Day 9

Hello friends,

Greetings from our third full day in Jerusalem!

Today began differently than most—I sat in the front of the bus. This provided an excellent view through the windshield as we drove through the valley of the shadow of death, past where the three valleys of Jerusalem meet, to the old city.

To anyone who has the opportunity to meet someone from South Africa, I recommend asking them to say the words ‘valley’ and ‘tomorrow’ as they are both what separate a South African accent from the British. Our route to the old city provided many opportunities to hear our excellent tour guide, Muki, say the former.

We entered the walled Old City through the ‘Dung Gate’ (where garbage used to exit the city) and immediately walked toward the Southern Wall (an archeological park adjacent to the Western (wailing) wall to watch our tour mate, Daniel Glick become Bar Mitzvah.

It was a beautiful ceremony. Daniel ROCKED it! We were all lucky to have the chance to participate and share that with Daniel and his family in such an important location. Mondays are popular for Bar Mitzvahs in Jerusalem and in the distance we could hear drums and shofars coming from others celebrating their own B’nai Mitzvah. I like to think of it as free DJs, their joy and enthusiasm encouraging Daniel and celebrating his special day. Another tour mate Isaac Schiff was called for an aliyah.
(Note from Sally Glick: It was even more than I expected. Can you imagine turning around for t’fillah, seeing the wall, knowing that your son is about to chant Torah in the spot where generations and generations of people have done the same? It was an amazing morning—from helping lead to passing the Torah from generation to generation to watching Rabbi Spilker and Daniel jump up to a rock in front of the Wall for a blessing. Wow!)

After the ceremony, we walked further along the Southern Wall to learn about and see the Ancient steps leading up to what once was where the Second Temple stood on the Temple Mount.

We continued into the Davidson Center where we watched a video titled ‘Life During the Times of the Temple’ which some of you may have seen when the Dead Sea Scrolls were exhibited at the Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul.
sidenote: the narrator of the video looked strikingly like a Herodian version of the Geiko cave man which amused some of the younger (at heart) members of the tour.

After the video we made our way toward the Western Wall. In order to gain access we passed through security that would have made our friends at TSA in the MSP Airport proud.

As is required by our Orthodox brethren, we separated by gender, covered up (hats/kippahs for men, skirts and sleeves for women) and stepped up to the crowded wall—a/the most sacred site to Jews for its proximity to the past temples on the Mount, which contained the Holy of Holies.

After a few minutes at the wall, many of us followed Rabbi Spilker as he led us through the Arab Quarter to a lesser-known spot to access the wall—a profound moment indeed to be alone with friends at such a sacred site.

Oh, did I mention it was hot? It reached at least 100 degrees but everyone managed to stay beautiful and kept a good attitude while drinking plenty of water and taking many Shirutim (bathroom) breaks.

We continued to see important archaeological sites in the Jewish quarter such as the broad wall and the recently discovered Herodian mansions.

After lunch, our group split. A large portion of the group went to Christian East Jerusalem while many of the youngsters (at heart) and I were led by Muki through Hezekiah’s 2,600+ year old Water tunnel.

Then we took a well deserved break.

After a touch of shopping and dinner on Jerusalem’s hip Ben Yahuda area, (where I was able to get my daily fix of world cup action) we regrouped for a late-night tour of the Western Wall Tunnels. These tunnels, like Hezekiah’s were simply astounding for revealing unbelievable engineering feats, their mere size (bricks weighing nearly 550 tons (TONS!!!), age, historical significance, and the political complexities that arise from them.

BED TIME! LONG AMAZING DAY!

Jerusalem is a city where the juxtaposition of old and new holds the ancient and the totally modern in a degree of hyper-relevance. Every new thing we see is astounding and I can’t imagine should anyone see any of them hundreds of times that it could possibly become anything less than unbelievable.


Layla tov,

Satchel Borow Moore