On Spirituality in Jerusalem

“I love this city,” said Kevin, gazing on the Jaffa Gate as we approached it Monday morning.  “Not surprising," I replied, “This is the city of God.”

A Christian pilgrim’s first stop is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  My previous visits there were cursory.  This time, I went with someone to whom it mattered and I paid attention.  I was immediately and intensely moved as we entered, not by the Stone of Unction just inside the doorway but by the fervor of the pilgrims who draped themselves over it, kneeling, kissing, rubbing the flat stone, sprawling in prayer.  “Now you get it,” said Kevin, “it’s the search for God.”  “I’ve always known that,” I replied.  “The point of observing 613 commandments is not to get the observance ‘right’ but to keep God in mind as we go about our daily lives.”  That having been established, we continued into the church.  My burst of emotion faded as I watched pilgrims jostling to get their photos taken touching the rock of Golgotha and kneeling in the niche said to have been Jesus’ tomb.  Kevin explained that the rock in which the niche was located had been cut down so that a shrine could be placed over it.  The church was subsequently built over the shrine.  Over the centuries, the shrine was rebuilt in different styles.  Its structural integrity has been compromised by earthquakes, and it is supported by steel scaffolding.  But it can’t be rebuilt or remodeled because the different denominations controlling the various parts of the church can’t agree.  Yes, I remember reading about this in Simon Sebag Montefiore’s book Jerusalem, The Biography, I thought.  We have our “who controls the Wall?” and they have the free-for-all over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  Funny, the ways in which religions are similar.

From the church we went directly to the Western Wall for a kind of religious balance.  The women’s section of the wall was crowded, people were standing three and four deep, reaching over the women sitting down and praying so they could touch the stones and stuff wish-notes into the cracks.  I was barely able to stick my little piece of paper in, which I had decided to do at the last minute.  After saying shehekhayanu, I turned my back too early to walk away – one is supposed to back away from the Wall, the closest physical spot on earth to God’s presence according to Jewish tradition.  I quickly corrected and hoped God wasn’t too exasperated.

We next stood in line to run the gauntlet of security men and machines to walk up the ramp to the Temple Mount.  Muslims enter freely at the north side from the streets of the Muslim Quarter.  That entrance is also an exit for the non-Muslim tourists, who must enter only through the ramp, which is located in the plaza at the Western Wall.  Perhaps someday archeologists will ponder the remains of this ramp as they now ponder the remains of Robinson's Arch and Barclay's Arch, two ancient access ramps to the Temple during Herod's era.

The Temple Mount is essentially a vast plaza, a paved-over park.  The Dome of the Rock is one-third of the way from the north end and the Al Aksa Mosque is up against the southern end.  There is a large fountain in the middle for the hand- and foot-washing required before prayer in the mosque.  There are small groves of trees and benches off toward the eastern end; a couple sat amicably under a tree.  The north side of the Mount, behind the Dome of the Rock is entirely paved over.  There weren't many people around.  Two separate groups of men sat under trees by the central fountain, listening to what appeared to be lectures.  A few women and children strolled into Al Aksa.  Capitals and drums of Roman-era columns were displayed next to the mosque.  Non-believers are no longer permitted to enter the Dome of the Rock, we were told; they were never allowed into Al Aksa. The area seemed empty of feeling as well as of people, despite--or perhaps because of--the passion it generates.  Perhaps it's something like the eye of the storm, a deceptive calm, the stasis of a place that could lose its balance and hurtle wildly out of control.  One misstep, one forbidden act of worship (all non-Islamic prayer is banned on the Temple Mount), could cause an eruption in this vast plaza that would reverberate around the world.

Returning to the street, our next stop was “David’s City,” the excavations south of the Wall, which are introduced by a walk through the Davidson Center, a touristy exhibition of Temple history.  Seeing old tumble-down stones got “old” before long but I made it through, tired as I was from the previous hours of walking.  Along the southern retaining wall of the Temple Mount are portions of the original stairs that led up into the Court of the Gentiles, the largest of the three courts of the Herodian structure.  Other notable finds are traces of the arches supporting Robinson’s arch and shops cut into one of the piers of that arch, inscriptions on some of the giant Herodian-era stones and a gigantic pile of tumbled multi-ton stones, lying where they’d been hurled 1,942 years ago by the Romans when they destroyed the Temple.  Underneath those giant ashlars, the paving stones are buckled.  That made it real.

After four visits over the years, I have had my fill of the mundane aspects of the Old City.  The main streets of the Christian and Muslim quarters are a gauntlet of trinket shops, all selling items I could easily live without.  The vendors buzzed around like mosquitoes: “Hello, lady, how are you today, would you like to come into my shop, where are you from, would you like to see some nice …?”  I smiled, shook my head and kept walking.  Kevin finally had enough.  “I wouldn’t buy water from them even if I was on fire.”  We concentrated on modern Jerusalem that evening.  Mamilla is a mall surrounded by a luxury high-rise apartment complex.  It’s Jerusalem’s stab at elegance and is a very pleasant place – a couple of good restaurants -- but I doubt that Jerusalem can ever develop a functioning secular economy.

