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First Davvening at the Kotel
My first experience of the Kotel was Wednesday morning, after having a chance to go the Mikveh. The Kotel is a joyous and awesome place. The davvening there is extraordinary. The size and antiquity of the stones and the Wall itself and the incredible diversity of Jews inspire an “I-can’t-believe-I’m-actually-here” sort of reverence. Davvening together in a minyan is always bonding experience, and there’s something particularly beautiful about the spontaneity and depth of that bonding experience at the Kotel. It just me made want to shout the Hallelukahs at full volume.
However, there was something that struck me afterwards as very peculiar about that scene in the Kotel Plaza, something that didn’t seem quite right. I was told that when standing at the Kotel while davvening, you should face a little bit to the left rather than straight at the wall because we’re supposed to align our bodies, hearts and minds, not to the wall, but to the site of the Holy of Holies that sits under the current site of the big domed mosque. The Wall, after all, is only a retaining wall--it’s what sits inside the wall, the site of the Holy Temple and the Holy of Holies within it that is supposed to be the true target of our prayers.
There are two troubling things about this. The first is a technical issue. There is a technique to effective prayer. Prayer isn’t just a form of self-expression. Real prayer can and should make a difference in the world. We should have the expectation that the world is changed by our prayers, and there are ways to make prayer more effective. Facing the Holy of Holies with our bodies and in our hearts and minds is one of the “tips” for making one’s prayers more effective that unfortunately does not seem commonly practiced in front of the Kotel.
The second issue is political. Among the most moving and significant words to be spoken in 2000 years were the words of Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren when the IDF captured Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in the ’67 war. He said, “Har Habayit B’Yadeinu,” “The Temple Mount is in our hands.” The words were broadcast and recorded over his army walkie-talkie and they reverberated from one end of the world to the other. At last, after 2000 years of longing and suffering, our holiest site, the main link connecting G-d to all creation was back in our control. However, in one of the greatest tragedies of modern times, the Israeli government, within days, had relinquished control over the Temple Mount to the very people who most wanted us and Israel to be dead.
Just imagine that you’ve been forcibly separated from your mother and father for a very long time – 20, 30, or 40 years – and finally after that long long separation you had the opportunity to once again enter and make yourself at home in their house. But rather than coming in the house and embracing your parents, you instead give the house keys to the very people who most recently kicked you out of it. You make a beautiful patio in their front yard, and you satisfy yourself with standing on the patio and waving to your beloved parents through the window.
There’s something simultaneously so sweet and so bitter about being here. Looking on this beautiful scene of the Kotel plaza, I can’t help but feel simultaneously uplifted and downcast. Being here is truly special. There is something very unique and very holy about this place. It feels like every one of these very diverse Jews that run into here is somehow intimately connected to me. The sense of Hashem’s Hashgacha that is the consciousness of being in Eretz Yisrael is nowhere as intense as it is here in the Old City in general and in the Kotel plaza in particular. If I had the opportunity, I’d like to just park myself here for hours and bask in the special energy of the place. At the same time, however, it’s very unsettling and unsatisfying, knowing that the real, in-depth experience of that energy isn’t really here. It’s up on the Temple Mount, which right now is in the hands of people who hate us and who actively attempt to erase our connection to that site.
I think this scene at the Kotel succinctly captures both the glory and the tragedy of the state of Israel. On the one hand, the state has brought us to the courtyard of our home, the destination we have been trying to reach for 2000 years. On the other hand, the state is actively trying to keep us from going past the courtyard and actually entering our home to embrace ourselves and special connection to G-d.
Our Time in Jerusalem
I was hoping to enjoy some of the many wonderful tours and museums here in the Old City, but this was not a popular concept among our four kids. Nisan most enjoyed just walking around the small but intense jigsaw puzzle of streets that comprises the Jewish Quarter. Mendel and Hadassah most enjoyed playing with the many wild cats that live here. I watched them literally for hours as they chased after, petted, and played with these cats. The only breaks in the play with the kitties were to climb a tree or fence or wall. My supervision and sometimes intervention, when the climbing seemed too dangerous, were the only interruptions in their otherwise play filled afternoon. One of the kids’ special treats here was climbing a carob tree growing on one of the trees in a public courtyard and bringing back handfuls of delicious carob pods for us to enjoy.
