2011 Holy Land Study Tour - Reflections on the last day

Reflections on the last last day:

After promising not to write on the Holy Sepulcher, I find myself eating my words. To clarify, I am not “the blonde,” nor am I Jane. This is Siobhan, now safely back in Pennsylvania and still reeling from my experiences in the Holy Land.

Jane, Ashley, and I remained at Dormition Abbey a full day after everyone else spirited away in the dark of night. It was a bit surreal: at dinner there were 10 of us, after cards 6, and after dawn only 3. The ladies remained, and at 5:30 we met in the garden. The morning was chill and misty, as I’ve come to expect from Jerusalem mornings, and we set out for Holy Sepulcher on my third dawn-time journey.

I love Jerusalem in the early morning: the streets are clean, glistening with morning dew and soft sunlight, almost empty but for a few stray cats stalking birds and a few other people, pilgrims, I like to think, strolling toward their holy destinations. At Holy Sepulcher there are maybe 20 or 30 people inside, including the Franciscans, Armenians, and Greeks responsible for its upkeep, the three of us, and a healthy handful of other pilgrims who decided to beat the crowds by arriving early. Like the streets of Jerusalem, in five hours the church will be packed with bright colors, whiffs of incense and perfume, and languages as varied as Babel.

Speaking of Babel, I like to think of Holy Sepulcher as a post-Incarnational answer to that ancient tower. Holy Sepulcher is a bit like a beached ship, washed ashore with a crew of disparate personalities who love their vessel but are suspicious of one another. In 1517 when the Ottomans conquered Jerusalem, they found a large Christian church filled with Armenians, Orthodox, and Catholics, each group resenting the presence of the others. They had their own little rituals, refused one another entry to specific chapels, and only compromised by saying, “On Tuesdays Catholics get the tomb from dawn to 7:00, Armenians 7:00-10:00, Greeks….” The Ottomans looked in on this arrangement and thought it wasn’t worth the agony to try to get the different groups to get along, so they passed the “Status Quo Law” which stated that everything that happens in the Holy Sepulcher must happen exactly as it did in 1517, or one of the other sects can take over the failed sect’s time/space. This plays out as the Franciscans making a procession every single day at 3:00 in the afternoon, during which they MUST arrive at a specific location at 3:05, another at 3:07, etc.

When the British came in, they renewed the Status Quo Laws, as did the Jewish when Israel was declared an independent Jewish state. Hence the Babel metaphor. But a lot has happened since 1517, and the various sects are not quite as disparate as they once were---I don’t mean theologically, but ideologically. We’ve all grown up a bit, and we know that God doesn’t like his children fighting. So yes, the Franciscans still do their processions and get to the same place at the same time each day, as do the others, but there’s not so much hostility: the people of Babel are learning multiple tongues, communicating across languages.

The diversity of Holy Sepulcher is one of its most endearing qualities: it’s a shabby building, clean but a bit run down. It was with the help of a Massachusetts couple that the dome over the tomb was renovated within the past couple years, but the whole church has a lived in feel, like a family home with a lot of kids. Arriving at 5:30 in the morning is like being the harried mother that gets up early to enjoy her cup of coffee before the kids start running around, screaming and tattling with a thousand spiritual needs.

To the right of the entrance a tucked away staircase climbs Calvary: at the top there’s an Orthodox chapel where the True Cross once stood. I spent a lot of time in that chapel. During the day, hordes of people wait in line to spend a few seconds in the Tomb before being asked to leave in consideration for others, at the place of the True Cross, occasionally a modest line of 20 people forms, but usually the chapel is left completely empty. Perhaps most tour guides only mention the tomb, or perhaps most Christians are only interested in the Resurrection, but like my fascination with Gethsemane, it is the Crucifixion that seems to me the most important event remembered in that building. Christ died. Christ suffered and died. Yeah, Christ is Risen, but I’m confident God could and would have raised us on the last day even without the amazing resurrection of his Son. What makes our God really special is that he became human, so human that the beginning and end of his life was marked by blood, sweat, and pain.

It is because the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us that I can look with confidence to the resurrection on the last day. What a proof of God’s Love.