On Tuesday, our first mission was walking the battlements of the Old City wall from the Jaffa Gate to the Zion Gate.  I had walked them in the opposite direction, from the Jaffa Gate to Herod’s Gate, six years ago, alone and blithely confident.  This time, I sidestepped up and down the steep steps along the towers, legs wobbling, clutching the railings like a little old lady, utterly terrified that my hat would blow away, that my overshirt, draped over my shoulder, would blow away, that I would slip on the ancient stones and lie with one foot dangling over the precipice under the iron safety balustrade.  What happened to my confidence?  I who hiked along the Palisades with nothing between me and oblivion over the Hudson River, on a path that was just as wide as the rampart path, with no guardrail.  Perhaps it was the comfort of being in nature—or maybe just wearing hiking boots. My walking shoes, while comfortable, tended to slip on the Jerusalem stones.

Muezzin calls echoed each other down the Hinnon Valley as we peered through the parapets, imagining crusaders and Turks and bandits and who knows what else.  The muezzin calls were not as melodious as church bells, but I appreciated them nonetheless, for the idea is the same.  Below us, the Armenian Quarter gave way to the Jewish Quarter.  We gradually lost altitude, which was comforting.  Exiting the Zion Gate, we took a taxi to the Mount of Olives.  Kevin specifically asked the driver for the Church of All Nations, quite easy to spot by its multiple gold, onion-shaped domes.  After shaking free of the traffic tangle in front of the Zion Gate, which is the closest entrance to the Western Wall, we headed up a winding, steep road wide enough for one car only and enclosed by high stone walls on either side.  The driver kept his hand on the horn all the way, to warn other cars as well as pedestrians.

He deposited us in front of a green door set in the wall, asking if we wanted to go farther.  He told us the church was closed and sure enough the sign said open until 11:45 a.m. then closed until 2:30 p.m.  Kevin tried the door and was about to turn back when it was opened by a caretaker, no doubt alerted by our noise.  We were told that this was not the Church of All Nations but the Church of Dominus Flevit - the Church of Jesus Weeping. Kevin quickly dismissed the cabbie, who was all for taking us back down the hill for an extra fare, of course.

The caretaker invited us in and said we could wait on the property for the church to open.  Since every other church on the Mount of Olives was closed for lunch, it made sense to accept his generosity.  The church is about 2/3s of the way up the mountain and its garden provided a spectacular panorama of the Old City, including Mount Zion across the valley and the Jewish cemeteries next door to the church.  I rested my feet while Kevin and I discussed the nature of religious belief and its parallel, political ideology.

When the caretaker returned to inform us that the church was open, we entered and found a small jewel.  Completed in 1955, the church is named for a passage in the Gospels where Jesus contemplates Jerusalem and weeps over the fate he foresees for it.  The church has a teardrop-shaped dome.  The floors have fragments of first-century mosaics.  It’s a small church, could seat maybe 50.  The caretaker said the church has excellent acoustics and invited us to try.  I had that typical brain freeze when one is asked to sing a song, any song.  I rapidly inventoried my repertoire, looking for something appropriate in Latin.  Carmina Burana or Gaudeamus Igitur were the only things that immediately came to mind and they were obviously not going to be suitable.  Then I thought of the Hallelujah Chorus and began to sing.  My voice grew stronger and I more confident on the “For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.”  Maybe it was the church; maybe it was just my voice getting exercise.  It seemed like the right sort of song to sing even though it is associated with the Church of England, while Dominus Flevit is Catholic.  The echo effect was unusual, perceptible but not detracting from the sound.

We went back downhill, past the Jewish cemetery. I explained that many pious Jews want to be buried in Jerusalem to get front-row seats at the return of the Messiah.  We never found the entrance to the Church of All Nations, but Kevin wasn’t looking for it anyway; he was looking for the Garden of Gethsemane.  It’s down near the bottom of the Mount of Olives.  The garden is small, neatly kept, divided into four quarters by graveled paths.  Olive trees have been planted by pilgrims since the 17^th century and their gnarled trunks are surrounded by flowering bushes.  Kevin went into the church.  I hung back but ultimately entered briefly, to see if it had the same spiritual “presence” that I felt in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  It did.

We walked back to the Old City, entering through the Lion’s Gate.  There, the Bethesda pool and Church of St. Anne was our first stop.  I stayed in the churchyard while Kevin walked through the ruins of the Byzantine-era church built over the pools where Jesus healed the sick.  I’d had enough of spiritual tourism, but Kevin waved me into the Church of St. Anne, restored in the 19^th century on the ruins of the 12^th century Crusader church that Saladin had turned into a school of Koranic law.  He said there was singing and indeed, a Filipino chorus was engaging in a spontaneous sing-in.  They sang “Amazing Grace,” which did indeed sound quite nice in the medieval setting, like an organ, swelling against the vaulted walls.  A photographer took a group photo when they were finished and they were then scurried away by their tour guide to a waiting bus.

We continued walking through the Muslim Quarter down the Via Dolorosa, which begins at the Lion’s Gate, following the discs on building walls that denote Stations of the Cross and being badgered by souvenir sellers and would-be guides.  I was agonizing over an as-yet un-bought, un-selected gift for a friend, trying to avoid the kitsch, yet getting desperate for something suitable.  One shop we passed had just the right item; I knew it was right when I saw it.  Perhaps there really is “something” in Jerusalem after all.