All the kids enjoyed our long walk to the Machene Yehuda market where we had some great treats and purchased some gifts and some things helpful to our trip. It was quite a crowd scene, not unexpected in these days just prior to Sukkos.
From there we walked to Mea Shearim, to witness the great Arbah Minim markets, to purchase Lulavim and Hadassim (we had already gotten our Esrogim in Chevron) and to be part of the getting-ready-for-Sukkos scene in this largest and most intensely religious Jewish neighborhood in the world.
My Hashgacha Pratis at the Kotel Story
I think everyone who comes here feels something of Hashem’s special hasgacha--special supervision here--especially at the Kotel, and comes home with a story about it. Often it’s meeting someone that they never would have expected to meet up with. My special hashgacha pratis at the Kotel story happened Shabbos/Yom Tov morning. I went to the Kotel to learn some Chassidus and davven, but didn’t bring a sefer with me to learn.
There’s one area of Chassidus that I’ve been particularly interested in related to the creative power within the soil – the Koach Hatzomeach – and the relation between the “Yesh,” the “ego” the sense of beingness that characterizes all physical creation and the ultimate “Yesh” of G-d’s being. It’s not much discussed, and except for a few fleeting references, I had yet to find much elaboration of the concept.
I was disappointed with the selection of Chassidus in the Seforim libray at the Kotel. There was one just volume. It was a volume of the Previous Rebbe’s Mamaarim from the year 1930-31. There was one maamar from Succos in this volume, and virtually the entire maamar was a lengthy and de!tailed explanation of the Koach Hatzomeach and it’s relationship to the temporal and G-dly sense of being and nothingness. What a special gift!
Spirituality at the Kotel
There is a popular notion that spiritual experience is supposed to be either serene and pleasant or wondrous and awesome. However, the experience at the Kotel fell into neither of these categories. At this peak spiritual season, the Kotel is very crowded and requires a bit of jostling, the violation of what we normally consider to be personal space of others and vice versa. There are many minyanim going on simultaneously and in such close proximity. It’s more than a bit chaotic. There’s a branch of mathematics called Chaos theory that is used nowadays to model a huge range of physical, chemical, and biological processes. It seems that nature, like spirituality, is essentially chaotic, at least superficially. The sense of order in both is more than skin deep. If you look at the Kotel Plaza from afar, it does in fact seem like a sort of vibrant organism.
Tuesday: Leaving Chevron
On Tuesday morning we left Chevron with our guide for the day – Shalom Alkabi – in his big jeep. Shalom and his family (7 kids) live on a hilltop community next to Chevron called Givat Gal. This is one of the hilltop communities that the government wants to destroy, ostensibly because they feel it interferes with the “peace process.” We had Shalom take us up to his home. It’s a group of about 7 families. Most of them live in caravans, but Shalom actually built a very nice permanent home. The first family to move up here actually lived for years in an old bus – no electricity, no running water, bitterly cold and fierce winter winds – while raising a large family. When they were finally able to slap a caravan onto the side of their bus/home, their family had expanded to 9 kids. These folks are the toughest of the tough. Shalom and his family face the government’s threat to destroy their home with incredible faith in G-d. I asked him what would he do financially if the government bulldozed his home and left him with a mortgage and no home. He said he wasn’t troubled. He says he knows that they’re doing the right thing, putting their lives on the line in the service of the ideal that this land is ours, and he has complete faith in G-d’s providence. Hadassah and Mendel had a great time petting the goats and chickens that the families up here own.
In the Jeep
From the hilltop community we headed for the day to the Dead Sea and to the Ein Gedi spring on its shore. The regular road there is through Jerusalem. However, we were in a jeep, so roads were optional. We were on roads for the first 45 minutes or so, but for the last 2-1/2 hours we were on camel trails, bumping and jostling in our jeep through the starkly beautiful Judean desert. The scenery here is really breathtaking. People tend of think of Israel as a tiny place, which is true. Its total area is about the size of the state of New Jersey, and only a relatively small part if mountainous desert. However, from our camel trail vantage point, these rocky and barren Judean mountains stretch to the horizon in every direction.
Whose Land Is It?
