Touching Jewish history
In the past 24 hours, our group visited two places central to the Jewish story: The Western Wall and Yad Vashem, the Israeli holocaust museum.
We finished our Saturday Shabbat discussion with a trip to the Old City in Jerusalem. We started at the Jaffa gate, one of several open gates into the historical sector of Jerusalem, and worked our way through various sections of the ancient city. The walk ended at the Western Wall, also known as the Kotel.
On the way to Jerusalem our bus was in a happy, light mood. The prospect of touching the central relic of Jewish history excited me. On the other hand, I felt anxious anticipating my reaction in the presence of such a politically-charged zone, with religious meaning so crucial to Jews, Christians and Muslims. I wondered if I would feel “Jewish” enough when I finally got near the wall. And for some reason I was scared that after all the anticipation I might not feel anything.
The floor in the old city looks fake! It’s so old, and Disneyland is so good at recreating the look of an old floor, that you almost can’t believe the stones you step on are the same that people stepped on thousands of years ago. In fact, the people walking around look like they fell out of a movie about what life in Jerusalem looked like 1000 years ago……But then you walk past a corner store, lights ablaze with Coca-Coca advertisements and dudes talking on cell phones and snap back to 2010!
On the plaza above the old city where we stopped before walking down to the Western Wall, we discussed the influence of other cultures on the Old Jerusalem. I learned that Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as a nation, even before the Roman Empire. I learned that mosques have green lights on them, because, like green trees in the desert, they present themselves as spiritual oases. We learned that both Christianity and Islam place their central prophets ascending to Heaven from different spots in Jerusalem. And we learned that Jerusalem needs to institute a major “spay your pets” campaign--so many stray cats!
At the Western Wall I felt a vibration of energy. My unexplained nervousness caused me to shake a bit, but I was also affected by the religious enthusiasm emitting from the hundreds of people surrounding me dressed in very traditional Jewish garb. Despite my backpack and jeans, nobody questioned me or pushed me away when I approached the wall for my own private moment of prayer. In an uncharacteristically religious moment, I rested my head on the Wall and prayed for my parents, my brothers, my girlfriend, and my extended family. I left a note, and headed on, happy to have been at the wall, but also a bit shocked at the enormity of having checked off a significant box on my Jewish “to-do” list.
In the same way that the Western Wall represents the past and the future of the Jewish people, Yad Vashem represents this century. The wall is a monument of a previous golden era and a reminder of a future messianic age. On the other hand, the holocaust is the most recent struggle of the Jewish people -- the defining era of anti-Semitism that inspires so much Jewish unity today.
Yad Vashem educates and shocks the visitor. The museum takes you through a triangle-shaped hallway, weaving you back and forth chronologically through the holocaust. As we learned in our wrap-up, it was impossible to leave the museum without feeling your heart a little squished as you remembered your own family’s struggles. My saddest moment happened when I learned more about the “Wansee Conference” outside of Berlin, where the Nazis planned the final chapter of their quest to exterminate Europe’s Jews. My familiarity with the city is from my grandmother’s stories that she used to go sailing near Wannsee in the 30’s with her parents before they left Germany. That a place that could give my grandma such pleasant memories was the place where such evil occurred was disturbing for me. At the end of our walk through history, we commemorated the memory of the people that perished with an impromptu Mourner’s Kaddish proposed by Josh.
The trip continues to be emotionally and spiritually powerful for all of us. I cannot wait to think back on these experiences a few weeks from now when I am removed from the magic of Israel and back in my ordinary life so I can see what has stuck to me the most.
