Into Israel-- Part Six

The old city of Jerusalem is a fascinating cornucopia of all kinds of things, including all things religious. We will pay a lot of attention to the church of the Holy Sepulchre in this post but let’s consider the old city itself first with its religious districts, street vendors, and ancient history, including the remnants of the Roman cardo running from Damascus gate right through the center of the old city. What would the city have been like during festival time in Jesus’ day. This picture, which hangs next to part of the cardo gives you an idea….

And here’s the cardo remnants today

But lest you have some illusion that you are actually walking on the same streets as Jesus, well, here’s hole in the ground near the street just pictured, to make clear that ground level was way lower back then, than now…

Street level was about two thirds down in that hole.

Here are the streets today….

And those streets are teaming with vendors selling everything imaginable…

If a minions T shirt is not your cup of tea, how about a crown of thorns?

Oh wait…. this seems familiar and tempting…

But I’ve a better idea…. how about some delicious middle eastern food…

But actually the smart way to see the town and visit the religious sites is to go very early in the morning before the crowds arrive, and before the vendors get going. Like say at 8 in the morning or earlier….

The shops are all closed, and you can actually see things, like where you are going and where to turn to get to the temple mount…

O.K. finally, I’ve gotten to the right place…

So first of all, the temple mount is just a platform on which the temple stood. Nothing much is left of it…. maybe a fragment here or there, like this one

Which says something like ‘to the trumpets….’ a place where the ram’s horn or shofar would be blown to call people to prayer or worship.

The wailing wall is really the western wall of the platform on which the temple sat, and it is as close as Jews can get to their holy place, since they are prohibited from being in the muslim holy space on top of the platform where you have the Al-Aksa mosque near the pinnacle of the temple and the Dome of the Rock (supposedly where Abraham offered Isaac in sacrifice, but more important where some muslims believe Mohammed ascended into heaven)

Jews come to the western wall to pray and study Torah, and there are bar and bas mitzvahs here where teens take on the yoke of Torah and are considered adult enough to do so.

The men and the women are segregated here, women to the right of the partition where you see the tents, men to the left.

The prayer practice sometimes involves writing out a prayer and placing it in the cracks of the wall itself, which they have to clean out from time to time. On sabbat you can hear some of the more orthodox singing ‘we want messiah, we want messiah now’. Their belief is that when messiah returns they will be able to rebuild the temple.

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On the other side of town, people are rushing to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Greek Orthodox, Latin Catholics, Armenian Orthodox, Copts, Ethiopians, and Syrian-Jacobites all lay claim to space and have worship spots including small chapels in some cases, as we shall see. Since the middle ages the person who has the key to the main entrance to the church is a member of a muslim family, so little could Christians agree on who had the right to have the keys. At least lately various of the six denominations agreed to allow cleaning and repairs where needed.

Here’s our muslim friend who is constantly at church with the keys, there to open it, there to close it, and sometimes there in between times. Who will you see when you get there—many priests and monks…. some are quite friendly and will talk with you as did these orthodox priests below talking to our guide Leah…

In addition there are many many pilgrims in line to kiss the slab where tradition says Jesus was lain when he was taken down from the cross, or to enter the space where tradition says his tomb was…

This chapel is the traditional location where it was believed Jesus was buried….

The lines go round and round awaiting their time to go in…

Many of the Catholics will have walked the via dolorosa and stopped at the stations of the cross along the way, the last few of which are in the church of the Holy Sepulchre itself….

We were fortunate this time as the crowds were not so huge and so we were able to see and take pictures of various things including some of the small chapels. There is even an Ethiopian chapel on the roof of the church…