One of the curious and troubling things we noticed driving through Judea is that the Jewish towns are surrounded by fences and barbed wire (and by the way, they are now forbidden by the government to build anything, even additions to existing structures) while the Arab towns sprawl freely, without any fences, and they’re building freely without restrictions. Judging by appearances, it would appear that we’re the foreigners while the Arabs are the ones at home here, with no need for fences.
Ein Gedi
The kids had a blast playing in the pools and waterfalls (with their clothes on) and Hadassah just had to stop and oodle over every rock hyrax (furry little creatures) that came close to us. It is amazing how close the long-horned ibex (local mountain goats) come to the people. It seems very unusual for such wild and exotic looking large mammals to be living in apparent harmony with the large flow of tourists. Perhaps it’s a model for wild animal/human cohabitation that could be applied elsewhere as well.
Dead Sea
Right across from Ein Gedi is the Dead Sea, but the public beach there has no separation between men and women, and though it was getting late, the kids really wanted the experience of floating in the Dead Sea. This day was the only big outing we had planned for our whole trip, so even though it was getting late, we had our driver take us 35 minutes further South along the Dead Sea to an area called Ein Boqueq, where there are a number of hotels and a beach with a mechitza separating men from women bathers. We were rewarded for our effort by the opportunity to davven mincha with an impromptu minyan right on the side of the beach as well as by one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen in quite a while. When we got into the water (which is quite an experience in itself) I found myself right next to these two Chassidic men in the water with the faces and heads coated with (therapeutic) mud. They were both wearing thick glasses and they were conversing in Yiddish. There was something absurdly incongruous about the mud coated faces and the peyos hanging down and the thick glasses and the Yiddish here in the middle of the Dead Sea.
Being in Eretz Yisrael
I remember reading a statement of Rav Yitzchak Ginsburgh that the consciousness of living in Eretz Yisrael is the consciousness of feeling Hashem’s Hashgacha Pratis - supervision over every detail of one’s life. I had a taste of this twice on Shabbos morning. I was walking to the Maarat HaMachpela and badly needed a tissue. I looked around and saw an indentation in the wall where people had posted notices of upcoming events. There was a shelf at the bottom of this indentation, and on that shelf sat a small stack of tissues from which I took what I needed. Later on I was in the Maarah davvening and again needed some tissues badly. I started towards the exit and had an impulse to detour into one of the side rooms. There was a little alcove inside the room and sitting on a table in the alcove was a little baggy with tissues. It was the only time I saw any tissues in the Maarah for as long as we were there. It was a pleasant reminder of Hashem’s benevolent and constant presence and an affirmation of BEING in Eretz Yisrael.
Davvening at the Maaras Hamachpela Friday Night
It took a long time to get past the first sentence of the Shmena Esray and the phrases: “The G-d of Abraham, The G-d of Isaac, and The G-d of Jacob.” There’s a lot to think about here. It comes down to a form of spiritual evolution in which our forefathers transparently reflected in their own personalities certain Divine attributes in an entirely new way and then transmitted this newly evolved spiritual DNA to us, their ancestors. We have it as part of our spiritual genome, but need to work at expressing these sections of our genetic code through our own personalities. These lofty intellectual concepts here at the Maarah become an emotional in-the-body experience.
The Jewish section was packed with men and women – Jews from Chevron, from Kiryat Arba, and visitors to both communities, and there were multiple minyanim going on simultaneously. It reminded me of the other very Jewish places I’ve visited—the Kotel in Yerushalayim and the central Lubavitch shul (770) in Brooklyn—and it seemed so normal for this place to have such a vibrant Jewish presence. It was hard to conceive of it otherwise.
However, we learned from our host, David Shirel, of the long and intense battle that was waged to accomplish this. After the 6-day war, the Israeli authorities did what they had done on the Temple Mount—they immediately gave control over this Jewish holy site to the Moslems. It, like the Temple Mount, was too “hot” with Jewish spiritual energy to be integrated into a state that has such a schizophrenic relationship with its Jewish identity. There were a few hardy pioneers, prominently including our host, David, who worked night and day for years, putting their lives on the line on many occasions, in order to make it possible for Jews to be able to be here again. Even now, the authorities only grant the Jews access to 1/3 of the Maaras HaMachpela structure, and they deny the Jews any access to the main section of the building and the cave itself. One of the highlights of our Yom Kippur will be entering and davven in this main section—Yom Kippur is one of the few days during the year when Jews are actually able to pray there.
