Yes, it's morning here in Jerusalem - our last full day in Israel. Last night, we had dinner in a beautiful garden restaurant, joined by four Israeli soldiers. These members of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) - two young men and two young women - talked with us about their decisions to move to Israel and their experiences in the armed forces.
From there, we went back into the Old City, where we entered the Western Wall tunnels. It is easy to forget that the Wall we envision - the site we visit, where we put our hands and pray and insert our notes - is only a small section of the massive retaining wall that held up the hillside where the Temple stood. We walked down below the surface to see excavation which revealed much more if the Wall and opened a window to see more of what this ancient site of worship and gathering and commerce actually looked like. Incredibly, we passed by a gigantic stone at the base of the Wall that weighs more than 350 tons - experts still don't know how they were able to move it or place it there. But this stone, among the rest, give us a sense of awesomeness that surely existed fir our ancestors when they visited the Temple in order to communicate with God.
Talking about our ancestors, we are now having a difficult (but important) morning at Yad Vashem, Israel's monument to the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. It would be impossible to fully explain this experience, except to say that we are witness to the worst of humanity, even as we hear stories and retain hope in the best of humanity. At the end of our tour, Rabbi Lyon and I will lead a special service of remembrance, as we all try to grasp hold of any sense of hope that can come out if this tragic time in our recent history.
There is a Jewish concept from the Talmud that reminds us to always move from sorrow to joy ... and so we will rise up from the ashes of Holocaust remembrance and continue this afternoon by taking a group photo at the Knesset (the seat of Israel's Parliament).
Rabbi Mark Miller
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment