"Diving in" might have been an enormous understatement of the depth at which we reached and the breadth of material and information covered inside the old city walls on Thursday. While it is impossible to fully describe the FEELING of experiencing this city first hand, I'll do my best to share the experience in a way that sheds a little bit of light on it, using the idea I clung to throughout the day of experiencing sites, not just using my sight to take in the city.
We began the morning entering the old city through the Zion gate, heading through the Armenian quarter towards the Western Wall in the Jewish quarter, where we planned to pause at 10am with the rest of the country to commemorate Yom HaShoah (Holocaust & Heroism Remembrance Day) with the sounding of the alarms - the same alarms that sound during air raids (as they did this past summer). The near silence that began just before the alarms and the alarm itself were almost eery - commanding you to truly remember and consider the 6 million Jewish lives lost during the Holocaust.
After the alarm, we helped to put notes/prayers into the crevices of the Wall. Witnessing the connection to the wall, the moments had by many of our colleagues and strangers alike as they came to the wall to pray, to think, to connect was absolutely indescribable. To feel the connection I did to this place, to feel the energy there at this wall, without any direct spiritual connection to its significance myself, is something I'll never forget.
We followed this experience with a complex and thorough overview of the history and significance of several of the major sites in the old city, including the Via Dolorosa, the church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the outside of the Dome of the Rock. Again, the feeling, the connection, the simple acknowledgement of just how much history there is in the old city, and how much blood and tears have been spilled in relation to these sites and this city left me in awe - and we barely scraped the surface in the bustle of it all.
After lunch, we continued our emotional journey with a visit to Yad Voshem, the Holocaust History Museum. The exhibit does a phenomenal job of bringing to light the humanistic aspect and truly giving those who lost everything back their names. Personal stories, details of connection, and names of those lost, and those who helped to save many who otherwise would have also lost their lives, were all prominent in the exhibit. This portion of the day was an experience that is impossible to fully share, one that could not be replicated in any other place in the world to feel as it did here in Israel, and is an experience I wish that every single person could have. It is one thing to say "Never forget" and another thing entirely to experience it and have that experience, that feeling, forever ingrained.
While today has been almost entirely based on feeling and history, tomorrow will be a day more tied to thinking and the future of Israel, and I have a feeling my mind will be on the transition, the separations as well as the connections in this country as we head into Shabbat.