Christmas Shopping and other Jerusalem Tales

It was a brisk Shabbes mid-morning when I traipsed down to the Jaffa gate to meet Corinna, Debbie, Gavin, and Paola, my friends from Hebrew University, to do some Christmas shopping in the Arab quarter of the Old City. We first found a restaurant on a side street that was blaring American oldies music, and sat down to a not-very-good meal, joked with the waitor, and swapped stories. We then proceeded through the narrow stone streets to look at icons, Christmas cards, plants, and candles. We wandered into a store selling festive table runners and were greeted by a giant saxaphone playing plastic Santa Claus, with which we of course posed for photos. The very nice lady at the store suggested that we go to the bazaar being held in a nearby clinic, the proceeds of which are going to a charity to give healthcare and food to poor Arab families. The women at the bazaar were very pleased to see us (especially Paola, who speaks Arabic), and we were excited to be there as they were selling familiar Christmas ornaments; wreaths, ribbons, snowmen printed on paper napkins, etc. They were also selling non-Christmas items, so I picked up some zaatar and a plastic plant. We each sampled some excellent quince jam, and made quite a few purchases. We continued on our way through stall after stall of brightly colored clothing, religious souvenirs of all sorts, fruit, vegetable, and bread vendors, etc. Eventually, Debbie and Paola parted from us, and we went on to visit Matteo, our friend from ulpan who is, as you may recall from previous posts, a Francescan friar. (Have I written about him before?)
At the front gate to the Church of the Flagellation, we asked the gatekeeper to call in and tell Matteo that his friends were here to visit. We were shown in to a room marked "private," where we sat on old couches in a somewhat stark, stone parlor, to wait for Matteo to meet us. He was very pleased to see us, and we visited for a very long time. He took us inside to what I suppose is the friars' living room - a large room full of sofas and chairs, with today's newspapers sprawled accross the coffee tables, and religious parephenalia behind glass cases on the walls. While Matteo went to fetch us some soda, Gavin peeked through a glass case to gawk at an illuminated manuscript, and I stood in front of a case containing a Torah and a scroll in Phoenician characters. When Matteo returned we sat and chatted for a while, mostly about our lives, our families, etc. After quite a while in that room, we went up to the roof to enjoy the terrific view of the old city and really all of Jerusalem. We could see Hebrew University, the Brigham Young campus, countless churches, mosques, and synagogues, and in the foreground we could see the Dome of the Rock quite closeby. On the roof we discussed religion, and when Matteo saw one of his instructors below, he called down and introduced us by saying that we were having a meeting of the religions: Jewish, Baptist, and Catholic. It was a bit chilly on the roof, so we went downstairs where Matteo showed us the classroom where he studies (he is writing his dissertation on the meaning of the word "fulfilled" in the Gospel According to Matthew when Jesus says that he has not come to negate the commandments of the Torah, but to fulfill them. Before we left, Matteo showed us the chapels at the Church (the parts that are open to the public), saying that he didn't want us to have come to the Church of the Flagellation without seeing what there is to see there. He explained to us that the place where the church is built is now known not to have been the historical site of the flagellation, as the stones have Roman games carved in to them that date to after 135 CE. The chapels were nevertheless quite interesting, and the stained glass windows fabulous. Matteo says that the preists celebrate mass twice a day, morning and evening, and he pointed to the window of a smaller chapel where the priests can go to celebrate mass if for some reason they missed the early morning mass (6:30 AM). We left with warm regards and promises of another visit soon.
It was a lovely Shabbat - how was yours?

Church in Hebrew

A long time ago Paola invited us to join her at church, and we finally decided to take her up on the offer. Together with Corinna, a William and Mary graduate who is getting her masters at Rothberg, we went to a church service held in the former Italian embassy. From the street, you wouldn't be able to tell that a religious service was going on there at all - it is a peaceful, quiet looking building, a whitewashed, two-story establishment set back from the street with a stone driveway in front, and protected by a decorative iron gate. Inside, the room where services were held was very modest - white walls, rows of chairs, a small wooden cross hanging on the far wall. The priests walked in, clothed in white robes, and filed into rows and bowed together gracefully, like a dance. Then, the service began. It sounded uncannily like a Jewish service - because it was in Hebrew. Some of it was entirely the same as a Jewish service, except with different tunes - the psalms, the parsha. And some of it (the New Testament in Hebrew) for instance, was not. It was strange to hear liturgical Hebrew and to realize that it wasn't Jewish. I think it forced me to think about what makes a service Jewish to me. Is Hebrew really necessary to make the service Jewish? It is, after all, just a language and can be used for secular purposes (as in Modern Israel) and even for Christian liturgical purposes (as in the services we attended this evening), so why do Jews pray in Hebrew? It also highlited how similar Catholicism and Judaism really are to each other, at least in a practical if not in a theological way. The service felt very much like a Jewish one - the formality of it, the treating of holy objects like royalty, the singing, and, of course, the Hebrew. At the same time, it also pointed out that some differences between Catholicism and Judaism are so huge that even translating the Catholic ceremony into the Jewish language could not make it seem Jewish - for instance transubstantiation, which I find to be absolutely beautiful and powerful, did not feel any more Jewish for its being in Hebrew. Though I do have to say that something about the transformative power of the prayers, and the participatory way that congregants held up their hands, reminded me a little of Havdalah. We witnessed a pre-baptism ceremony, and I found myself strangely uncomfortable during it. The woman in the process of conversion seemed to be a Jewish Israeli, and there was something symbolically powerful to me to see a Jew in Israel converting to Catholicism - after hundreds of years of Jews converting in order to save their own lives, it seemed shocking and disappointing to see someone do it by choice - I can't explain why I felt that way and I know that it was wrong to feel that way, rather than to be joyful for someone who has discovered the life path that suits them, but honestly I did feel strange about the whole thing. And I felt a little stranger when I saw the tears in Paola's eyes, and knew that she found the woman's conversion to be such a cause for joy. Irrationally and uncontrollably, I felt a sense of loss. I didn't feel any more comfortable when a woman who I was talking to afterward said to me, "wouldn't it be funny if you came to Jerusalem, and converted to Catholicism after all" - no, I don't think it would be funny. I think Catholicism is rich and beautiful and I have so much respect for it, but for me, personally, it would be tragic to convert.
After services we went out to a terrific dinner and had a fun and cheerful conversation. It was good to see Paola after what feels like an eternity, and I am getting increasingly excited about going back to class. Paola taught me the Italian word for 'nerd' - "seciona," and she called me a "seciona" for my excitement about classes, but in reality I know that she shares the feeling. Just one more week!