Referencing This Very Spot

Raining, today.  Every Israeli seems pre-tune to the weather report.  We were warned repeatedly that the weekend would be wet.  I walked out the apartment I’m staying, passed the window and the first floor couple having breakfast, out and one block over to Rothschild Street where I walk down the meridian till I get to the café in which my friend is waiting for me. 

Riding up, out of Tel Aviv one begins to appreciate the incline and the elevation up to Jerusalem.  Thirty-eight hundred feet above sea level is higher than any mountain in New York, besides Mount Marcy.  My friend explains much of what we cannot do.  We cannot visit the Occupied Territories.  Not, at least, with him.  An Israeli citizen like him, and unlike me is prohibited from attending, so no, we can’t take that right into Ramallah, and we can’t see Bethlehem either.  But sure, we can take pictures of road checks, pill boxes and the army.  All the stones are now a mournful, pale ochre limestone.  It is from that stone which  those Jewish settlements that have been built.  Those are Arab residences, as well as those were Arab residences which haven’t been Arab, since the seventies. 

We stop at a view near Hebrew University overlooking the old, walled city, unmistakable with the golden Dome of the Rock defiantly bright, amidst the wind and the clouds.  That?  That is Mount Olive.  There?  That is Mount Zion.  These names so familiar and laden with reference are now there, down before you.  We meet one friend and then a family who are all chums with my colleague.  Remarkable people, easy to get to know, and we have questions and questions we all want to run by them, as there are millennium’s to uncover and piece-together as we consider this remarkable setting.

In the walled city, we have some pomegranate juice, though I was tempted by the mulled wine.  I thought I’d be so overdressed in my New York winter sweater and coat and they are barely enough to keep me protected.  “Would you like to see the Church of the Holy Sepulcher?”   It’s only a short walk and there we are, entering the building, considering the Stations of the Cross.  And though I am not a believer, it is supposedly Golgotha, even though it was chosen as the spot during the Fourth Century by Constantine’s’ mom, Helena when they excavated and found some crosses, one can appreciate that much of the collective thinking of Western Civilization was anchored on this exact axis for much of the time since then.  Here, they say is where Jesus was brought down from the Cross.  He was laid on that slab, right there.  Considering the depictions of the Stations of the Cross it dawns on you that all the hundreds of other Churches, all the thousands of pieces of artwork that depict the crucifixion were referencing this very spot, and these representations you are considering in this moment staring up at the walls, are referencing this exact place, as well, right here before you.

I’d earlier read the book by Simon Montefiore Sebag about Jerusalem and it came back to me as we visited various annexes and side features that most of the different faiths of Christendom all have communities here at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher that help run and manage this hallowed space.  This is where the Ethiopian church maintains its presence.  Right there is a Russian Orthodox church.  What is this that looks so significant on the outside and sparse inside?  The Lutheran’s run it.  That explains it.  Finding a lunch place, we walk backwards on the Via Del Rosa unwinding Christ’s supposed trod up this path to Golgotha.  My dear friend who is a believer, is in his own world with all this and I try to imagine his contemplation. 

The hummus is the best I’ve ever had.  We ooh and ahh.  There are four kinds and we eat and eat in a small Arab restaurant.   Then we continue along to get the sticky deserts our new friend has in mind but settle for a remarkable roof top on an Austrian facility that allows us to put the city into yet another perspective.  And, after an espresso and a white wine as well, we finally make our way to the Wall.  That path to the left, is up to the Dome of the Rock.  My friend’s explain that while we could go, they could not and out of politeness we save this for another time, (this third most holy site in all of Islam) and head, instead across what feels like comparatively modest security out into the courtyard of the single most holy site in Judaism.  Presented with a yamlike, I done the white head gear and head up to the ancient limestone construction, just like everyone else.  Touching stone, I acknowledge that I have no pen nor paper with which to write anything so make a symbolic prayer both personal and then civilizational, and then turn to enjoy the late afternoon sun which has finally broken through.

Friday 02/07/20