Jerusalem's Light

Tonight we walked around the Old City to take in the Jerusalem Light Festival. It is the fourth year of this celebration but my first time going. All around the Old City there were light installations- artistic designs, performance artists who use light as a medium, booths with light-related objects, etc. It was a beautiful evening and the Old City was packed with people.

Light Festival Cupola at the entrance to Jaffa Gate

As we left the festival and headed home I thought to myself, “it’s only a shame that “Shavuah Hasefer” (“Book Week”) is happening the same time as the Light Festival. Surely, the sparkly lights are taking away business from the book fair.” But when I got to Gan Hapa'amon (Liberty Bell Park) at 11:00pm and saw it packed with shoppers, I realized how wrong I was.

Shavua Hasefer is a huge book fair.  Imagine Beth El’s parking lot filled with the booths of hundreds of publishing houses. Thousands of people were browsing everything from Talmud commentaries to children’s books. The fair seemed to confirm what I read somewhere, that Israel published more books per capita than any other country.

If the Light Festival is magical, Shavua Hasefer is mystical. It reminded me that for Jews, learning is also about light. That’s what we sing- “Torah Ora. The Torah is light.”

On Shavu’ot a few weeks ago, I got up at 4:00am to walk to the Kotel with the kids for shaharit sunrise services. We read from the Torah about the revelation at Sinai just as the sun broke across the eastern horizon. My kids may remember the chocolate milk bags being handed out at King David’s tomb more than the sunrise. Still, I hope that as they hear me and Esther talk about the classes we attend (this morning, parashat hashavua with Aviva Zornberg), they internalize the message:  Torah ora, halleluya!

Shavuah HaSefer

Touching History

This time, their attention span did not waver. Between the hose, the buckets of dirt and the Indiana Jones-like adventure, the boys’ attention was riveted. We were at Ein Tzurim sifting through 3000 years of history. The dirt was from the Temple Mount where renovations to build a mosque left tons of earth upended and unexplored. The dirt gets sifted, rinsed, examined and sorted –  bucket after bucket after bucket. And this was our task. We joined other volunteers and professionals who have been looking for treasures for the past five years ago. (They estimate that they have another 15 years of work.) It is tedious work but we were anxious to get our hands dirty. In the Negev, we helped build with mud. Now near Mt. Scopus, we hoped that our mud work would help reconstruct our people’s past.

On the ride to the site, we dreamed about the rare objects we’d find. But we knew full well it was highly unlikely. How excited we were to be proven wrong! With a short introduction by the staff, we were off on our search.

When they weren’t spraying each other with the hose, the boys excitedly called out, "I Spy a mosaic tile." "I Spy a piece of glass." "I Spy a piece of metal." We really did unearth some treasures – and ones not just planted for tourists.

"Yes, that is Byzantine tile," the staff person said as she examined our tray. "And that pottery is from the Second Temple." "That's a bone fragment. It might have been part of a sacrifice. We are not sure,” she remarked before moving on to the next bucket.

Koby's find, a Roman glass bead, was apparently unique since it was bagged and set aside. I was excited to find a Roman roof tile and a First Temple pottery shard... until I placed them in the bucket with hundreds of other Roman tiles and First Temple shards.

But while our shards were fairly common place, the same was not true a day later. On Wednesday, it was revealed that archeologists uncovered a stamp from the First Temple period that mentions Bethlehem by name. This is the oldest evidence corroborating the Bible’s description that Bethlehem was a city in the Kingdom of Judah. And the timing could not be more fitting – Bethlehem plays a central role in the Book of Ruth, which we read on Shavu’ot.

As the holiday approaches, we are reminded that for Jews, history is more than an ancient story.  When we have an aliyah, we do not say God “gave” us the Torah but “gives” us the Torah. Though the revelation on Sinai occurred many thousands of years ago, it happens again in our day.  

Sifting through history is exciting. But for Jews, the past is really never behind us. We can touch it, for it is very much present.

Hag sameiah!

Jerusalem's Candy Man

“Never take candy from a stranger.” We drill that lesson into our children from the time they are toddlers. We read about it in Bernstein Bears books and speak about it at preschool. We hear about strangers hiding razor blades in candy. And so we repeat our dire warning: “Never take candy from a stranger. Ever!”

Ever?

On Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israelis celebrated Independence Day with a day of barbecuing. We headed out to a local park to take in the scene. We sat down on a bench to eat granola bars and jealously breathed in “reiah nikhoah,” the pleasing odor of Jerusalem grills. After a minute or two, an old man shuffled toward us with the help of his cane.  He approached Micah and asked if he could have the large, inflatable hammer Micah was holding. The hammer was a treat Micah received from his generous uncle Aaron at the previous night’s festivities. He had taken it along for the walk to the park. Truthfully, I was more than happy for Micah to give it away -- it would be one less excuse for him to bop his brothers (and parents).

The old man repeated his request to have the hammer and a confused seven year old handed it over with some hesitation. The old man thanked Micah, reached into his pocket and took out a cherry flavored toffee. Amazingly, the other brothers perked up at that moment -- just in time for each of them to receive their special treat.

As the “can-I-eat-it?” chorus erupted and Esther and I glanced that knowing parent, never-take-candy-from-a-stranger glance, the old man lifted his hands and intoned: “Yivarekhekha adonai v’yishmarekha, May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord be gracious unto you. May the Lord show you kindness and grand you peace.” He then mumbled something about the joy that will be felt at Micah’s wedding.

            Are you really going to tell your kids that they can’t eat the candy from an old Jerusalemite man who just blessed them with birkat kohanim? To them, this might just have been Eliyahu Hanavi.

“Yes, you can eat it,” we said.

The man wished us a “hag sameiah” and a “Shabbat Shalom.” And to my dismay, he handed Micah back the large, inflatable hammer. He then shuffled off to prune a nearby rosemary bush -- that he might have a sweet smelling herbs for Shabbat.

“Never take candy from a stranger.” Yes. But as our siddur reminds us, “haverim kol Yisrael,” there are no strangers among Jews. We are family.  And in special places like the Holy City of Jerusalem, strangers offer sweet words of prayer with the candy they give away.

Micah, Amichai and Koby resting during our Yom Ha'atzmaut neighborhood stroll.  Treasured inflatable hammer is being held by Amichai

Yom Ha'atzmaut ceremony at the elementary school.

Yonah and Amichai at one of our local parks.