Jerusalem
Being the holy centre of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Jerusalem is a pilgrimage site for millions from around the world. As a non-religious person, it still felt like a spiritual journey visiting this historic and contentious city. Over 1200 synagogues, 150 churches and 70 mosques are found within the city alone!
For Jewish people, the creation of the world over 5000 years ago began with the foundation stone on Mount Moriah under the Dome of the Rock (that’s the famous gold top you see in postcards of Jerusalem) on Temple Mount. Jerusalem was established as the capital by King David and it was here that the First Temple was built by his son Solomon. By 586 BCE, the city was besieged and inhabitants exiled to Babylon. In 538 BCE, the Second Temple was built, but Romans destroyed the Temple completely in 70CE. The only remains of the Second Temple today is the Western Wall.
Also known as the Wailing Wall, which stems from the practice of Jewish people coming to the wall to mourn the destruction of the temple, the Western Wall has separate sides for men and women. The wall is always lined with people offering their prayers and you can see prayer notes wedged between the crevices. Measuring 57m long and 18.9m above the ground, the wall used to be part of the city walls. Not surprisingly, the whole city of Jerusalem and Israel is a rich archaeological site. We came across plenty of archaeologists doing research during our short stay. One of the cool things you can see at the Western Wall are the Bar-Mitzvah celebrations, a coming of age festivity for boys when they turn 13. For the ladies, as we can’t really see what was going on the other side of the wall, there are rows of chairs to stand up on to peek over and there’s plenty of candy thrown over as a sign for good blessings. In addition to Bar Mitzvahs, we also came across many interesting Jewish traditions. For example, synagogues are built with the Holy Ark facing Jerusalem and daily prayers are recited facing Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Mizrach plaques can be found in Jewish homes to indicate the direction of prayer. Another neat tradition is the Shabbat day of rest where traditional Jewish people devote their time and energy on their families and religion. Shabbat falls on the seventh day of the week. One of the restrictions include not lighting and extinguishing fire, so in modern times, this means using preset timers for lights and even elevators are set to stop on every level so there’s no need to press any buttons connected to a power source. Israel doesn’t have very tall buildings, or else a simple ride on the elevator could take way longer than expected! There is of course no driving allowed, so we could see lots of people walking on this day of rest and there was little traffic on the road. Don’t expect hot food to be served either as everything that needs to be cooked would have been prepared the night before! More to come on Israel on my next blog!
Being the holy centre of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Jerusalem is a pilgrimage site for millions from around the world. As a non-religious person, it still felt like a spiritual journey visiting this historic and contentious city. Over 1200 synagogues, 150 churches and 70 mosques are found within the city alone!
For Jewish people, the creation of the world over 5000 years ago began with the foundation stone on Mount Moriah under the Dome of the Rock (that’s the famous gold top you see in postcards of Jerusalem) on Temple Mount. Jerusalem was established as the capital by King David and it was here that the First Temple was built by his son Solomon. By 586 BCE, the city was besieged and inhabitants exiled to Babylon. In 538 BCE, the Second Temple was built, but Romans destroyed the Temple completely in 70CE. The only remains of the Second Temple today is the Western Wall.
Also known as the Wailing Wall, which stems from the practice of Jewish people coming to the wall to mourn the destruction of the temple, the Western Wall has separate sides for men and women. The wall is always lined with people offering their prayers and you can see prayer notes wedged between the crevices. Measuring 57m long and 18.9m above the ground, the wall used to be part of the city walls. Not surprisingly, the whole city of Jerusalem and Israel is a rich archaeological site. We came across plenty of archaeologists doing research during our short stay. One of the cool things you can see at the Western Wall are the Bar-Mitzvah celebrations, a coming of age festivity for boys when they turn 13. For the ladies, as we can’t really see what was going on the other side of the wall, there are rows of chairs to stand up on to peek over and there’s plenty of candy thrown over as a sign for good blessings. In addition to Bar Mitzvahs, we also came across many interesting Jewish traditions. For example, synagogues are built with the Holy Ark facing Jerusalem and daily prayers are recited facing Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Mizrach plaques can be found in Jewish homes to indicate the direction of prayer. Another neat tradition is the Shabbat day of rest where traditional Jewish people devote their time and energy on their families and religion. Shabbat falls on the seventh day of the week. One of the restrictions include not lighting and extinguishing fire, so in modern times, this means using preset timers for lights and even elevators are set to stop on every level so there’s no need to press any buttons connected to a power source. Israel doesn’t have very tall buildings, or else a simple ride on the elevator could take way longer than expected! There is of course no driving allowed, so we could see lots of people walking on this day of rest and there was little traffic on the road. Don’t expect hot food to be served either as everything that needs to be cooked would have been prepared the night before! More to come on Israel on my next blog!
