Ezekiel and the Norwegians

Shabbat Shalom!

This afternoon I had rose petal tea, spice cake and fresh dates with my future flat-mate. (By the way, dates here are...extraordinary.  The best way to describe them is to imagine caramel...as a fruit. (Just think about it). )

Yes, I have found an apartment!  It's in the German Colony, a super-hip little area with its own shops, cafes, restaurants, post office, cinema showing obscure artsy-fartsy fabulousness...and of course my new residence.  I can't tell you how happy I am about having a place to call mine.  I've been living out of suitcases since mid-May now.  I want to hang up my clothes, you know?  Leave some things on the nightstand.  Have my toothbrush on its own wee shelf.  Make a mess I don't have to clean up. That sort of thing.

Except that I might not get to move in for 2 more weeks (eek). And even then, I will have some common rooms with an amazing woman (we'll call her M.) who is a lover of all the arts, a dancer and photographer herself, single and a little bit older, and who owns this enormous lovely modern flat. She's divided it into two mostly-separate spaces.   There are big exotic plants and lots of light and books all over the walls and, oh yes-- a piano! When I saw that lovely instrument resting against the living room wall, I knew M and I were destined to be roommates.

So we had tea today and got to know each other. Tomorrow night she has organized a concert in Tel Aviv for a young opera singer  and is going to take me along.  We've already made a million plans to see exhibitions, galleries, dance, theatre, movies, and of course music together.  I'm in heaven.  And M has a vast network of cool, über-hip artsy friends. Instant friends! (Via the commonly known Transitive Property of Roommate Friend Groups).  I plan to win them over through unabashedly nerdy adoration of their chic lifestyles.  Ask me in a few months how that's going...

M had a dinner invitation to get to, and so did I -- no one eats alone on Shabbat -- so I left the apartment and walked to the B&B I'm staying at for now.  It's only 10 minutes from my new place, and it's a huge house owned and run by several Norwegian Christian couples.  They are incredibly dear people, and they invited me to have Shabbat dinner with them.   We shared a good, hearty Norwegian meal and afterwards sang and played piano and guitar for each other.  I played Grieg on the piano, which I think you'll agree was très à propos.

At one point during the evening, a man came in and was welcomed with rapt attention.  He began telling a very long story which of course I couldn't understand (being in Norwegian) but it was something grave.  I gathered this because the women in the room made various gasping noises and shook their heads solemnly, while the men looked down at their toes and remained dead silent.
After it was done, everyone sat quietly for a long time.  Eventually I leaned to the man next to me and asked "What on earth was that about? You all seem very upset."

He told me.  Apparently about a month ago (and someone in the U.S. please tell me this was on the news and I just missed it-- I can't believe I heard about it for the first time tonight!) some 40-odd European countries started building legislation which would prohibit circumcision on (supposedly) medical grounds.  It now looks like this law (or whatever it is) is very near enactment.  What this means is a forced exodus of the Jews in these countries, who will most likely flood Israel.

Again:  over 40 European countries are moments away from voting in a law that would effectively expel all practicing Jews from those countries.

The man who had joined us (apparently high-up in the government here) reported that President Peres had written a personal letter to a prominent figure in Norwegian politics, begging the Norwegian to do all that was within his power to stop this law from coming into effect.  But anti-semitism is very much on the rise, and it is driving these laws. They are going to expel the Jews, and do so "legally".

I really can't believe this, even as I type it.  The Norwegian Christians sitting around the living room with me, who had been laughing and talking, drinking their coffee and eating their cakes, now sat silently praying -- they are great friends of Israel, these Christian people, and they are so broken-hearted about the rise of anti-semitism in Norway and in various other countries, that it took a little old woman's mention of Ezekiel to provide some hope.

See, Ezekiel the prophet foretold the return of Jews to their God-given land.  And while many believe that this prophesied return from exile was fulfilled at the end of the Babylonian captivity, some believe that it will be fulfilled a second time, and this instance of the Jews returning to Israel will mark the imminence of Christ's second coming.  Here's a passage to this effect (Ezekiel 34, NIV):

11 “‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. 13 I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. 14 I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel." 

But there is more.  The old woman reminded us that there is also a prophesy that some Israelites will not wish to return and so must be brought back by force (I think she was referring to Ezekiel 17?).  Perhaps, the Norwegians speculated, through this new anti-semitic legislation God will bring great good-- the Jews will seek refuge in Israel.  Of course, the thought implicit here is that at this time, another prophesy will come to fruition, namely that the Jews will come to recognize Yeshua (ישוע) as the Messiah.

In all, a pretty interesting afternoon.  You see, everyone here is fully and presently aware of the power of faith, and it is too deeply imbued in all things to be ignored.  All things come to be seen and interpreted through a unique Jerusalem lens.   

-E

p.s. Grandma and Grandpa, I hope you haven't been going nutty these last few days.  I am alive, and my heart feels very big in this place.