Seders and Stations

What to say ... when too much speaking just sounds like a roar and achieves little!!  Who can work it out.  We are just sad.

Last night we went to a seder with a religious family.  The great grandmother (90 years old) told us she lost her whole family in Poland in the Shoah.  She stopped for a moment - grief still palpable.  The father spoke about survival and how Jewish people everywhere have always felt they had to fight to survive.  Any archaeological museum around here attests to that fact.  We ate and sang and tried to follow the Haggadah with the super fast Hebrew.  C. gallantly perservered through 3 hours of seder prayers (but his book did have pictures!!).  The mother was a translator and brought out her NJPS version of the Song in English.  It was interesting talking about the Song with religious people who speak Hebrew as a mother tongue.  Its completely different for them because the words are plain.  They read intuitively and comfortably where as I read speculatively, closely, complicatedly.  It was disconcerting.  I need to work harder on Hebrew but its an uphill, all- consuming commitment.

This morning we went down to the wall.  The men's praying section was awash with white prayer shawls and singing - all discordant - there appeared to be at least 5 shuls praying.  We walked down to Gethsemane (one of them) and revisited the 1000 year old olive trees.  We went up to the russian convent with the gold bell shaped spires.  very peaceful in there (you can tell its a woman's place).  There was a cave in the garden that they believe is Mary Magdalene's tomb.  Probably not, but it certainly once held a number of bodies.  All these churches seem to pivot around death - the dormition, the holy sepulchre.  I want to run back to those ever-living olive trees.  Ironically, the trees have lasted where people haven't.  I wondered if the kingdom on earth that creation groans for might involve no people at all.  There have been so many battles in Jerusalem.  I can't see peace when there is so many people with live-and-die-upon beliefs.  Peace may only descend when we all go away, when human civilization reaches its apogee and then fades away.  We visited Pharoah's daughter's tomb (its not but it has a pyramid so it was an easy connect), and Absalom's pillar (which apparently isn't) and is it Zechariah ben Jehoida's in between (or not)?  There are tombs and dank caves everywhere in this valley.  I wonder about death.  Seeing the tombs (?) of these biblical people (who seem to be still running with their beautiful long hair again and again in text) makes me confront my own mortality.  One life is a gasp, a breath.  Seeing the tomb challenges my fantasy with the text, the narrative.

We came back into the city via the Lion Gate.  It took us along the Via Dolorosa.  We saw the remnants of the crusaders, and the arch of Hadrian (Ecce Homo), we saw the ruins of the Antonia Fortress, huge cisterns, aquaducts, ancient canals, striated stone pathways.

Where is the Song?  She is buried underneath the rubble of a thousand conquerings, razings, and decimations.  She is entombed in rock, marked by plaques and pyramids.  She is a victim of grave robbers.  She is trodden upon by shield bearing legions.  She is prostrated upon by hordes that weep and clutch.  She is the holy grail of the middle east peace process continually smashed.  She is the 15 year old boy who died today on the Gaza Strip.  The two soldiers who will never hold their children.  She is a small, old woman who lost the entire world in 1939.

She has faded like Echo leaving only a whisper.

Madman at the wall

We walked through Hezekiah's tunnel yesterday.  I am always sorry half way through (I think the tunnelers made the height of the wall narrow on purpose!!!).  Its refreshing (after the abject terror of small dark spaces has passed) to wade through the water.  Its a womb-like space, dark, tight, and then a birthing experience.  Its a baptism/mikvah every time.  We walked barefoot and bare leg all the way.  I forget every time how scary it is, and probably because seeing the daylight at the end of the 500m walk entombed by rock is miraculous and wonderful.  We end up in the Gihon Spring.  And pass back via the Pools of Shiloach (Siloam).  In the wall of the cliff opposite we could see what remains of the tomb to Pharaoh's daughter.  All Songs-ish ... but I cant find her here.  Not really.  I dont think she ever existed, and excepting the fact that she exists all the time.