~~~~~~~~~

The main church is arranged like a wheel: the hub is the Tomb, the spokes a dozen little chapels devoted to the soldier who recognized Jesus as the Son of God, to Mary Theotokos, to the pillar on which Jesus was whipped, to a rock stained with blood. . . . Beneath the wheel, like an axle, lies the spacious Armenian chapel where a charcoal drawing of a boat and a few people was discovered with a caption in rough Latin, “Iddimus Dominus” or, “we go to the Lord.” This drawing has been dated to the first century, when a pilgrimage to Christ’s tomb would have involved sneaking through tunnels beneath the Roman army to the place where the Roman emperor had erected a temple to Venus (out of spite? ignorance?) under pain of death. It is a great reminder of how much our ancestors would risk to touch a place Jesus touched. It also indicates how strongly the link between Jesus the Nazarene and the Lord God was felt so early in the tradition.

Beyond and below this chapel, another Armenian chapel is built over the place where St. Helena found the True Cross.

But I know what you’re really interested in is the Tomb.

The tomb was almost entirely destroyed by the Persians; what stands now is a reconstruction, not the stones Christ Jesus touched. The floor, however, is the original tomb, the bed rock of the area which the Persians could not destroy. The entrance to the tomb is like a little church all to itself: a domed, pink structure decorated by cherubim and a dozen giant golden candle sticks, surrounded by the sweet-smoky clouds of over a thousand years of incense. Ducking into the ante chamber, six or seven feet across and twenty feet high, you enter into silence, suddenly realizing how loud the whispering of other pilgrims is on the outside. In the center of the antechamber is a little table supporting a single candle. The only light.

A second small door, four feet tall, a foot and a half wide, waits for you on the other side. Inside, you can see a chamber just large enough to hold a body and not much else. Entering, you kneel, resting your head, your arms, on the stone worn down by pilgrim hands and tears, you touch it, you cannot imagine standing to leave again, for your heart has suddenly been pierced by that sword of love uniting us to the sufferings of Christ and him to ours. There is enough room for three people to bow their heads against to funerary stone, though I have crammed in there with as many as six. There must be decorations in the tomb: I have a vague memory of something glittering around me, but I do not know what they are. The plain, grayish white limestone where Jesus was laid and the angels reported the good news had more opulence than any amount of gold and jewels throughout the church.

When you leave Holy Sepulcher, there is no holy water font to mark your going, just solid wooden doors, which I always find myself touching like a mezuzah, and then you are away again, back in the streets and market places where Jesus once walked. 

Siobhan

2011 Holy Land Study Tour - Days Eighteen and Nineteen

Days 18 and 19: Masada, Qumran, and the Dead Sea, and free day--Reflections sprinkled in

Well, things have wound down to the end.  In the interest of full disclosure, these entries are being written after all of us have returned safely and soundly to our homes, cities, and lives, no doubt forever changed and enriched by the experiences we have shared together.   But being home also puts me in a position to reveal a personal detail that those of you who know me already know, and those who do not perhaps caught a few hints in the earlier entries.  I am the one Jew on this Catholic Holy Land experience.  I did not feel comfortable divulging this fact in some of the mixed companies in whose presence we would be on this trip, particularly when we would be in Arab lands such as the Palestinian territories.  I even chose to remove my "Chai" (Hebrew for life) charm necklace for the duration of this trip, as I had no desire to present any remote security risk to the group.  Frankly, this infuriates me to no end that we still live in a time in which a Jew cannot freely roam all areas of the Holy Land--the land of his forefathers--without fear for his life or putting his non-Jewish friends at potential risk.  I just had to vent a bit about this, and I pray that one day very soon the incitement will forever end and those who continue to choose terror and strife over peace will finally undergo a change of heart.   

But I digress.  I have nothing but wonderful things to say about everyone involved in this experience.  My group and our leader, Fr. Michael, couldn't have been more welcoming, open, kind, and every possible glowing adjective I can say about them.  My Judaism was NEVER a source of anything but fantastic (though sometimes humorous) interactions among the group.  We were inquisitive and curious about each other and our traditions, (there were other non-Catholics as well--a Lutheran and an Anglican) and  I hope the connections made can be replicated many times over within members of all our communities as we have seen on this trip. It is truly a blessing that we all must carry with us back to our lives and communities. 



Masada at the top.



