City of Pork to the City of David and Back Again

Well, with the close of Yom Kippur and the sounding of a small ram's horn, comes a new update from Tel Aviv-Yafo. Erev Yom Kippur, or Thursday for those of you who adhere to that silly Papist calendar, our group was treated to an evening tour of Jerusalem. Nate and I had been under the weather a bit and were debating whether or not to go, but with plenty of Imodium aboard, we joined the throng of folks leaving our apartment building. As everything comes to a standstill on Yom Kippur, the bus station was packed with people trying to get home or get to Jerusalem. But, before you enter the bus station, you're reminded that there are plenty of folks who live here who could care less about that whole "don't eat pigs, team" thing.


For the more politically minded, it's important to remind the general public that Gilad Schalit has been in Hamas custody for quite some time. What better way to say you care as you head to Jerusalem for an intense rally to Bring Gilad Home, than to shave it into your hair?


We weren't the only people trying to get to Jerusalem. What would have normally been a forty five minute trip lasted nearly an hour and a half. The floor of our bus was packed with representatives from just about every spectrum of Israeli society and it seemed that the rest of the country was hot on the heels of our bus. We were dropped off at Montefiore's windmill
and thus began our tour of Jerusalem. It's an incredible view of the Old City and East Jerusalem, including the separation wall snaking along the horizon. Our attempts at photography didn't do it justice. The spot where Mary went to sleep (forever, apparently) is memorialized as Dormition Abbey, which is the large church immediately across the valley.


We were badgered by Hassids and Litvaks alike begging us to partake in the ritual of Kaparot. This involves swinging a chicken over your head three times so that the chicken takes on your sins before your judgment is complete. Then the chicken is ritually slaughtered and given to the hungry. I do this with an envelope of money before Yom Kippur as it doesn't involve torturing the saddest looking chickens in the world.

Three hours into our never ending tour detailing the gory details of Jerusalem's Jewish history and King David's adulterous activities, we came up over the Kotel Plaza. Jews of every stripe were clinging to rooftops in order to pray near the wall.


Rabbi Shlomo Amar was leading tens of thousands of people in the singing of selichot, or pentitential prayers. The religious fervor was overwhelming. I don't know how else to put it. Ten yards in front of you and three stories down are tens of thousands of people praying so intensely to G-d that they don't even care they are smushed up against tens of thousands of other people, because G-d is less than twenty four hours away from closing the book on them for the year.



While the majority of people in our group had wanted to pray at the wall, the wait to get through security was estimated to be roughly an hour, just to wade into the sea of people. I settled for reciting selichot along with the crowd and saying a few psalms. While Nate and I had originally intended on staying in Jerusalem for Yom Kippur, our stomachs were still not agreeing with us entirely and the hostel we had planned on staying at was closed, so we boarded a Sherut, or shared taxi-van, back to Tel Aviv-Yafo. Tomorrow morning we'll start building a Sukkah on our back patio for all of the residents of our building.