Ok, so this is what the first two days here in Jerusalem kind of remind me of….
About six years ago, I participated in the strategic planning team for the Ladue School District. The exercise was performed with 30 participants and led by a well respected educational consultant. The first day was incredibly long, and included four small groups working to create a mission statement for the district. After the entire team of 30 decided the first four efforts captured some, but not all of the essence of the district, a fifth and final team of half a dozen, myself included, traipsed off to take the other groups’ ideas and synthesize them into a satisfactory whole.
Problem was, it was about 11:30 at night, and we were, to put it mildly, drop dead tired. We’d been working on all sorts of conceptual themes all day, and our heads were achy and full of fatigue. But strangely, with our defenses down and our commitment to the team up, we stormed with our brains and hearts toward a creative and passionate solution. By one am, the mission statement was accomplished!
It was only much later that I figured out the consultant’s game—he knew darn well that the final group would be utterly exhausted when they took the ball and ran (ok, dragged) with it. But the special nature of tired thinking is how it transforms from conscious (analytical, lineal, etc) to unconscious (heartfelt, creative, visceral). And it was that deep-down tired that permeated the group, and allowed us to cease worrying about how the mission statement would be perceived and whether it was “just so,” and instead to focus on how we related to the district in a very organic and instinctual manner.
And so it was with Day 1 in Jerusalem. Not intentionally so….the organizers were not relying on my total body collapse from only 5 of the past 43 hours being devoted to sleep. But there I was, hitting the ground running at 10 am on Friday with our tourguide Mark, as we ascended the walls of the Old City for a breathtakingly panoramic view of Jerusalem.
So before I left, I mused in my column for the paper whether things would hit me intellectually or emotionally. I’m going to say it was really most like an exceptional Impressionist painting – as though Claude Monet were carrying me atop the city on his shoulders.
And so that was how it was as I first laid my eyes (in person anyway) on the Jewish Quarter and Mount Scopus and Hebrew University and the Dome on the Rock and the King David Hotel and the Armenian Quarter and and and and….
It’s not that there weren’t details. Mark was an exceptional font of knowledge, but the amount and extent of it washed over me like waves. I felt like I was surfing and everytime I thought I was gonna ride the Big Kahuna I was toppled by another bout of semi-consciousness and a feeling of “this must really be happening to someone else, not me.”
I wish the pictures could capture that essence. Maybe telling you I almost fell asleep into my lunchplate by midday and one of my traveling companions told me I was snoring while Mark was further educating us about the things we had seen in the morning (sorry, Mark!).
And then the Western Wall on Shabbat on sundown! There, having captured a mini-second wind, I was thinking more clearly and was able to at least pose some questions and observations to myself. Like, are all those different types of Jews really standing next to each other? Do they truly acknowledge the existence of each other? Or, to loosely borrow a phrase typically applied to 2 year olds, were they just engaged in “Parallel Pray,” all drawn to the locale for its religious significance but with little connection between and among them? I wasn’t sure at all. But I was awake enough to know that whatever it is, it’s unique and incredible and something that most, if not all, Jews can relate to in some fashion.
But the most touching moment there, I thought, was when a group of Israeli soldiers entered the secured area near the Wall, en route to praying. And our tourguide, Mark, indicated what an exceptional sight that was, these young adults fulfilling their personal and physical commitment and sacrifice to Israel and simultaneously fulfilling their spiritual and emotional selves with Shabbat prayer. The emotion in Mark’s voice as he talked about it was potent indeed.
We finished the first day with dinner and a discussion about the many meanings of Jerusalem, how it’s seen, why it’s important, what is unique about it. Too many ideas to share here, but so interesting to see that the beauty and challenge of Jerusalem is clearly in the beholder’s eye….its timeliness, its religious significance to so many different groups, its layers upon layers of civilization’s history, its rich-poor splits, its utter and vast complexity.
By the time I hit my pillow, I felt like I had survived a wind tunnel of sorts. But rather than feeling beat up, my reaction was more like…what a rush!
And this was only day 1……..(to be continued)
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