The last sights to see left for the entire group were Masada, Qumran, and the Dead Sea.  Masada is the great fortress in the desert which was the site of the final Jewish revolt a few years after the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 A.D. (or C.E., depending on your tradition). Jewish tradition has generally taught that it was the greatest act of martyrdom in Jewish history, with nearly all those camped on Masada choosing suicide with honor over capture by the Romans and likely slaughter, torture, or at best, slavery.  This is the account of Josephus Flavius,  though archaeological evidence has since called some of this into question and it is now believed that there were more left when the Romans got up to the top than the earlier account contended, and that not all had in fact chosen suicide over capture.  So it's a bit less concrete than is sometimes taught, and for this reason and others, Masada has lost some of its sacred significance even in certain Jewish circles.  It used to be a spot for a significant ceremony for new inductees into the Israeli Defense Forces, but it has since been put aside on the grounds that even if the Josephus account were completely true, a mass suicide is not perhaps the right symbol to inspire those charged with protecting the very existence of a Jewish state.  In any event, the fortress consisted of practically an entire city, with homes, a synagogue, a palace, a cistern, and all the other necessities of life at the time.  The so-called "snake path" dates from this time--a serpentine path of over 1000 steps to the top of the mound.  Many groups walk this path to be at the top for sunrise.  We were not so ambitious--taking the cable car to the top instead, much to the relief of several in our group.     

Ancient ruins of Qumran.

Next was Qumran, another ancient village where, in caves just above this village, the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls was made in the 1940's and '50's--the oldest known surviving copies of the early Hebrew Scriptures which now make up the Tanach in Jewish tradition or Old Testament in the Christian tradition.  Again we were awed at the knowledge of the significance of what happened where we were standing.

Finally we ended the day with a swim in the world renowned Dead Sea--the lowest point on earth, 1312 ft. below sea level--the body of water with such a high salt content that it is physically impossible to do anything but float.  Quite an odd, but wonderful sensation.  Just make sure you don't get any water in your eyes like yours truly--OW, DID THAT STING!!!! Not to mention making sure you don't ingest any significant quantity of the water.  This can be deadly.  But no disasters, and we returned for our second to last dinner as a group, to discuss plans for our free day, the final day we would spend in the Holy Land.

I will leave it to other members to write about what they did on their free day--some went through Hezekiah's tunnel.  But this day was quite special for me along with Brother Michael-Leonard, Andy, and Brother Elias.  We first went back up to the Temple Mount to take some pictures since we thought we couldn't have cameras the first time up there.  But the highlight for me was bringing my friends (and particularly Michael-Leonard, with whom I have been close friends since my sophomore year at St. John's--everyone laughs when I tell them that one of my closest friends from college is a future priest--the Jew who went to St. John's, but I personally think it to be an incredible story) to the Kotel--the Western Wall--the holiest spot in all of Judaism--for a Jewish service.  My friends were interested and seemingly quite moved by the collection of prayers, particularly the moment when it is traditional to say a silent prayer, and when you are at the Kotel you normally write out a prayer of your own and place it between the cracks in the wall for God to find directly.  This we did, and again were hushed with awe at the tradition of all who have gone before us in this same action, century in and century out.  If I've ever seen religious harmony among differing faith traditions, this was most certainly it.

The dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,
as seen from the Temple Mount

We later went into St. Savior's Cathedral, the home church of the Catholic bishop for the area, hoping to find the time for his mass, but were unsuccessful.  We also did the Ramparts Walk--a walk along the top of the walls of the Old City, giving us never before seen views of the life within those walls, so similar, yet so different, from how things have been for thousands of years.    Finally we had lunch and coffee in the main square of the Jewish Quarter and did some people-watching and reflecting there.  Then, ironically to my friends, I was the one who decided I had to wait in line to go into the Holy Sepulcher one more time (as I still hadn't sanctified my holy object for my friend). This I did without a hitch, but I was in line for one more crazy story, which anyone who knows me can attest to how prone I am to such.  I decided I had to return to say one more set of prayers at the Kotel before going back to Dormition for the last time.  Unfortunately, I hadn't deep enough pockets to hide the crucifix with body of Jesus that I had just sanctified at the Holy Sepulcher, and let's just say that didn't go over too well with the Orthodox Jews who man the Kotel to ensure it remains pure and unblemished.  I explained that I was simply carrying it for a friend.  They understood (possibly anyway--their English was a bit elementary), but made me leave it with them while I prayed one more time at the Wall.