Maybe like Cixous' Promethea, she is my Shulamith.  She is the eery vestige spirit of peace in a land overwhelmed by cameras, guns, spies, suspicions.

We wound our way back into the old city via the dung gate.  We sat in the plaza by the kotel (western wall) as the sun set.  seemed like a wonderful meeting place, except the madman kept us all on our toes.  Funny old man shouting in hebrew about apocalypse and all sorts.  Shouting condemnation.  Giving everyone frights.  He refused to leave.  No one made him go.  The glass under the chuppah.

Raining in Jerusalem

Did I say it is raining?   Its pouring down.  Its unusual weather... and very cold.  We are in another little arab youth hostel down on St Marks road.  It is a maze of little arched stonework rooms.  Chan and I were booked to sleep on the roof, imagining it would be dry and pleasant.  After all, Jesus and his group sleep on the mt of olives this same night.  But after two nights on the roof the rain clouds came over and poured down.  Now we are sleeping in the cosy bohemian annexes behind the reception.  They have laid down arabesque cushions, mats, and wall hangings and they are very dark and colourful.  We slept so well last night.  So, we have another few days here and when the buses operate again after the first two holy days of pesach we will go up to Galilee for our ambitious walking adventure.  I am hoping that the open countryside of Galilee will provide the contrast I need from Jerusalem.  We will be camping in the fields above the lake.

Frankincense, myrrh and all the chief spices

We went walking around the old city today.  Its shabbat so everything is subdued.  We found coffee with cardamon and we are making it ourselves in a little enamel pot with a long handle.  We are almost through all our lovely foods from Mahane Yehuda.  I had thought we had bought plenty.  As we walked today towards the Damascus Gate we met an old arabian man who was selling spices for incense.  He sold us (probably for too much!!) a little bag full of frankincense, myrrh and another called something like zatar, and another called amber.  he was burning some in a little gold container.  it was sweet and sharp to smell.

you can't be a lover in this city.  there are too many people, too close, too frantic.  You have to go out to the wilderness to find some peace, to be alone... unless you are wealthy and can afford a garden, but even then, too close, too urban.

First Shabbat in Jerusalem

We have spent the last two days in Jerusalem.  We've walked all the way from the old city to the Israel Museum via the Mahane Yehuda market.  Ohh!!  wonderful market, busy, bustle, spices, eggplant, hummus, oils, all sorts.  Cheap, cheap!  I loved it.  We went back again today to buy for Shabbat.  Challah and wine.  We'll have a little Shabbat on the roof today and then go down to the kotel.

Where is the Shulamith?  I've seen date palms as tall as buildings.  I've seen and smelled the spices in towers in Mahane Yehuda.  I've trolled the Biblical lands museum (because the Israel Museum was closed!!!!) and seen the goddesses, and necklaces of lapis lazuli, and seals that are like totems, expressions, symbols of a person's nephesh!!  I've read a little of the Song at the Shrine of The  Book - in the Aleppo Codex. 

I've held C's hand in the via dolorosa and felt the stares of the sellers there...  where is she?

I've seen the daughters of Jerusalem at the kotel.  The daughters of Ishmael too above on the temple mount at the dome of the rock.  I've seen the wadi of David and its palms and greenery.

Where is she?  I want to see Lebanon, I want to see Gilead.  I have seen the Sheep Pools in the model of the city.

Yasser Arafat and the date palm

Today we wound up in the West Bank again.  Am I looking for Shulamith and have found the Palestinians??  We were in Jericho riding up to the Church of the Temptation of Christ with primary school boys and their teacher from Nablus.  They can never go to Jerusalem.  Its made me feel very sad.  And here we were in the middle of Ramallah at Yasser  Arafat's tomb near his offices where he was under seige.  Its been a strange day indeed.  Tired and troubled.  We saw the paintings on the wall in Ramallah.  Saw Edvard Munch's scream deconstructed for a new reading.

