monks in Jerusalem lead a pilgrimage from Lion’s Gate (directly opposite the Garden of Gethsemane) down to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This walk is to illustrate the walk that Christ took with his cross. It represents the stations of the Cross as understood in the Catholic tradition. At 3:00pm, as we were standing in the courtyard of an Arab school, waiting for our walk to begin, I had a truly ecumenical moment. I, a Presbyterian pastor-in-training, was standing next to my good friend Lizzi, a Conservative rabbi-in-training, and we were listening to the prayers of the Franciscan monks in five different languages, when all of a sudden the call to prayer began for the Muslims of the city. As we were walking down, there were hundreds of people walking with us. I think the most memorable were the 80-year-old grannies who reminded me of my Grandma Lucille. They had more energy than most of us, knew all the Latin by heart, and had no compunction about charging over anyone in the way. There were at least a couple times when Aaron & I were nearly bowled over by these lovely little ladies.

As we walked along the path, I noticed a few things. First, the concept of personal space is very different in Middle Eastern culture. People bump into one another without a thought. Also, the reverence that I had expected during a religious pilgrimage/service simply was not there. Arab music blasted from the shops, various youths used the opportunity to charge up and down through the crowd with heavy packages, yelling or whistling. Part of me was horrified, although that may have been partly due to our previous day’s experience. I just wondered what would happen if I decided to blare Brittany Spears or Eminem during their call to prayer. Probably nothing good. But because I was trying to imagine Jesus’ walk, I tried to ignore it. In reality, the most I got out of the Via Dolorosa was “Wow, that’s quite a trek, and a lot of it uphill! That must have been a literal and horrible pain!” When we arrived at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we meandered with the crowd and saw the various places of Jesus’ death and tomb, although as I’ve said, they’re all contested. The Church is filled with gold, silver, icons, and various treasures. It didn’t remind me of churches I’m familiar with, as the wealth seemed almost gratuitous. I can understand the desire to give all good things to Christ, but this seemed over the top. We bumped into numerous US tourists, one of whom took a picture of us on the Catholic site of the crucifixion.

And at the end of it, I didn’t feel that much different than I had after watching Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ for the second time. Humbled, reminded of Jesus’ sacrifice, a little sad that he had pain, but in general, non-plussed. We went to get coffee and juice and I picked up a Byzantine cross pendant for my collection, then the sun went down and Shabbos began. Praise the Lord for Shabbos.

Oops!

I just realized that I hadn't yet blogged from our Valentine's Day excursion into the West of Ireland before blogging our way through Jerusalem. I really AM behind! So I'll be doing installments of these, too, and uploading pictures as well, as I am able. The West was lovely, and our Shamrocker Tour was a blast. I'll try to get there quickly!
Love!

Jerusalem Day 1: Arrival in the Holy Land

We left Dublin Tuesday night, flying from Dublin to London-Heathrow, then proceeding to Tel Aviv. The staff on British Airways is exquisite, and the seats offer a good 6 inches more legroom than we’ve ever experienced on any other international flight. We were moved to bulkhead just before take-off from Heathrow, for an enormous expansion in our legroom. Each seat also has its own little multi-media center in miniature screens for each seat. Aaron spent most of his time sleeping, as he was still recovering from his cold. I tried to watch a movie, but wound up dozing off myself. We arrived in Tel Aviv around 6am, getting a rental phone and our rental car complete with GPS.
We drove through the lovely Israel countryside for about 40 miles to Jerusalem. The mountainsides and vistas are lovely, with green grass cover and lovely, rocky hillsides that break up the horizon. It took us about an hour to arrive at my friend Lizzi’s house, where we were lovingly hosted. We named our GPS George, and he had a few issues at times navigating various tunnels and streets, but overall, he got us there in one piece with relatively little confusion. We were able to spend a bit of time catching up before Lizzi had to leave for class, at which point we slept wonderfully until the early afternoon. Lizzi showed me some lovely prayers in Hebrew, in preparation for the Western Wall, and loaned me her book of Psalms. We showered, cleaned up and departed for the Old City.
Jerusalem is a city unlike any I’ve ever visited before. Everything seems to be made out of the same pale, rose and sand-colored stone (we found out later that it’s a building condition in the city, much like requirements in Santa Barbara regarding roofing and southwest style and design). It’s also seems to be a mountain in a valley surrounded by mountains. I can easily see how the ancient Israelites found it to be holy and sacred. The Temple Mount sits in the middle of this exquisite valley surrounded by lovely hills. So our calves and glutes had the time of their lives walking up and down the hillsides. We parked near the King David Hotel and walked our way up towards the Old City.
We stopped for lunch at a small cafe in a relatively new shopping strip just near Jaffa Gate. We ate Kosher for most of our meals, meaning no mixing of meat and dairy. So the lunch we ate was dairy, and vegetarian. The menu was also exclusively in Hebrew! Thank goodness for Lizzi being around to translate for us. My Biblical Hebrew just didn’t cover things like cheese sandwiches or omelettes. Our view of the new city was gorgeous, and the weather was superb. Afterwards, we headed through Jaffa Gate and into the Old City.
The Old City is a remarkable place. The streets are narrow and shops line both sides. It is reminiscent of the Arabian marketplace at Renaissance Faire, but the streets are much, much narrower. They offered goods for all faiths. Hookahs, menorahs, and crucifixes all lined the streets along with fabrics and various tourist goods like suitcases. We walked through David Street, perusing the mass quantities of various spiritual goodies that would have required hunting and searching religious bookstores in the states. It was a religious cornucopia for the eyes! We turned left into the Jewish Quarter and headed for the Western Wall.
The Western Wall is an experience that I find myself having a difficult time trying to describe (but of course, being a writer, I’m going to try!). This is the only remaining Wall from the Second Temple in the first century that was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD.
Because of the Islamic spiritual sites on top of the Mount, the Jews have been unable to build a third temple, although some are still hoping to do so in the future. You enter through security, because the space is contested.
On the far side, there is an enclosed walkway to Temple Mount for the Muslims who worship at either the Dome on the Rock or Al-Aqsa Mosque.A Close up and a long view of the site
The praying area is divided between men and women in respect for the ultra-Orthodox Jews who still separate according to gender in worship. Walking down the stairs, there are signs discussing appropriate signs of respect for the wall, many of which include head-coverings for men, appropriate reverence, etc. There is a courtyard before entering what is considered the sacred space with various faucets and basins for those who desire to wash before entering. The place is blanketed with a peaceful yet uneasy stillness.

