It's Thursday, March 20th--Maundy Thursday, and we will have our traditional service with communion and tenebrae in a few hours.
Just a month ago I was in Jerusalem. On our first full day there, my husband and I, recovering from jet lag, and with everything closed for Shabbos, had ventured from our hotel into the Old City on our own; it was apparent from our reception that we were representatives of a very rare species--tourists, without group or guide. We were constantly surrounded by offers of "help you find where going" or "look in my shop, two minutes, two minutes" we wandered helplessly through the-- streets? alleys? passages?--anyway, through the places of foot traffic. Once, finding ourselves in a dead end, residential courtyard, we did accept the offer of a boy of about 8 or 9 to "find where going?" "Church" we said, thinking if we could work our way back to the Christian quarter, Chuck could use his map to get us out the Jaffa gate. Our young guide led us through a maze of winding streets, all seemingly fronted by the same tourist shops, all seemingly offering the same goods.Moreover, the all seem to offer the same or similar goods as other places we've visited-chess sets, roughly carved statues, inexpensive brass, wood, tiles, local (?)--all those seem to abound in Istanbul, in Mexico, in Peru, in Hong Kong, in Equador, in the Carribean Islands..The globes I thought beautiful in France years ago now crowd the markets of Jerusalem. There has to be a tourist central somewhere (China, maybe?) that provides slightly customized goods to tourist markets everywhere.
Just as Jesus found moneylenders in the temple, we find tourist stalls throughout Jerusalem.
And so, we found ourselves at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. We venture in. Its big. it has lots of levels. Its dark. There are lots of people. There are no signs. There is no booklet. We have jet lag. We retreat to the hotel and nap, deferring our "experiencing" the site until we have a guide who can at least tell us what we are seeing.