With that story under my belt as a fitting way to end this trip, I then returned, we had a farewell dinner with even more laughs and smiles, and then over the next few hours we all headed to the airport, all understanding that none of us would ever be the same, in the most wonderful way a person can be changed.  There is truly nothing more I can say to describe it.  I will forever be grateful for all that has happened in these three weeks, and I know my colleagues feel the same.

L'Shalom--again, to peace everlasting,

Alex

2011 Holy Land Study Tour - Day Seventeen

Day 17 - Yad V'Shem, Ein Kerem

After a festive barbecue and social with the incredibly kind, hilarious, intelligent, and hospitable monks of Dormition last night--a real highlight of this trip for many of us, I guess things had to come down a little bit today, but it is still something one has to do on any visit to Israel.  Yad V'Shem is Israel's Holocaust Memorial Museum, similar to ones in Washington D.C. and Berlin. The museum's title translates from Hebrew to "Place and Name"--a reference to the fact that for a long time many of the victims of this atrocity were almost faceless and at least personally forgotten, until they could be given a place and a name in which to be remembered.   It, of course, holds special significance here in Israel as it was the Holocaust that helped shed light on the need to move forward on the earlier Balfour Declaration from after World War I promising to establish a Jewish state in part of the British Mandate of Palestine.

Of course any such circumstances become messy, and pieces are still being picked up today, but the fact remains that the necessity for a Jewish homeland certainly hits home when one gets a stark reminder of what happened in the twelve horrific years of Hitler's rule in Germany.  Every exhibit, every section of the museum is powerful, from the very shape of the building, seemingly on the premise of moving up a slight incline (perhaps implying hope for an uphill climb for society from the lessons learned from such an occurrence) as well as moving from darkness at the beginning of the exhibits to light at the end (and a beautiful view of Jerusalem). Of course there are plenty of unpleasant stops along the way, to pictures from the barracks of the death camps, a model of those very same barracks, as well as of the cattle cars used to transport prisoners to their death, and many explanations of where the roots of this attempted genocide derived and how it evolved into concrete plans and ultimately, actions that, while thankfully ultimately failed in their final aim, certainly came much closer to achieving it than should be able to happen in a civilized world.  Some of us did think, though, that there was perhaps an overemphasizing of the connection to earlier Christian anti-Semitism without enough of an acknowledgement of the likely even greater role that secularism played.

It was discussed at dinner tonight that writings from Hitler's secretary, published after his death, reveal that although Hitler used religious rhetoric in some of his speeches, what he said when his conversations were not meant for public consumption made perfectly clear that it was nothing but an act to string along a still religious German population and that Hitler himself was highly anti-religion and thought of it in much the same way as Karl Marx did--as an "opiate for the masses to keep them in line."  This segued into a couple of other interesting discussion topics including my positing that perhaps there is a bit of a political agenda to emphasizing the older Christian influence over the more immediate secular influence because at the moment Israel has, at the very least, a much larger secular population than they do a Christian one, so I thought perhaps they figured, better to ruffle the Christians' feathers than the secularists.  But maybe that's a bit cynical. Oh well, you never know what's really on people's minds.  

Fr. Michael also noted that Germany has tried like no other perpetrator of any previous historical wrong to make concrete amends and heal the wounds, to whatever extent they possibly can be healed, and this in many ways was done on both sides through religious influences of many types, while the actual hatred of the Nazis was indeed rooted more in a secular worship of the state and race.  Other topics came up involving the much debated role of Pope Pius XII and how more work has been emerging recently that he may have felt that by speaking out too loudly he was actually doing more harm than good, as several times his vocal statements had actually seemed to lead to more killings directly in immediate response, and that he felt he could do the most good more quietly and discretely, through such moves as ordering cloisters to open their doors to Jewish refugees.  One exhibit does acknowledge that Jews in Italy fared much better than in much of the rest of Europe, with around 80% surviving.  Whatever the case, it's all a lot to think about and too much to take in and accurately process in one day.  Sometimes that takes more like a lifetime.....