The prayers provide the peace, but the random man screaming angrily and escorted out by the military bearing automatic weapons creates unease. The military are everywhere, all fully armed, but to a local, I guess this is just business as usual. We separated in the courtyard, with the intention to pray on our own, have our own special moment intimately with God, and return when finished.
I took out the Hebrew Psalm-book and moved slowly towards the women’s side of the wall. I had also brought a notebook and pen, in order to write my prayer to add to all those stuck in the wall. There is definitely a sense in this place that God is listening and paying attention to prayer. After composing my prayer, I folded it up, and walked slowly towards the front. There is a delicate balance almost like a choreographed dance in which people move towards the wall and back from it. A few bat-mitzvah portraits were being taken at the wall as well, which seemed almost sacrilegious to me, but I guess that it is significant to different people in different ways. As I got closer, praying Psalms 15, 16, and 24, I began to feel a tightness in my chest and a fluttering in my stomach. I could feel the presence of God, and I could recognize the reality of God to those people around me. I found myself nearing tears as I approached, and could almost feel the pain of those weeping. There is no coincidence that this place is also called the Wailing Wall. Women were rocking back and forth, davening (praying), and sometimes even pushing their faces and bodies into the wall. As I moved forward, confusing some women by being the obviously European Christian with a cross and yet praying in Hebrew, I lost all sense of externality and just became wrapped up in the moment. God was listening, he heard my prayer. When I finally touched the wall, there were no sparks, just the quiet reassurance that God loves, God lives, God is. I put my prayer in with the rest. And I prayed. I blessed God and said my prayer and moved back, like many women, not turning my back to this sacred space, but allowing the moment to continue until I was outside the thick of the spiritual reality. Leaving, I felt overwhelmed. When we met up about five minutes later in the courtyard, it felt as though eons had passed, even though it had been only twenty minutes or so. We took an “Intersem Reunion” picture to commemorate the wonderful year Lizzi and I had shared since our first inter-faith encounter with each other at Intersem in 2007.

Then we walked up through the Jewish quarter. We saw the 6 foot tall solid gold menorah that is part of the instruments being created to reassemble the temple and continued walking through the Old City back towards Jaffa Gate. A lovely afternoon was ending as we walked through Jaffa Gate and headed towards Ben Yehuda street to see the new development in the city.
Ben Yehuda is named for the man who literally brought Hebrew back to life. He became the predominant figure in establishing a modern Hebrew language, creating new words in order to accommodate the changes in the world since Biblical Times. His street is a shopping district now, similar to Third Street Promenade or Telegraph or Grafton Street. There we encountered a vegetarian movement, as well as the new messianic movement (more to be described later!). We meandered our way through the streets, enjoying the company and the life around us.
We found our way to dinner in another dairy/vegetarian restaurant, which had phenomenal food. One thing I must admit is that Israel knows how to do whole, complete, filling and enriching food. Fresh and wholesome vegetables, fruit, and grains, our meals there were always excellent. We lingered over dinner and coffee and dessert for hours before finally walking back to the car around 10 o’clock. We arrived back to Lizzi’s and fell into our beds with abandon.