No one looks you in the eye here.
There's no music.
Everyone's rushing.
Divisions and barriers.
Trampling over each other to get to heaven.
Jerusalem has lost its sparkle.
City of fire - rising to nowhere, dropping ashes, sizzling.
Where are my mystics?
This place is holy. This place is holy.
This place is being abused.
Uptight warriors. Depressed mothers. Cold stares. No subtlety.
A young boy with a black hat and payos winked at me.
I can feel his unconscious pain.
The light is burried beneath every one's hurried shuffles.
And nobody's crying out.
I feel lonely in our holy city...and a little confused - but a lot guilty.
I selfishly await my return to Tzfas.
Meanwhile, I'll try to snap myself out of this bewilderment, try to find thr light and spread what I can.
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6 comments:
Try checking out Tachana Merkozit on friday morning. There is a mivtzoyim stamd with 13/14 yr olds, kids. There is light there. Breaking the divisions and barriers. Stopping the stampede.
the holiest places also have the most potential for klipa. It is the kedusha of jerusalem that attracts all the klipa as well. Just spend some time in the rova hayehudi on shabbos afternoon, go to the kotel on friday night, walk thru the cobble stone streets of the old city and take it all in. it is one of the most uplifting places in the world, there is seriously nothing like it.
Mim,
you echo my frusterations in such a poignant way. I used to play a game-say hello to everyone I pass and see who would respond...
It was amusing yet disheartening and disappointing, especially when I received looks of shock when I said hello and smiled. I can recall numerous times when I or friends had the same experience with a boy in a black hat with peyos. All the days I live in Yerushalayim, I want to shout out to the cold apartment buildings, wake up, open your eyes, smile! The world is alive and full of beautiful people that you brush past everyday. I want to shake them and tell them to look inside the Torah and look at what our avos and imahos and how they related to people and that they should see Judaism for what it is and not what they think it should be.
With all my frusteration and disgust for the sterile atmosphere, I found so many gems beneath the rubble, hidden in crevices and that gave me a lot of hope, that the situation is not as bleak as it seems
I hope you had a wonderful shabbos despite your frusterations. I hope you enjoyed my messages at the shabbos table =)...How embarressing..
Mim,
a story for you from my summer in Israel. Its thursday nightduring the disengagement, i am at the kotel awaitng the arrival of the settlers from netzer chazani whose tempaprory housing was not ready. They are sleeping at the kotel. earlier in the rova i was sorting food brought in from all over jerusalem for the "refugees" u can tell people had dumped their pantrys and their fresh made shabbos food into a box and sent it to the rova with their kids. Now they buses have arrived the settlers walk through us one by one, everyone is crying, they bring the sefri torah down to the kotel. We sit on the floor in a huge circle arm in arm all differnet types of woman together. we sing sadly and softly as we cry. A bride in her wedding dress comes to the kotel. All is quiet as we feel the two confilciting emotions. Happiness for the bride and sadness for the settlers. Noone knows just what to do. Suddnely A teenage girl from the settlements gets up off the ground and starts dancing wiht the bride. Instantly hundreds of woman girls join her and start singing oid yeshamah....The tears still on their cheeks they are singing and dancing for a jewish bride.
thats the jerusalem your are looking for..
its there you just have to find it..
woah temmi-i've got chills all over. thanks for sharing that.
mimi-I know EXACTLY how you feel and I wanted to let you know that it took me time to start to appreciate the rushing and bustling and the lack of mysticsm (or so you claim). Divisions and barriers between Jews-no good.
Mim,
I feel the same way about Crown Heights sometimes. The "Kan Tziva......" seems so concealed.
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