The Holiest of Holies

Holy cow! And literally holy, but no cow’s. I can’t believe I walked the streets of Jerusalem. The holiest place on earth!

What an amazing experience, even for someone like me who has a very minimal religious background (if any at all actually). Within a couple hours of walking around I saw the site Jesus is believed to be buried, the stones his cross was placed in, the specially designed tomb where he last 

laid, the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It was incredible to see the thousands of people who have traveled from all over the world to visit a place that has a tremendously powerful emotional and physical meaning for some. People were praying, crying, chanting, and learning.

Jerusalem is divided into 4 quarters. The quarters separate into a Christian quarter, Jewish quarter, Muslim quarter, and Armenian quarter. Each quarter has its differences both religiously and visually. Throughout the entire village there are markets with hundreds of little shops, touristy gift shops now of course.

We started in the Christian quarter visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The site where Jesus is buried. I am still in shock that I walked through a place where Jesus was buried, the actual site where they raised his cross. Just inside the entrance is The Stone of Anointing, also known as the The Stone of Unction, which tradition claims to be the spot where Jesus' body was prepared for burial by Jospeh of Arimathe (pic # 1). Many people knelt down and rubbed the top of his grave with their hands, their tears, their belongings, anything they wanted to bless. We continued through the church and one arch way lead to another. Upstairs into a prayer rooms, down stairs beneath the church into additional chapels, and around to The Edicule. The Edicule has two rooms. The first one holds The Angel's Stone, a fragment of the stone believed to have sealed the tomb after Jesus' burial. The second one is the tomb itself. (pic #2) (I’ll site Wikipedia on some of that info in that last few sentences, but not properly at the end like your suppose to. This is my disclaimer.)

Then we walked through the Muslim quarter, which lead us to the Western Wall (pic #3 & 4). We walked down to the wall where you can write a note and leave it in a crack. There were many people praying, touching the wall, and kissing the wall. Many of the men praying were orthodox jewish men. The one’s you see in “penguin-like” suits, black hat, and long curls. They sway back and forth as they pray to keep the rhythm of the prayer. They also wrap their arms, shoulder down to their wrist, with a leather strap and then say their prayers. I don’t really know the full meaning behind this, but it was interesting to see.

After visiting the Wall we walked up a small hill so we could see over the wall to the Dome of the Rock (pic #5) An image many people only see in history books. Due to security reasons, you are no longer allowed to walk up a ramp that takes you to the top, so I snapped a few shots from a distance. Still pretty incredible.

We didn’t spend much time in the Armenia quarter. I believe it is small and they don’t really allow visitors. I am going to make a second trip to Jerusalem at the end of my trip to tour the caves below the city. Apparently this is a new tourist attraction and the caves drop close to 200 meters. It should be pretty cool.   

One of the most incredible things I witnessed was a group of Asians huddled around a man kneeling with a cross over his back. Some of the group was shouting prayers while some stood quietly praying to themselves. There was one man in particular near the center of the group shouting his prayer, shaking his fist, with an intensity I have never seen in person. Obviously, being a nosy American tourist I wanted to whip out my camera and film it, but I refrained because I know that can be very disrespectful and who wants to be disrespectful in the holiest place on earth? I’m thinkin’, serious bad karma if you believe in that.

We had to head back a little early for Daniels graduation ceremony so there will be a second and maybe third trip back. There is so much to see.

Like I said in the beginning, although I do not posses any strong religious beliefs the many tourist’s who have traveled across the world because there religious beliefs have guided them amazed me. These are the experiences that create my desire to travel. Experiences that help me learn about myself and mold me into the person I strive to be. Witnessing the emotions these people have for a belief teaches me that you can follow a belief, whether its religious, a belief in a hobby, a belief in your family, it can be a belief in anything that keeps you moving forward, searching for the next fulfilling emotion, and allows you to think deeper about your true self. Please do not hide these feelings either. In the few days I have been in Israel, I have been apart of this new expressive passion in a culture that excites me to work hard at following my belief. And like I’ve said, my beliefs are not religious based. Traveling creates the feelings that motivate me to be a better person. Traveling to take part in new cultures, different lifestyles, and take on new understandings about what is important to one culture versus the other. It fascinates me!