We began this morning at 6:15 with a walk to the Western Wall (no longer referred to the Wailing Wall since the Jews can now access it). When we arrived, there were already many Jewish people worshiping at the Wall; singing, chanting and praying silently while always in motion. I placed prayers in the Wall that were given to me, and my own personal prayers. After this, we exited the Jewish Quarter and immediately went through another check point to enter The Temple Mount where The Dome of the Rock (Elharam Esh Sharif) and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are located. This was formerly the location of the Jewish Temple.
The Dome of the Rock is the most obvious and identifiable structure, with its large golden roof seen in almost every photo of the Old City. This structure was built approx. 50 years after the death of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, and is the site from where Muhammad is said to have had his Night Journey (Mirraj) into heaven and back to Mecca. We had another group photo, and as we were having our walking lecture and group of heavily armed Israeli military personnel walked past us escorting a group of Jewish people to worship on the mount. There is a sign, written by the Chief Rabbi posted at the security check point to the Temple Mount that clearly states Jews are “forbidden” to enter, but we found out there is a Zionist group that is radicle and has demanded and received the right to worship there, and have protection and escort doing so. Talk about tension in the air!
From there we made our way to the Pools of Bethesda where Jesus healed the paralytic in John 5:2-9, and is located at the Church of St. Anne. The church has amazing acoustics, and is also beloved to the the birthplace of Our Lady, the Virgin Mary.
The highlight of the day, for me anyway, was a visit to the Princess Basma Center for Disabled Children on the Mount of Olives. A truly amazing place serving all religions. We were given a walking tour, and part of the cost of our trip was a donation to this center. The most moving part was watching a mother work with her toddler in the sensory room. The child had hearing aids in both ears and a trach tube connected to oxygen. The mother. as is the culture here, stays up to 2-3 weeks with her child in the intensive therapy and often needs more than one cycle; this is the standard for all children so that they can go home and still be able to do the necessary therapies.
After lunch, we drove up to Bethphage, the place from which Jesus sent his disciples to go and retrieve a donkey for his Palm Sunday processions. We did this walk down to the Dominus Flevit (“the Lord has wept”) church that is shaped like a tear drop. In Luke 19, Jesus, overlooking the city of Jerusalem, wept as he visualized her future fate and ultimate destruction.
We walked down from the Mt. of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane (“olive press”). This is the place where the disciples slept when Jesus asked them to stay wake as he prayed on night the night he was arrested before his Crucifixion. This is also the location of the great agony, where Jesus did sweat blood, and prayed to God the Father that, “not my will, but thy will be done”.
It was a long way down, with the visual of the Old City ahead of us, and the Jewish Cemetery all the way down to our left and as far as you could see (over 70,000). The above ground graves began being placed on the Mt. of Olives some 3000 years ago in the 1st Temple period.
Our day ended with a lecture on the Israeli Perspective. A visiting Hebrew University professor gave his personal observations and basically it seemed to be the opposite of what we have heard from Christians and Muslims, aside from agreeing that building in the “occupied
area” is not right for Israel to do, and only serves to deepen the tensions and further prevent resolution.
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