Today also included a stop at Ein Kerem, the old home for this trip in fact, in the early years that Fr. Michael ran it.  This section of modern West Jerusalem is home to the Visitation Church, traditionally held to be the location of Mary's visit to her sister, Elizabeth, as well as another church commemorating the birth of Elizabeth's son, John the Baptist, sometimes described as being the second coming of the prophet Elijah.   We ended the night with a visit to the East Jerusalem home (and quite a beautiful one at that) of the owner of our tour company, where we had quite a pleasant visit and some more good laughs.   Only two more days now, with tomorrow holding visits to the ancient fortress Masada--site of the most significant act of mass martyrdom in the history of Judaism, followed by a swim in the Dead Sea (hope nobody has any cuts--if so, OUCH!!!) and finally a visit to Qumran, the location of the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls.  Good night all, yet another toast to a lasting peace, all the more urgent when one is rudely reminded what humans can be capable of (and some still incite today).  May it one day be not so......

Alex

2011 Holy Land Study Tour - Day Sixteen

Day 16 - Holy Sepulchre; Monastery of St. George of Koziba; Jericho (Tel Es-Sultan); Jesus' Baptismal Site (Qasr el Yahud); Ascension Day Vespers and Outdoor Barbecue

Ascension Day dawned with rays of sunlight in my third floor room of "St. Thomas" and the usual 5 am bells urging all to get up for monastic Vigil and Lauds. No choice to sleep in for another two hours as today we were soon walking quickly down Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate Road, arriving at the Holy Sepulchre by
7:15 for our own Mass there at the Latin Calvary chapel. No St. Cyril of Jerusalem to be found - more will be written of this church and our experience there by our blond blogger, the focus of interest and marriage proposals from of many a camel owner...

It was already getting very warm by the time Jamal picked us up for our trip to Tel Es-Sultan (Jericho) in the West Bank, but we stopped about 20 km from Jerusalem (likely the same road on which the Good Samaritan walked) to see if the 6th century Orthodox monastery of St. George of Koziba might be open. This complex, complete with garden, is at the bottom of a steep stony track and the group of bedouins selling goods at the top of the path announced that it was open for visitors, despite it being Ascension Day. Women pilgrims/tourists are permitted at St. George's as the monks, centuries ago, received a sick noblewoman, whom had been convinced (by the Theotokos) to ask for assistance there. John of Thebes had been the first monastic inhabitant, after he left the Sinai area in the 4th century and relocated to this area of the Wadi Qilt. The skull and bones of monks, killed by Persian invaders about two hundred years later, are found in the monastery chapel. The treckers arrived back almost two hours later, tired and thirsty, collapsing into the seats of the "Sinbad bus", not all ready for the blistering heat of Jericho. They reported that the treck
had been very worthwhile, the present day monks being equally friendly.

Jericho is about 250 metres below sea level and is the oldest town on earth, settled by prehistoric nomads likely because of the temperate winter climate, warm summers, and wonderful subterranean fed oasis which still allows the growth of apricots, pineapples, figs, and other fruits and vegetables. The rich and famous built homes here or at least owned property - Selucid generals, Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and Herod the Great (his winter palace and aqueduct system). The Tel Es-Sultan site proved very interesting, though not exactly correlating with the Jericho of Biblical fame. The 15 metre mound shows evidence of multiple (>18) towns/civilizations, the first dating from the Mesolithic period (15,000 - 8000 BCE). A well preserved stone staircase leads to the defence tower for this town. Pottery has been found from the people of about 4000 BCE - these people lived in pits or huts partially under ground. The last inhabitants seem to have been those before the 7th century exile to Babylon. In Jericho, we had the usual falafel or smorgasboard salad, looked around a not very interesting tourist "boutique" and purchased local dried and candied fruit and nuts. Then, it was off to another Greek monastery (this time just off the road with no "trecking"), with less friendly monastics and an uncommunicative parrot, and then to Jesus' baptismal site on the River Jordan.

By now, it was EXTREMELY hot, and the drive to the baptismal site not very romantic, as the short road had protective barbed wire on each side. On the other side of the wire were mines with the everpresent Israeli military, complete with checkpoint. Apparently,the baptismal site has only recently been re-opened to pilgrims. The River Jordan, by the time it reaches this site (Qasr el Yahud) is narrow and on the other side of the river is the Jordanian equivalent with more tourists and a Jordanian guard. It was easy to speak to those on the "other side". The Jordanian site is that which was visited by Pope John Paul 11 and declared a Holy Site.

