Sometimes, the spiritual life in Jerusalem is so strong that the faith is almost palpable in the air. At no time have I experienced this sensation more stongly than this past week, when religious pilgrims of all sorts descended unto the city to celebrate both Pesach (Passover) and Easter.
Pesach began at dusk on April 2nd, the day after I got back from my hiking trip. I was invited to celebrate by having Seder with my Hebrew U law professor, Alan Zysblat, and his family. I had never been to a Seder before, and was nervous about what to expect, but ended up having a wonderful time. Professor Zysblat has children around my age, and all of them had gathered at their beautiful apartment with friends to celebrate. Everyone was involved in serving the dishes and reading from the Haggadah, and I instantly felt like one of the family. I had never tried gefilte fish or matzah ball soup, and while I prefer the soup to the fish, both were good. We drank the obligatory four glasses of wine, which gave way to rousing songs continued late into the evening, extolling the Exodus from Egypt.
Pesach then continued until the following Monday; eight days. During that time, there was an influx of visiting Jews, here to celebrate a central theme of Passover; "Next Year in Jerusalem!". Most restaurants were closed or had special menus that were Kosher for Pesach. While I don't mind matzah, I really missed cereal, but all the grocery stores had huge curtains over all prohibited food, and refused to sell it. Normally, an integral part of Passover is not only to refrain from eating leavened bread, but to clean and kosherize the kitchen, removing all chametz. My roommates decided the latter was not important to their individual observance, so our kitchen could still have leavened products in it. My friend, Lincoln who is Christian, accompanied me to the Arab part of town where we had no trouble finding him a loaf of bread and myself a box of honey nut cheerios, which got us through the week just fine. Up until that point, Lincoln had been living off of a stick of salami and Pepsi.
Spending Passover here was a wonderful experience because I learned so much. It felt so different to be in a minority during a major holiday, but it was great fun to take part in the capacity that I did, and to have everything explained to me by my friends. Lana was telling me how she and he family normally act out each of the ten plagues by using props- little faux locusts and frogs.
Starting on Good Friday, a huge population of Christian pilgrims joined the already-crowded city to celebrate Easter in the Holy Land. Most came from as far away as Ethiopia and the more orthodox countries like Greece and Russian. They wore white garb and congregated in the Christian and Armenian quarters. On Saturday, my friends and I headed to the Old City to take part in some of the festivities. There were darkly colored eggs in rich reds and yellows, and the narrow alleyways were so crowded with people! At noon that day, there is a huge celebration at the Church of The Holy Sepulchre called "The Holy Fire", which is thought to be the oldest Christian tradition, dating back to the 4th century, and then steadily documented from 1106. It is recognized by Catholics who are mostly Orthodox,and is pretty cool. The Archbishop of the Church goes into the tomb of Jesus alone, and pilgrims chant outside until he comes out with a lamp of olive oil that they believe has been lit by God. The coolest part is that first, Israeli authorities search the archbishop for anything that could be used to start fire. It's like he's the holiest Houdini ever. Then, these Christians believe that the fire will not burn believers for the first 33 minutes that it is lit. So, to add to the general mayhem of the Old City, people were running around with these huge clusters of lit candles, stciking their limbs and faces in it. The best part was that, last semester I wrote a huge paper for Romanesque Art at Smith on the Church and the tradition, and then I actually got to take part.
The next morning, Lincoln and I joined some other friends who are Christian and attended church services at the Garden Tomb at dawn. Right outside the gates of the Old City, the Garden is thought by many Christians to have belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, and to be the site of the tomb of Jesus. There were 1400 people gathered at the service we attended, and it was amazing to see how far people had come to worship, and what their religion means to them. parts of it were a litttle freaky because I am not used to Evangelical services, but the overall idea was nice. I didn't know about one tradition in which people come up to you and say "He is risen!" and you're supposed to say "He is Risen, Indeed, Allelujah!". Somone came up to me an said it and I was like "Wha?" until Lincoln jumped in.
After Church (and a nap) Sara visited from Florence. I made she and her borther a Kosher dinner, since everything closed down for a second Shabbat on the last day of pesach. I haven't seen Sara since last June, and really enjoyed hearing about her experiences in Itlay.
Monday we all went out as stores were re-opening after the end of Passover (at around 9pm) to officially break the fast at one of our favorite restaurants, Burgers Bar!
Altogether, it was probably my favorite period of my time here, because experiencing the convergence of holidays gave me a glimpse of the true importance of this place to people and their spirituality. To see people devoted to their individual faiths was so inspiring. There was one time, in the Old City, where I was surrounded by Christian pilgrims, Orthodox Jews, on their respective holidays, and heard the Muslim call to prayer, and I thought "This is what this place is all about".
No comments:
Post a Comment