Day 5

MONDAY 14th DECEMBER



Jerusalem
Synopsis of day: The 2nd Temple Period. Western Wall and Ecce Homo Basilica, free time shopping and a missing mobile.

Spiritual Sites visited:

Western Wall (all that remains of the western wall of the 2nd temple – while the Rabbis have been excavating through the tunnel since the 1960s – the western/wailing wall section is the only exposed section.

Ecce Homo – site of the “Behold the man” scenes – close to the Fortress Antonia and the site of the Sisters of Zion.

Church of Saint Anne – the only remaining Crusader church in Jerusalem and right by the pool of Bethesda/Bethsaida (the healing springs).

Highlight of the day: Definitely sitting in the church of Saint Anne which has a 11 second echo loop, listening to some Nigerian pilgrims sing 'Amazing Grace” in alternating verses of English and their own language – would that be Nigerian? I loved that church in particular because of the magnitude and because there were almost no decorations, it was structure of the church that gave its beauty, and it was the first place I've been to that I really felt could have passed for an evangelical church.

Lowlight of the day: Because we had gone through so many scanning machines in the day, our hotel ticket had lost its memory. We had been walking all day and carrying our purchases to our door only to discover we had to go downstairs again and it was incredibly disheartening.

Favourite quote/word: Any time Gila the guide asked if we had any more questions, our aside “Can we move on now?”

Favourite photo:

Church of St Anne.

 Cultural-shock moment: The huge Judaica shop we went into. Kerri's immediate response was that it was the Jewish Koorong and that fit pretty well. There were so many things in there and I simply had no clue what they were, even after my several days initiation into all things Jewish.
New food consumed: The cream/custard/strawberry trifle in a yoghurt cup from a supermarket in the Jewish quarter. I also got some chocolate soy milk there!
Favourite purchase: A bag of resources for teaching Early Israel at the time of David from the City of David archaeological site. Site reports, posters, a book and poster on ancient alphabet systems.
The thing I lost today: my mobile phone. There's nothing I can really do about it and a lot of the data from it is backed up in places but I will have to remember where and deal with it all when I come back.

Random act of crazy: The Jewish men who wore shower caps over their hats on the way to the Western wall. Or seeing our little bit of Australiana in the Muslim quarter.

No, seriously. Woolies Select white cooking chocolate by the Damascus gate.

Something I want to remember: The devotion of the people who prayed along the western wall. In the tunnel there was a woman who was crying as she swayed, and although she was one of many, she struck me as an example, because she was so clearly emotional.

Ode to the Western Wall.

Co-composed by Kerri and Erin in a brief moment of respite when we desperately wanted to be elsewhere.

It was big and smelly all.
It was short and tall,
It was indeed a wall.
Erin nearly had a fall,
We both wore a shawl
Cause we were pilgrims at the wall.
Shalom y'all.

 

I don't feel as there is so much to write about this day. It was not as exciting a day for me, and I was starting to feel a bit disgruntled with our guide, who just barely stops talking. We really enjoyed the free time we were offered and hurried off back to the city of David and then to the Jewish quarter to spend time in places we barely had the time to glance at the day before when we were being guided. We really liked a Judaica bookshop in the Jerusalem quarter and I thought I lost my phone there – it didn't feel like I had been pick-pocketed although that was a possibility of course.

Complete with singing men and the odd shofar.

Mum & Dad, this was what was happening when I was on the phone.

Earlier in the day we saw some Bar-Mitzvahs at the Western Wall, and then went through the Western Wall tunnel which itself has caused some friction between the Jewish and Muslim communities. The size of the blocks used for the walls of the temple precinct were rather impressive – I hope to compare them with Egyptian architecture later on. I'm still not sure what I enjoyed most about the experience, but I was certainly moved by the devotion of the praying women at the wall. Some part of me questions how much of this is prescribed ritual, and how much sincere emotion, but I remain intrigued by how overt the expressions of piety are for these people. Such expressions we frown on in Australia as far as I see, except within the church building itself.

We kept walking underground (been doing a lot of this lately, because the levels in the time of Christ are several metres below the current level) through to where the Fortress Antonia would have been located, and to where the Sanctuary of the Sisters of Zion, the Ecce Homo (Behold the man) is now located. This was the legendary site of Pilate's proclamation and Jesus' scourging. Before returning there for lunch we went back to the Western wall and to an archaeological park and looked at the remains of part of the wall, and heard some more history.

Al Aqsa mosque in the background.

After lunch we went down into the Chapel (though it might have been called a Basilica which I thought was strangely odd). Mary made us sing again, the Latin and Hebrew song we have been singing in the evenings. It is a terribly easy song to get in your head and has plagued us for a few days. The sound was impressive however, because of the acoustics of the room.

Atop the Ecce Homo. As Kathy was taking this photo I slipped in the gutter, providing a more entertaining expression than anticipated.

 Further travels underground led us to more Roman architecture. It had a funky Latin name but I don't recall it now, but there was a reading from Mark connected to the suffering of Jesus. Following that we made our way further down the street towards St. Anne's church and Bethesda. According to Kerri (who knows far more about this stuff than me) St Anne is Mary (of Virginal fame)'s mother. This was where we first encountered the Nigerian tourists, who apparently have assisted passage from the government to take pilgrimages to either Mecca or Jerusalem.

I loved St. Anne's. I had a really strong reaction to it, which diminished any interest I had in the adjacent pools of Bethsaida. The church was large, and apparently the only remaining Crusader-built church. What I most loved was the simplicity of design, but nonetheless imposing grandeur of the place. We agreed it was the most Protestant place we had seen yet, because besides one statue to the side of Mary (or was it Anne – I didn't pay attention) the walls were grey and there was basically no ornamentation. The sounds within the church were wonderful, but later I was the only person in there when we were given time to explore the pools, and that too was profound.

The pools were much larger than I had expected, but not fully excavated either.


We did a bit of shopping and came home exhausted, and it wasn't until later that we discovered my phone was missing. I was surprised by how peaceful I was about the situation, despite it being both uncomfortable and a bit frightening. Kerri was far more bothered than me, but because we had internet access it was easy enough to alert family. Lovely people that they are, then I fell promptly asleep, which I have been doing very easily (hence these journal entries are being provided several days later – I'm just so exhausted from the pace!).