The Thursday evening was most enjoyable as we returned from our long day and joined Sung Vespers at Dormition Abbey, sitting in the Sanctuary with members of the German monastic community. Vespers, of course, was in German, but we did have copies of the Breviary and could at least follow the plainsong psalms and canticles and the readings.Afterward, Abbot Benedict, the monastic, and the lay volunteer communities hosted a sumptuous feast, a very European style barbecue, complete with white tablecloths, silver cutlery, much wine, and Bavarian beer. There was lamb, sausage, pita bread and rolls, multiple salads, and an elaborate Middle Eastern desert and choice of pastries. The three resident cats (two calico and one ginger) were there too. Surprisingly (as least to me), there were Benedictine community members (of Dormition Abbey) from Croatia, Belfast, and ?Cyprus, as well as from various parts of Germany. Abbot Benedict told us of his efforts to bring together the Jews, Muslims, and Christians for prayer and dialogue.

That is enough for tonight - any my first attempt at blogging.

Jane

2011 Holy Land Study Tour - Day Fifteen

Day 15 - Caesarea Maritima

Please pardon another short entry, today was a less dramatic day, but more profound in a way, and I'll get to why in a minute.  Our main site today was a side trip to the Herodian harbor town of Caesarea Maritima along the Mediterranean coast, about halfway between Tel Aviv and Haifa.  Built as Herod's way of ingratiating himself to Caesar Augustus, it is another set of ancient Roman ruins including a cardo (something like today's equivalent of a main street) running through the city, a track used for chariot races, and a grand theater. (We've seen several of these types of sites now now, and while the general consensus is that the group members are a bit more awed by the religious ones than those of this nature, the splendor of the waters as blue as the sky certainly still made it something special.  

We also saw an area in which Pontius Pilate would have kept an office of sorts, and from which he would likely have been summoned to Jerusalem for the trial of Jesus.  It took us quite a while to get back as the traffic into Jerusalem was beyond belief due to the festival referred to yesterday.  I'm writing this a little after 10:30 at night, and I can still hear the commotion (following an amazing fireworks display) outside my window.  Apparently things have gotten a bit out of hand in past years, as the day revolves around school children as the primary celebrators, but apparently no major security breaches have taken place. Still, we were glad to be, for the most part, only exposed to the fringes of it.

I did want to comment, however, on the (I think) quite special chemistry this group seems to have.  You hear so many horror stories especially on trips this long about tensions and bad blood that seem to break out among members of a group like this, but it seems to me that although several of us knew each other (a few very well) prior to this trip, even those about whom this is not the case are now talking like old friends.  Various combinations of us had two highly enjoyable sessions up on our roof deck tonight, both before and after dinner, and discussed multiple topics, humorous and serious, significant and insignificant (several of us capping the night off with a lively game of hearts in which a certain player (ok, I'll admit it was me) learned that the bad karma you get from dropping the queen of spades on a priest in three consecutive rounds will always come back to bite you in the end!!!!).  

But in any event, we got plenty of laughs at dinner too, aided by Father Michael's now famous story telling penchant. It seems rare for groups like this to relate to each other in such a seemingly unblemished way (especially groups with characters like we have) but I just felt this was worth a comment, and perhaps this is just the spirit of St. John's shining through.  Well, four more days--can't believe it. Tomorrow we will have mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and then head to Jericho (where hopefully one day soon the situation will be such that the walls can come tumbling down again!!)   

To peace.......

Alex

2011 Holy Land Study Tour - Day Fourteen

View of Mount of Olives.

Day 14 - Temple Mount, Upper Room, St. Peter in Gallicantu, Jewish Quarter

This morning we made perhaps the most daring trek of our trip. (I exaggerate, of course, but it's something we weren't even entirely sure was going to happen.  We walked on the Temple Mount and got as close as any non-Muslim can ever get to the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque (meaning we could walk up to it but not go inside).  Until the start of the Second Intifada in September of 2000, these sites were open to the public, but no longer. Now one must recite a fundamental Islamic tenet in order to enter, and saying the text of said tenet makes one a Muslim even if they weren't before. In short, as it has been said "They play for keeps over here" so this is not an area one should ever consider messing with.  But we were awed enough at simply seeing it up close.  

