Miracles in Jerusalem

We gathered as a family with little more than a table, a Sefer Torah (Torah Scroll) and some prayer books. It was a simple morning service except for two important features – we were at the Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem and it was Bailey's Bat Mitzvah.

Because it was a Bat Mitzvah, we were at Robinson's Arch, the section of the Kotel for Conservative and Reformed Judaism; the section allowing egalitarian prayer. Amazingly and in my mind, sadly – it took until 2000 for Israel to designate an egalitarian prayer area – and even then it is relegated to a section of the Wall more recently excavated and not visible from the primary Kotel Plaza (although they are now constructing a permanent plaza for the Robinson's Arch area given the majority of the world's diaspora Jews are Conservative or Reformed). However, Robinson's Arch has two distinctly special features:  it goes deeper and more of the Wall is exposed and visible than in the main Kotel Plaza – and it has large stones from the destruction of the Second Temple that the Romans threw over the retaining wall (what The Wall actually was). So pieces from closer to the Temple, long buried and hidden from sight was there with us.

As we gathered around in a circle – sometimes facing each other, sometimes facing the Temple Mount, Cantor Evan Cohen, originally from New York led us in familiar melodies – creating positivity and warmth. Although filled with words and verses we had heard hundreds if not thousands of times over, today was more emotional and deeper for everyone present – both because it was Bailey's moment, her milestone toward adulthood and because of the setting. Until today, I have not found the Kotel to me a place that particularly moves me. It's a wall – a retaining wall no less – from a time when Judaism was practiced in some fundamentally different ways. I have struggled to connect with the Wall as a symbol of my Judaism. But today, as my niece became a Bat Mitzvah, with our family circled around, it hit me as I think it did others how amazing and fortunate we are to be ABLE to be there, in that place – against the odds of history of either us or a Jewish site in Jerusalem surviving;  being free citizens of our country and the world; having the means to come to someplace so far away; to have a girl so dedicated to her Jewish identity; and all being alive and in health good enough to bring us to this day. Looking up at the Wall and the stones that during my lifetime weren't even visible for all the rubble and dirt they were under – it was easy to see that the odds of all of these things coming together seem astronomical. But there we were.

The prayer melodies of my childhood always felt a touch melancholy and beseeching. At a Shabbat service, they brought me great comfort and set a mood of earnest prayer – but they carried the tenor of a people who have known sadness and suffering. Even our up-tempo melodies were nowhere near the unbridled joy of Christian gospel. Judaism has many prayers and holidays the reference or recount the stories of persecutions, tragedies and in some cases  - but not always – overcoming. In a day where epigenetics  - changes to genes as a result of environmental stresses – have become a popular topic in science, it's easy to wonder if suffering, trauma and sadness aren't literally in the genes of today's Jews. Perhaps we are not just a people who recount yesterday's challenges, tragedies and sufferings – but in some way we carry them with us, passing them from generation to generation along with the Torah.

But over the years, the melodies in the Conservative congregations I'm familiar with have changed – becoming more upbeat and warmer. In fact so many new melodies have come into play (some borrowed from the Sephardic world) that cantors like to change up the melodies from week to week. More often than not, I find the changes mildly annoying because it makes it harder to get used to anything. But there is something very significant in it – Conservative Ashkenazi Judaism is expressing a new and different tone – a dare I say, happier tenor?

Could it be that at least at this moment in time, Jews are looking out a brighter world? American Jews like our family are largely successful, free and empowered. I have said in other blog posts, in other places that I'm not sure Jews in any other place and time have had as much freedom, inclusion, power and prosperity as American Jews do today. But America alone doesn't make for a happy Jewish world. Israel is the other essential pillar. Jews for the first time since the Hasmonean Dynasty (the Maccabees) during the 140 BCE to 37 BCE period have a self-ruled homeland. And it's no second tier, struggling country either. Israel is a technologically, economically advanced first-world liberal democracy offering its citizens a high quality life. Jews from around the world can make Aliyah anytime they wish. And so, when a Antisemitism becomes a threat in countries one wouldn't think would be problematic in this day and age – like France – there is a place for Jews to go. A good one at that. You need only visit Netanya to see communities of Franco-Jewish expatriates who felt compelled to immigrate.

The world may not always be perfect for Jews everywhere, but Jews everywhere know they will not be condemned to ghettos, pogroms or forced to live as second-class citizens – or non-citizens as they were for hundreds of years before the European emancipation of Jews.

And there we were, singing the prayers openly, in a public space under the sky and at perhaps the greatest holy site in Judaism – with joy, celebrating our Bailey and watching her read from the Torah out in the open. Besides the miracle of the girl she is, the moment itself was a miracle.

After returning to the hotel, celebrating Bailey's achievement with brunch and cake, we changed clothes and returned to the Old City to do a through walking tour of the Jewish Quarter and the underground tunnels. As with the Robinson's Arch area, Israel has sponsored archaeology galore throughout Jerusalem (and much of the country for that matter). Jerusalem like most cities in the region sits on top of layers and layers of previous incarnations of the city. Thousands of years of wars, conquering, destruction and rebuilding mean that people have just built over what existed prior to them.  Today's Old City sits hundred of feet above the Jerusalem that King David, King Solomon, Judah Maccabee, Jesus or Mohammad walked. Jerusalem offers several windows where you can literally look down a hole to see the layers of the walls and city below.

The underground tunnel tour of the Western Wall has many variations. Depending on how much time you're willing to invest, you can go down below to the Roman Jerusalem of King Herod, or further to the Hazmonean area – or in a few cases all the way back to the First Temple period of Hezekiah around 700 BC. With small children and Susan's bad knees, our family wasn't going on the deeper down tours. But even doing the first levels had us seeing the bottom of the Wall and the mind boggling engineering that went into it. We walked Herod's Jerusalem and occasionally bumped into Hasmonean rooms and cisterns.

Our guide, Dina suggested that instead of leaving notes at the above ground Kotel, those who wanted should place them in the deeper, underground Wall. Sennen and Ailyn very much wanted to do this and wrote their own notes (Ailyn's was mostly drawing) and placed them in the Wall. Sennen showed his to Emily: "I want Grammy to get better."

"Sennen, is something wrong with Grammy?"

"You know, from her knee surgery…" (Susan had knee replacements that led to chronic pain)

"Do u wanna tell Grammy about your wish?”

“No, I want her to be surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want her to wake up one day [healed] and be like, ‘Huh! I wonder how that happened?!’”

Sennen then found a stone with a deep hole in it and wedged his note there.

Walking the Jerusalem below Jerusalem – the thousands of years of it was amazing. Above ground, the Old City was teeming with visitors from around the world going Christian, Muslim and Jewish holy sites – praying and experiencing profound moments in their pilgrimages. 

One of Israel's great contributions to the world is how it makes one of the great holy cities of the Western World accessible to visitors of all faiths, throughout the world – and moreover how it uncovers and restores the parts lost to the sands of time and the destructive cruelty of conquerors. Jerusalem has never been more open or available than it is today. Take whatever stance you want on Israel's politics and stances, but the Jewish state has given Jerusalem back to the world – better than ever.

And what fortune for us all. Because Jerusalem is a living city of miracles – not in the David slaying Goliath or the one can of sanctified oil lighting the menorah for eight days and nights way – but in the Frydrych family crying at Bailey's Bat Mitzvah and setting a new tenor for the Jewish people around the world way. In the way that brings what was lost under the earth back for all to see and understand – and in the way that creates opportunity for the faithful to make pilgrimage and for them to find clean restrooms and filtered, cold water bottle filling stations when they get there.