Old City: Z6 Crash Course
Shalom, y’all, and Happy New Year! I can’t believe that I’ve been here for 6 months, and it’s already 2022. I grew up with people telling me, and I didn’t believe it… But years do indeed get shorter as you get older.
I’m going to write about the first true excursion we had. When Z6 was finally all together, we got to go on an in-depth tour of the city with Israeli Tour Guide, Dr. Tom Brimmer. It was a full, information packed day. I’m not going to dump all of that information on you- I am, however, going to be showing lots of photos and referring to them in the post. Enjoy!
The Old City
We started out our day just above the old Cardo, in the first and second photos. A Cardo is essentially, as I’ve understood it, a boulevard or the main street through the city. It was really cool to see the old columns and cobblestone. I went back here recently, and I’m hoping to get better photos of it, but there’s a beautiful covered part of the Cardo with new mosaics depicting what the markets might have been like. Standing there on the slick cobblestone and being surrounded by the columns made me take a minute and imagine what it might have sounded like; the creaking of carts, sounds from the livestock, the bargaining of buyers, shouts from children running around, people calling you to visit their stalls and see their goods. It was, and still is, full of life and the echoes of times passed are engrained into the well-worn places of this city.
The next shot in the slide is from the Western Wall. We were on our way up the ramp to go to the Temple Mount, so I was able to actually get a shot down into the mens section. I’ve spent a lot of time staring at this photo in fascination of all of the men at prayer. We had the opportunity to go directly to the wall after coming down from the Temple Mount, and I asked Ray to take some photos for me while he was on that side. I really like the photo you see of the man praying, and you can also see the little papers stuffed into all of the cracks in the stone. And the next photo, you see (from left to right) Angela, me, Hosanna and Alicia waiting for the boys to meet back up with us.
We spent quite a bit of time in the Jewish Quarter walking through the streets and observing the life that never slowed down around us. We next got to go into one of the most beautiful synagogues in Jerusalem, the Hurva Synagogue, and learn more about the history of this place of worship. The inside of it is stunning, and the story is even more so. “Hurva”means “ruin”, and this place has a history parallel to that of the Jewish people; no matter how often it was “destroyed”, it was built back even better. When you look at the photo of the inside of the building, you can see the layers of stone and the blackened layer near the floor. The resilience never ceases to amaze me, and to see it here in the olive trees and the stone around me.
We were able to go up onto the roof of the Hurva and walk around up there to see the view. It was incredible to be up there and see the rooftops of the city. It’s been the only time so far that I’ve had that chance to look out and see how much life is happening and being sustained in Jerusalem, and look down and see the golden Menorah in the square.
The last photo in the slide is a shot of these two boys that yelled at me to get my (my camera’s) attention as we walked to the City of David as they played in the gated-off courtyard.
The Temple Mount
This next section is less text heavy than the first, because as you see from the slides, I was more focused on details. There’s so much to take in when you’re standing on the Temple Mount.
In this slide, you’ll see lots of little details from what’s speculated to be remaining work from the Second Temple. When you look at the marble caps and the columns, you’ll see bits of orange. That’s what’s left of the gold that used to cover these beautiful pieces of stonework. I’m not going to lie, this is where I got the most emotional throughout the whole day. I was in awe of what I was seeing. And just getting to touch something so old, something that had been part of something so beautiful, made me cry. If only stone could talk…
Up and through the plaza, you see the Al-Aqsa Mosque. I have to honestly say that it is a beautiful structure. It’s interesting to look at something like this, with the bullet holes and the awareness of its story, while standing on a Hebrew holy place, and still seeing the beauty of it. And then you turn around, and up through the arches, is the Dome of the Rock. It’s even more beautiful in person than in any photo I’ve seen. And imagining just how much bigger and more beautiful the Temple(s) must have been, floors me.
And then we see the Dome of the Prophet Mohamed which is speculated to be the original threshing floor bought by David from Araunah in II Samuel 24, starting from verse 18. We spent a quiet moment here, thinking and imagining what the 3rd Temple might be like.
The City of David
Photos from the City of David Upper Promenade while we prepared for the tour.
I have the least amount of pictures of this final part of the day. Which is a little sad, but it was also my favorite part.
There’s a scene from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) that has really stuck with me since watching it. In the new version of the movie, Walter is chasing this world famous photojournalist to get a photo for Life Magazine. He follows this photographer around the world, and eventually meets him in the Himalayan mountains, where he finds Sean waiting to get a shot of a rare snow leopard. He’s lined up for the shot, but he never takes it. Walter asks if he’s going to, and Sean explains that sometimes he doesn’t take the shot. If he likes the moment, he doesn’t like having the distraction of the camera because he wants to stay in it.
Some moments are meant just for me. And this was one of those moments for me.
The City of David is one of my absolute favorite places I’ve been. I don’t have a whole lot to say about it, other than it’s just incredible to see all of the archeology there. We were blessed to have an amazing tour guide for this trip, Ze’ev, and he gave us all of the finer details about the locations we were visiting. We saw the Palace excavation, the remnants of some homes, the Gihon Spring where Solomon was anointed King of Israel (1 Kings 1:33) and underground water system, and Hezekiah’s Tunnel. I had fully intended to do the last bit, but standing at the mouth of the tunnel made me remember that I don’t do small dark spaces well. I ended up going with Ray and Ze’ev through the dry Canaanite tunnel, which is much shorter. That ended up being a great decision, as I came out of the much shorter tunnel extremely shaky. No tight spaces for me, thank you. That being said, I would really like to try the tunnel before I leave. We also go to see and wait by the Pool of Siloam for the rest of the team to come out, where Ze’ev mentioned that this was the pool where Jesus healed a blind man (John 9:6-7). We ended the day with dinner before going home to sleep. It was a long, emotional and information packed day.
And this concludes this post! I’m so thankful for this memory to have and cherish, and so excited to finally share it with all of you!
Be blessed, and Happy New Year!
- Mads
Prayer Requests:
That God provides full financial provision for the rest of my Zealous year
That God answers some big questions for me and gives me the strength in the challenges they bring
That He gives me clear direction in some pretty major decisions that I have to make