Saw date palms today. You know how tall they are.  Enormous.  Looked wistfully at Ein Gedi, Qumran, Masada.  Its been crazy.  We swam in the dead sea.  Ate oranges in Jericho, cried in Ramallah.  Saw Bedouins.

Brilliant.  Astounding.  Tragic.

Palestinian territories

We had intended to walk up the mount of olives but instead found ourselves in the West Bank.  Maybe there was tension in the air, there was certainly politics from our taxi driver but on this particular day there was blue sky and serenity over all the rolling hills.  We saw the church of the nativity and drank coffee in the market.  We walked the streets, many of the shops were closed up.  I guess there was evidence of deeper angst.  Busy day.  Tomorrow we go to Qumran.

Blue skies in Jerusalem

C. and I have flown 36 hours straight, lept onto a sharoot and zoomed up to Jerusalem.  We saw the golden city at dawn.  C. was spell bound.  We were virtually tossed out the back of the speeding sharoot at Jaffa Gate where we had the pleasure of finding our names on the door of our inn... welcoming us and informing us to go for a pleasant walk in the old city and come back at 12.  It was 6a.m.  We walked the long way from Jaffa Gate to Ben Yehuda street via a number of map reading errors.  We drank thick black coffee and tiny fresh croissants at 7 am while Ben Yehuda Street was just starting to unravel for the day.  We walked right round, passed the museum of psalms, passed Rev Kooks house, round the Russian enclave, the ethiopian mosiac church, stumbled into the police-idf compound, were tailed by security at the municipal buildings and finally we found our way without incident back to the old city.  C. is always getting pulled up!  Still with time to burn we walked to the kotel.  we payed our respects washed our hands, prayed our prayers, walked in stages and rocked and walked backwards without turning away.  we laid the little packet of prayer scrolls in the cracks, and prayed for all our loved ones.

It was still only 9am.  We lined in a massive queue and (with a little guilt ignored all rabbinate warnings about wandering on the temple mount).  We walked twice around the temple mount and al-aqsa mosque compounds until a taciturn worshipper told us our time was up.  We merged with norwegians and went through the golden gates.

Up and down and round and round we went through the arab quarter.  the spices, the silks, the scarves, the confronting gestures, catcalls - i'm much better this time round.  Maybe because I am all in black and 10 years older!!!  We found our way to a lauded hummous den - Abu Shiska at 10:30am and enjoyed an excellent arab humous and falafel with fresh orange juice and arabic coffee... mmm  I was in chick pea heaven.

We came back at 12 to check in and crash but found out we had to pay in cash so walked another hike to the mamilla mall.  Horrors - our credit card was not cooperating!!!  It took an hour of messing about to work it out.  And here I am - FINALLY a shower and in my little old city hostel (a pair of old fogeys with a bunch of teenage travellers) and loving every minute.  Still get mistaken for a Jerusalemite ... still feels like coming home.

Paris, Tel Aviv and Beijing

Rosebud tea, bare birch trees, camembert cheese - C. and I have come half way round the world to come back to Israel.  We went via Beijing and Paris.  We flew into Tel Aviv around midnight.  We could see the lights of the cities below all up and down the mediterranean coast line.  I'm wearing birkenstocks with pink-striped socks which made me the target of a search at Charles de Gaulle airport.  Well, I would search someone who is wearing socks with their birkenstocks!!

We are going up to Jerusalem soon and not sure what awaits us.  Its a real thing to locate Ancient Israel underneath this newly born country.  Neon signs, magazine covers, logos - its bizarre having spent the last 10 years only reading biblical hebrew.  I can understand why some resented the installation of Hebrew as the national language.   Its become wonderfully everyday.

I think our goals for the next two days (apart from recover) is to walk the streets of Jerusalem and try to find the ghost of the Singer.

I've brought Jacques Derrida, 'Writing and difference' along for the journey.  He has already said some interesting things about the imagination, beauty and intelligence.

Israel

C. and I are off to Israel.  Considering the current political situation going up to Jerusalem feels as dark and ominous as in the Song.  The dark streets of Jerusalem.