Part 2: Seven Impressions about Jerusalem

A caveat to my Jerusalem Seven: Jerusalem is everything Tel Aviv is not. They could be two separate countries. Two separate planets actually. Jerusalem is cloistered where Tel Aviv is open. Jerusalem is (as the tour guide who picked me up in Tel Aviv said on the way here) covered up whereas Tel Aviv is practically naked, both physically and metaphorically. With that in mind, here are my Jerusalem Seven:

First, Jerusalem has incredible light. All the time. No matter if it is sunny or overcast, there is something Divine about the way the light falls. At night the sky seems to glow in its darkness. Second, the History overwhelms you. It is insistent, grabbing your psychic attention. The Hell and the Glory this center of the spiritual world has experienced emanates from the hills, from the walls, from the blood soaked soil. I seriously thought I was going insane and hearing voices, singing the ancient cantorial chants, the calls to prayer, the bells of the churches. Then I realized that it is not as imagined as I thought. It's just there, non-stop, and your spiritual antenna picks it up whether you like it or not. Third, Jerusalem is INTENSE. Really truly intense. Whereas in Tel Aviv they ask you if this is your first trip to Israel and want to know if you are enjoying yourself, in Jerusalem when they ask you the same question, but with a spin: they want to also know what side of the Situation you are on: Are you pro-Settlement, are you anti-Settlement, where do you stand on dividing Jerusalem (more about that in a moment) and if you are an American, they ask about Obama, hope mixed with distrust and fear. Fourth, size and distance are relative. Jews and Muslims are cousins, and, your "enemy" is literally on the other side of the street. Literally. Across. The. Street. Fourth, Jerusalem is oppressively SMALL. just .35 of a square mile. The distances are, not to be snarky, a stones throw away from each other. In the Old City, within the Walls, the Jewish Quarter and the Muslim Quarter and the Christian Quarter and the Armenian Quarter are within mere steps of each other. And regarding the Settlements, it's like Studio City is to Beverly Hills. For that matter, the drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is less than an hour. Fifth, a lot of Israeli Soldiers are really barely just out of high school. Yesterday I was at the Jaffa Gate entrance when around twenty or so fully armed IDF men and women walked past on their way inside. I was floored as to how incredibly young they are. Sixth, pretty much everything is closed for Shabbat. The Souk is open for Muslims to do their shopping, and it's level of being crowded defies description. It is every stall folded in upon itself. Seven, and for me the most important lesson so far about being here, not only in Jerusalem but in Tel Aviv and I am sure it will hold true to the rest of my visit when I head up north to Haifa and Safed: No one, especially American Jews, or, for that matter, American Christians, have the right to tell Israel what to do politically. We don't live here. We are not sending our sons and daughters into their Army, or working to break bread and find common ground with our neighbors who are our enemies. We really do not have that right, and once I finally have come here that thought has truly resonated with the same intensity as the songs from the Judean Hills.