It’s very clear here why the Jews and the Moslems here have a hard time living together peacefully. Jews have been living with and passing down to our children the stories of our patriarchs and matriarchs for 3,300 years. After 2,000 of those years, Mohammed came on the scene stole the story from us, putting a section in the Koran that takes and twists our story about Abraham. In the Koran’s version of the story, Abraham’s son Ishmael is the hero and chief inheritor of the Abrahamic legacy. Abraham is special to the Christians as well, but at least they had the courtesy not to change our already age-old story to suit their own interests. The Moslems had no compunctions about usurping and twisting our well-established tradition, but they don’t appreciate being reminded of who has the prior claim to the story or to this land.
Tour of Chevron
In the afternoon, we took a tour of Chevron and learned more about both its ancient and modern Jewish history. I think the most appropriate sound-bite label for this place is the seat of Jewish consciousness. In addition to its role, gained at the hands of the patriarchs and matriarchs, in the inception of Jewish consciousness, it was also throughout Jewish history the place where Jews came to connect to their roots and to learn Jewish “Being-ness,” to learn to think and perceive the world as a Jew. It was the site where Calev ben Yefuneh came to pray at the beginning of his mission from Moses to spy out the land just prior to its intended conquest. He, along with Yehoshua are the only two of the twelve tribes who remain faithful to the mission that Moses had given them, and his visit here is credited with strengthening within him the Jewish outlook that allowed him to remain faithful where the other spies (who were also great Jewish leaders) did not.
Included in the tour is the place where David is believed to have been crowned king. Chevron was also the seat of his Kingship for the first 7 years of his reign. Like Calev, King David also came here to learn the most essential Jewish leadership skill – how to really think like a Jew.
The Chabad Rebbeim also had a very close connection to Chevron and most of them owned property here. Chevron seems to be the psycho-spiritual “head” of Eretz Yisrael, the place in which Jewish consciousness first developed and from which it still radiates. It makes sense that Chabad would have a special connection here since it seems to be the “Chabad” of the Holy Land.
The modern story of Chevron is like the story of the Maaras HaMachpela—both the Arabs and the Israeli authorities had to be fought with intense faith and self-sacrifice for every inch of territory that is now Jewish. There is a general principle that the more holiness is attached to any project, the more difficulty it poses and the more self-sacrifice is required to accomplish it. That principle is certainly true here. Unfortunately, there are a number of plaques scattered around the Jewish section of the town as memorials to places where Jews have been murdered since the Oslo accords were signed in ’93. Parts of the Jewish section still look like battlegrounds—there are Jewish-owned places where Jews preemptively moved in without official permission from the authorities, and then the authorities weeks, months, and sometimes years later (based on the political climate at the time) brought in masses of riot police and soldiers and kicked the Jews out of their homes.
Language is no Barrier for the Kids
Most of the adults here speak English, but the kids don’t. However, that didn’t stop Hadassah and Mendel from making friends and playing together all day long. With kids, not knowing the same language doesn’t seem to be an obstacle.
The Chevron Personality
Fear seems to be a foreign emotion among the Jewish natives here, but not for me. I got up at 3 AM Shabbos morning and decided to walk to the Maarah. I started feeling very uneasy at the sight of the barbed wire and concrete barricades separating the tiny Jewish section of the valley from the huge Arab sections of the city that loom over it. My fear was heightened when the Muezins started blasting their creepy calls to prayer from the mosques through the city at 4AM. I’ve heard Muezins calling in other places, but the tone of their chanting here has a get-under-your-skin, dissonant edge to it that is completely unique and very unnerving. It’s also much louder here than, for instance, in Jerusalem. To me, it sounds like the appropriate musical accompaniment to a horror movie: very creepy. I asked some of the natives how they deal with it and they universally told me they no longer hear it. I, however, couldn’t ignore it. I lost my nerve and headed back towards where we staying.
Chicago has its owns challenges to our psyches. In Chicago too, in order to get by, you develop a sort of psychic/emotional armor. After spending the last 5 summers up at Basi Legani, I’m familiar with the phenomenon of coming back to Chicago at the end of the summer and feeling like my senses like my senses are under attack the first few days. However, in Chicago, the sense of being under attack is just aesthetic—it is a very noisy place, but the attack doesn’t feel personal.
