Shabbat In Jerusalem

• Scolson's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Jerusalem

Trip Start Aug 31, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Sep 18, 2008 Next
Entry

  Jerusalem, Israel
Monday, September 15, 2008

Well, we have lived a Shabbat (Sabbath) in Jerusalem, and then some. We continue to be surprised and amazed every day.  The last couple of days we have truly lived the Shabbat experience in Jerusalem. 

On Friday afternoon we spent our time with the locals on the Ben Yehuda shopping street and at the local market.  The streets and shops were jammed with people making their last minute purchases before  sundown.  Busy sidewalks, roads crowded with traffic, everything like an ordinary day.  Around 5:00 p.m. the traffic had virtually disappeared, no private cars, no buses, only cabs.  By 6:00p.m. all the shops and restaurants were closed and the streets were deserted.  Imagine taking a big city like Vancouver or Seattle and the whole place shutting down for 24 hours, and we mean closed, everything except the odd tourist restaurant of bar.

We made our way down to the Western Wall for sunset services arriving at around 6:00 p.m.  The plaza had a few people in it and we found a spot at the back of the plaza to sit and watch.  By the time of sunset the plaza was jammed with thousands of men (the women are required to visit and pray in a separate section) singing, chanting, dancing and preaching in every language imaginable.  Young and old, jeans and t-shirts to the traditional orthodox 'black hats',  from the gravely serious to the exuberant youth groups this was an awe inspiring and deeply moving moment for the both of us.  The crowd got so large and we felt very much the interlopers that we retreated from the lower plaza and watch from the public areas for a little while longer.

After our experience at the Wall we grabbed a cab, and took a drive on the deserted streets to Rabbi Harry's and Rayanne's for a family Shabbat dinner at their apartment in the Talpyiot area of Jerusalem.  It was great to experience the family meal and to see a residential neighborhood, a local's apartment.  A reminder that while we spend the days looking at glorious sights people live quite ordinary lives here, as people have been doing in the area for some 10,000 years (age of the oldest evidence of a village in the area).

We made our way home through the empty streets and awoke next morning to the quietest city we have ever seen.  Everything, and we mean everything was closed.  We walked the deserted streets, passed by the deserted cafés, and crossed streets wherever we wanted without the usual 50/50 chance you'll get across alive.  The old city proved to be a little bit busier as the Christian, Armenian and the Muslim quarter carried on as usual.  We took an amazing walk along the ramparts of the old city that overlook the old city inside the wall and the modern city outside.  Made our way through two more of the gates, the beautiful Damascus Gate and St. Stephen's (Lions) gate (really!  St. Stephen was reputedly martyred just outside the gate).  We did not face martyrdom but did get caught in the middle of a very heated traffic  'moment' at the gate just as about 10,000 Muslims were trying to exit the gate after prayers on the Temple Mount.  A wild time was had by all.

Safely back inside the gates we took in some of the Christian sites. Some of them quite moving and not a few of them a little disturbing, whether it be the imagery or in some instances the outright fakery, such as the voice activated cock crowing recording when pilgrims walk by the station of the cross commemorating Jesus' prediction that Peter would deny him 3 times before the cock crowed.  The recording (rooster) got a good workout as we sat and watched and listened from nearby. 

All in all the Christian sites can be quite busy with tour groups and it's difficult to get a real 'feel' for them.  The other issue is that with a little bit of research pilgrims can find authentic locations (often nowhere near where the established sites are) where the stories and the locations of the Old and the New Testament have credible lineage and archaeological evidence to back them up.  These 'real' sites are very moving.

We wrapped up another full day of touring the old city with a stop at St. James Basilica in the Armenian Quarter.  The church is only open during twice daily for services.  A dark, huge crusader era church that is decorated with huge old oil paintings everywhere and thousands of elaborate candle holders and candelabras hanging from every spot on the ceiling.  The church is lit only by the candles and sunlight streaming in from the dome above.  The entire service is chanted by a choir and the primary priest, incense is used very liberally and the priests and monks are dressed in black hooded robes and vestments that have changed little in hundreds of years.    Another 'wow' moment in a trip full of them.

After 24 hours of 'living' and 'getting some religion' we returned to Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall and watched it come back to life.  Like clockwork, at a specific time established under Jewish tradition ,  the shops and restaurants reopened, filled with people and traffic and the mall from one end to the other was a huge outdoor party that went late into the night.  Lots of fun to see, to experience and to live.

I've rattled on long enough, we are getting concerned we're running out of time and have so many places we still want to see...we'll do the best we can and will keep posting until we 'have' to leave.

Print this entry Share

Previous Entry Next Entry