The Dome of the Rock was built, it is believed, directly over what was the Holy of Holies from the period of the two Temples, and was in fact, meant to be a gesture of victory of Islam superseding Christianity and Judaism. (It was also built using Byzantine architects and styles, in another attempt to show up those they had conquered when they decided to erect the monument.  Jews are not even allowed on the Temple Mount right now, though not entirely for the reason one might expect. Orthodox Jews, who still tend to run the show when it comes to the religious sites of the Old City (though the Christian sites are run by the Franciscans) believe that since we don't know exactly where the Holy of Holies actually was, any Jew who enters the Temple Mount runs the risk of desecrating it by stepping on the Holy of Holies.  

It is, interestingly enough, one of the few areas where there is actually some security cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and Jews and Muslims in general, because both have a vested interest in ensuring that violence does not break out in this area.  The security is truly amazing--you need to go through airport-style security to get into both the Temple Mount as well as the Western Wall plaza.  In any event, the Dome of the Rock is the third holiest site in Islam (with Mecca and Medina being the first two) and built to commemorate the ascension into Heaven of the prophet Mohammed.  It is, of course, a Mosque, but contrary to its grand appearance, the worship space is rather small, thus necessitating the accommodation of many more worshipers than it is capable of holding, thus the later construction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the other end of the Mount, which has a smaller dome, but more worship space. (Father Michael has seen both from the inside, as his leading of these trips predates the Second Intifada, so he was able to give us a bit of a virtual experience).  



Site commemorating
the Last Supper
 

The Holy Staircase, down which
Jesus tread on the night
of the Last Supper

From there we had to go back to Dormition to fetch our cameras and the like, as we were under the mistaken impression that cameras and notebooks were not permitted on the Temple Mount for fear that they might be related to various sinister plots (not entirely unfounded, as such plots do exist, but apparently the camera restriction has been relaxed, because we saw plenty of cameras. We were unable to get pictures, but perhaps some of us will return there later this week to get a few to put up here.  

We next went into a building commemorating the Last Supper (referred to as the "Upper Room."  This is another one in which the archeological evidence is a bit sketchy, as is the case with the St. Peter in Gallicantu church, which is one of the four possible places in which Jesus may have been imprisoned before being sentenced by Pilate. The dungeon-like area below the church has an outline on the wall that seems to possibly suggest a body chained to it or suspended by strings from the ceiling.

Either way, we know we were in the general vicinity of where the events leading up to the passion took place, and we even saw a staircase that is pretty well proven to date from those times and likely was the actual staircase down which Jesus would have walked on the night of the Last Supper. This was another site that several of us wanted to sanctify our objects by touching them to the steps, which became a bit of a comical sight since the steps are roped off and we had to contort ourselves a bit to lean far enough over the rope to just barely touch our objects to one of the stairs.

We then went into the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, which is mostly residential but we did see from the outside the newly reconstructed synagogue that had been built along with Dormition Abbey but was destroyed in Israel's War of Independence in 1948. This is in the main square of the Jewish Quarter.  It was getting rather crowded and noisy, thus, difficult to do much explaining of the sites (and the main site in the Jewish Quarter is the Western Wall, which we have already done--the retaining wall around the Temple Mount , considered today to be the holiest spot in Judaism).  

So Father Michael ended the day of touring a bit early and gave us some free time, which several of us used to do some souvenir shopping and people watching in the Jewish Quarter.  We learned that the crowds were in anticipation of Jerusalem Day tomorrow.  This is a festival commemorating the reuniting of West Jerusalem with the Old City (technically part of East Jerusalem), which was under Jordanian control and Israel had no access to until the 1967 Six-Day War.  This is obviously still a contentious issue, (not with Jordan any longer, but with the Palestinians) but several people assured us that nowhere is security better than in the Old City (and there were indeed soldiers nearly everywhere you looked) and that attacks are generally in the less guarded areas of the modern city of West Jerusalem.  We aren't even going to be in Jerusalem tomorrow, as we will be taking a side trip, to be explained tomorrow.  

After dinner several of us decided to take a night time walk back into the Jewish Quarter to get a taste of the night life there and it was really quite wonderful.  We went back into the Kotel (Western Wall) complex and saw lots of festivities, singing and dancing, again in anticipation of the events tomorrow.  We ended the night in a cafe back in the main square by the aforementioned synagogue doing a little more people-watching and contemplating our good fortune at being here.  All is wonderful here, and we are starting to dread this experience coming to an end.  Still a few more days though, and more memories to be made.  Good night everyone, may God be with you.....

Alex