Shabbos in Jerusalem

Shabbos morning began with, what else, breakfast. As much as we have enjoyed the wonderful varieties of Israeli salads, we're ready to move on and enjoy a bagel--they don't serve bagels and lox for breakfast.
Stu and I joined 12 others from our tour and attend part of the services at the Great Synagogue, the largest Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem. In this massive holy building the men are downstairs while the women are seated in the balcony, ample but far from the downstairs action. This morning there is a Bar Mitzvah whose voice rises majestically as he is called to the bema. He is dressed casually all in white as he takes his place among the men. Friends and relatives are seated with us, preparing their baskets of candy to throw to him in celebration. This is a joyous occasion.
Stu wraps himself in a tallit and attempts to follow the Hebrew prayers. He recalled Charlie's visit to this same synagogue where Charlie said yitzker for the grandfather who died before his birth. Stu also said yitzker for his father, like son, like father.
Seated above I watched the activity below, the variety of styles of dovening, the men either in tallit or in black. I couldn't follow the Hebrew, but I had picked up a seder that had English translations opposite the Hebrew prayers. This Art Scroll edition provided commentary and an index which made it easier to follow. I skipped forward so that I could also say yitzker for my parents, mother and father. I wondered if on their only visit to Israel, if they had found their way to this synagogue, if they had said prayers for their grandparents or deceased parents. I found prayers for the sick and recited those as well, adding the names of our friends and family in need of healing. I read a passage that suggests that sometimes you can trick the evil one, turn his attention away from the sick, by changing the sick person's name. I gave one of our friend's names and quickly substituted a new name to fool the evil one. I hope it works and that I didn't inadvertently substitute someone's name who will now fall ill.

After services we went as a larger group to the Eratz Israel National Museum, the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a 50:1 model of ancient Jerusalem (some fact and much fiction). The model above shows the Temple as it may have appeared during Herod's time, prior to the Roman's destruction of Jerusaleum and the second temple. In addition to the temple, there's a massive wall built by King Herod in order to flatten the top of this hill so that he could rebuild the temple in even grander style. It is a small portion of this wall, on the western side, that we refer to as our Western Wall or Wailing Wall. This portion of the wall is the closest we are now able to come to the actual site of the temple, it is not the temple wall. Efforts to escavate closer to the temple site have been stopped by Arab objections. For peace, Israel has not excavated beneath the temple, only outside of Herod's walls. I think again about the prayers I read this morning. Throughout the Jewish liturgy the word peace, the efforts to live in peace, is the central theme. How does this very peace loving people continually get attacked? Our tour guide, Ron Perry, suggests that anti-semitism came into being because the Jews dared to say there is only one G-d, not many. The Jews also held up a moral mirror, a code that said Thou Shalt not Kill, or Covet, at a time when killing and coveting your neighbor's wife or land was the custom of the land.

After spending some time considering ancient Jerusalem, we went to the Shrine of the Book to see parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other artifacts found in Kiryat Quaram. Imagine, these scrolls date back over 2000 years and support much of the text in the Torah. We are indeed, people of the book.