This past June I had the pleasure of learning from and dining with Murray Watson, a Canadian Catholic Biblical scholar who spends much of the year in Jerusalem. In anticipation of my pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine, he shared an observation regarding those who travel to this region of the world. He said [I'm paraphrasing] that people who spend a week in Jerusalem return home and write a book. Those who spend a month in Jerusalem return home and write a journal article. Those who spend a year living in Jerusalem return home and write a blog post. And those who live here longer struggle to find words to describe this place, the land and its people.
Marie Theodore Ratisbonne
In the mid-19th century Theodore Ratisbonne wrote, “there are three books which have come forth from the hand of God, and whose riches – riches of beauty, truth and love – you will never manage to exhaust. These three books are Sacred Scripture, the wonders of nature, and the human heart. It is these three books which must be studied, and it is in them that you will find eternal life.” (Sources de Sion, No. 3, p. 17)
I’m sure that I will never exhaust all the things worthy of reflection during my time here in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. But Theodore’s “three books” – the human heart, the wonders of nature, and Scripture – give me a framework for this blog. I hope to record my thoughts about this Land that has shaped a People who, over centuries, have handed down the Word of God.
Leaving Home...
My travel to Jerusalem started at 2pm on Sunday (Kansas City time) and ended on Monday at 6:30 pm (Jerusalem time). My goodbyes to family were foggy, having woken up on Sunday with a cold. What timing! Why now?! It made for uncomfortable plane rides, but was perhaps a blessing since all my energy and thoughts these first two days were focused on getting through the physical struggles; leaving little room for the emotional ones.
The plane from Newark, NJ to Tel Aviv signaled to me that I was entering a world so very different from my own. There were men and women donning a variety of outward Jewish signs. Scarves and hats covered the hair of women young and old. Most men wore kippot on their heads, some wore tzitzit, others dressed in black with side-curls hanging below their ears. An hour or so into the flight an older gentleman walked up to the open space in the middle section of the plane, just two rows in front of me. He had a long white beard, dressed in black with tzitzit hanging from his waist and a tallit draped over his shoulders. He held a prayer book and quietly prayed to himself as he swayed side to side, forward and back.
Shortly after the man started his evening prayers, another man stood up on the right side of the plane. He was a young, handsome man. He wore a white t-shirt and jeans, with tzitzit hanging from his waist as well. His hair was pulled back in an ever-so-fashionable (and sexy) man-bun and a kippah on top of his head. Before beginning his prayer, he took out a small, black box attached to a long, thin, black strap and began to ceremonially wrap it around his left arm. He took another small, black box and affixed it to his head. These were tefillin and they carried tiny slips of paper with scripture passages.
Witnessing this outward sign of religious practice, I wondered how they might be received on a plane traveling from Kansas City to Houston. How comfortable would the average American feel with such personal yet open display of religious practice? Would those same American Christians who see themselves as warriors of religious liberty defend such acts on an airplane; maybe even applaud them? I'm not sure they would. And as I watched these two men daven in personal prayer, I couldn’t help but think of those Muslims who have been harassed and even evicted from airplanes simply for speaking Arabic or reading the Koran.
But this is perhaps what makes Israel set apart. It is a relatively secular, democratic state where religiosity is omnipresent, and not just reserved for the Sabbath. (I would love to visit India one day too!) I wondered, does Israel have something to teach the United States, or would a similarly overt display of religion from a Muslim or a Christian be unacceptable on a plane to Tel Aviv as it might be on a plane to Kansas City?
Good natured Aussies!
Arrival…
I was met at the airport by a Palestinian taxi driver whose family has worked for the Sisters of Sion for many years. Riding along with me in the taxi were three Australians who are in the program with me. How wonderful to be greeted by the friendly, good-natured attitude of Aussies! Majed, our driver, pointed out different sites along our drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. On the road into Jerusalem we were flanked by two walls. Both walls were made of concrete. The shorter wall had barbed wire on top and hid Palestinian territory behind it. The other wall guarded Israel. The Israelis call this wall the “Wall of Security,” while the Palestinians call it the “Wall of Apartheid.” I couldn’t help but think about the wall so many Americans want to build between us and Mexico and what that wall might be named. I also imagined Jesus riding into this Jerusalem, his road flanked by two walls, and wondered what he would think.
View from the terrace at Ecce Homo.
The sun was setting as the taxi entered the Muslim quarter of the Old City. The air was cool and our windows were down. In the twilight the evening call to prayer echoed through the streets. It is difficult to describe the beauty of these prayers when heard in person. We’ve all heard samples of the Call to Prayer on TV and in the news; but the physical reverberation, the echo bouncing off the walls of the city, the calls heard in the distance…it is a mystical experience. It is only Wednesday and I now look forward to the Muslim call to prayer I hear throughout the day. This place, Jerusalem, is a holy place. It inspires the study of the “three books” that Theodore mentions…Scripture, Nature, and the Human Heart. This city is steeped in religion…this perhaps is its weakness, but it is also its strength.