Travel to Israel is never dull. Life is political and the political is life. And nowhere is this truer than in Jerusalem. For thousands of years, since King David first conquered this city and made it the capital of the people of Israel, Jerusalem touches one’s soul like no other city.
A small group of us broke off from the main group’s trek to the Dead Sea and Masada to spend the day with Ze’ev, our PhD tour guide who would try to educate us and immerse us in the mystical teaching of Judaism, Kabbalah, as we walked the less traveled ancient streets of the Old City. On the famous roof top of the Maronite Church we could look out over so many holy sites in the old city to the Mount of Olives and beyond. The light reflected on the ancient Jerusalem stone, and we were transported to ancient times.
We listened to our guide speak about the historical emergence of the mystical Kabbalistic traditions in Judaism, (and later Christianity and Islam). As he spoke, calm of the city was shattered by sounds of “fire crackers” (to those who may never have heard guns before.) But we knew these ominous sounds, having once found ourselves in the line of fire of katusha rockets from Lebanon in a trip with the children more than a dozen years ago.
We saw the flashes of flares and other signs of violence the sounds heralded. The guide contextualized the conflict for us. The Arabs in the Old City were protesting the rebuilding of a synagogue in the Jewish Quarter which had been destroyed in the War of Independence. We went on with our tour and learned about the vital role this synagogue played in the history of Kabbalah.
We walked the old city for hours while we saw the layers of mystical/historical thought build one upon the other. We learned about the sparks of the divine that had been dispersed when the world began. We learned that these sparks are hidden and can be found within us and others, all over the world. We learned that one can learn where and how to look.
By the end of the day I had a very small grasp of places, people and thoughts which I had never imagined (and definitely still do not understand). The mystical was no longer magical; it had taken me to a new, but limited, way of thinking about my relationship to the divine.
At the end of the day, as we stood again looking down at the Old City, which is maybe the size of 4 Home Depots we were told today, the bursts of fire brought us back from the mystical into the realities of the religious life in Jerusalem. Full of conflict, full of rage.
And I thought about where my own life these past 10-12 years. How much conflict, and how much rage I had endured. And I thought that maybe the political is always personal and the personal can be very political. And that these conflicts will inevitably go on as long as there is something to fix in the world.
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