In Chevron the psychic background noise seems outright hostile. The place radiates with a kind of psychic hostility from the Arabs, who comprise 99% of its population. A contingent of the men here, including our host, travels around Chevron, even on Shabbos and Yom Tov, with a rifle and walkie-talkie. Security is a big consideration here. Interestingly, this feature, while unpleasant for the visitor, seems to play a very constructive role in shaping the Jewish consciousness of its natives. The people here, particularly the kids, are fearless and fiercely dedicated to enriching the Jewish connection to the land in general and to this place in particular. There seems to be an appropriate analogy between the Jews here and vegetation growing in a hostile physical environment: the harsher the environment, the more tenaciously the native vegetation clings to life. After spending time here in Chevron, Jews, especially the kids, have a tendency to take on pioneering jobs that no one else would have the stomach for. For example, some of them end up settling new hilltops in Judea or Shomron—they transplant their families to places with no electricity or running water against the sometimes violent opposition of both the Arabs and the Israeli authorities. Chevron now seems to be an incubator for a new sort of Jewish consciousness that manifests in this pioneering spirit.
Learning in the Maarah
Shabbos morning I had the great pleasure of learning Chassidus with Nisan in the Maarah. We learned part of a maamar for Shabbos Shuvah. One thing that stuck with me was how other sorts of transformational processes require substantial time and gradual progression. Teshuvah, on the other hand, can be very quick while still being radically transformational. Having the opportunity to be here in this seat of Jewish consciousness for just this short time, I was very inspired by this message and the hope that our time here in Chevron during these days of special closeness to The Holy One will be transformational despite its short duration.
Toivelling in "Sarah's Spring"
There’s a natural mikveh up the hill from the Jewish block. You go down a set of rough and obviously very old stone steps to a deep stone pool with cold clean spring water. I couldn’t get a clear answer as to how long it had been there, but it was definitely ancient (hundreds of years old at least). Nisan and I used this very special mikveh in preparation for Yom Kippur—very refreshing. Groups of young men from the local Hesder Yeshivas would come. At least one of them was armed with his rifle, and he would act as guard while the others toiveled.
The "Peace" Observers
The Arabs, with the assistance of some left wing Israelis, frequently bring in groups of Europeans and try to convince them that the Jews are oppressing the Arabs here. I went up to one of the Europeans on Yom Kippur morning and struck up a conversation. At some point in our short conversation, this Irish fellow said something like, “.. and of course, the thing that all religions teach is that we have to respect each other’s rights and be tolerant of one another.” At that moment, this whole situation seemed outrageously absurd. How the Moslems convinced these guys that they somehow embodied this spirit of tolerance and respect more than the Israelis is a mystery, but you have to give them credit for pulling off a tremendous public relations show.
I asked the fellow if he had ever had one of the local Jews show them and around and speak with them. He said no but that he would like to do this; I said I’d look into it. I spoke to David about it and he said that when the observers first started coming, the Jews did spend a lot of time with them and assumed, based on the commonality of language (English) and the closer affinity in moral principles, this was going to be an easy and successful PR operation. David said that he was shocked when he then saw the reports that these guys wrote, reports that more or less parroted the whole Arab line, including multiple made-up atrocity stories. Apparently, these “observers” come with an ingrained bias that no amount of factual information can turn.
Yom Kippur Davvening
The 2/3 of the Maarat HaMachpela structure that is in the hands of the Arabs is by far the most beautiful and significant. It has beautiful architecture and great acoustics. Most significantly, it houses the opening to the tunnel that leads underground to the cave itself. Ten days a year, this section opens to Jews as well. The davvening there was very special. In the states, seeing real emotion in people’s davvening is not so common. Here, the place really brings it out.
The most frequent kavvanah in my own davvening was for an internal “re-formatting” operation. I’ve been wearing the garb and trying to adopt the behaviors of a native Jew for more than 10 years now, but changing what’s inside my head is not so easy. Here, at the birthplace of Jewish consciousness and on the day of our collective “re-formatting”, it seemed appropriate to focus on erasing the psychological shmutz that gets in the way of really thinking and viewing the world with the natural consciousness of a Jew.
