Palm Sunday & Pesach

Palm Sunday was a glorious day.  With a few excellent new friends I attended a special Arabic-English Palm Sunday service at the Episcopal Cathedral in Jerusalem, St. George's.  After lunch on a veranda down the street, we hitched a ride on a tour bus to the Chapel at Bethphaige ("House of Figs") on the Mount of Olives, the traditional starting point of Jesus' procession into Jerusalem.

We gathered there with hundreds of pilgrims from around the world, waving olive branches and palm fronds (which, by the way, made for an occasionally stabby experience) singing, clapping and dancing in the streets as we walked from the Mount down through Gethsemane and up through the Lion's Gate into Old Jerusalem.  It was crowded and rambunctious and marvelous, and but for the inevitable display of technological gadgetry it was easy to imagine one was part of the joyous throng all those millennia ago.

After the procession, a few of my new companions and I retired to the Austrian Hospice (my new favorite place in the Old City), where we drank delicious cold beer, noshed on warm Apfelstrudel and stretched our tired legs out on the cool stone of a balcony overlooking the streets of the Muslim quarter.  Part of me is certain the good Lord would have loved to join us for a refreshing pint after what was surely a rowdy donkey ride.

St George's Cathedral

Arabic Christian Guards begin the procession, followed by flag corps

To give you an idea of how it sounded, I took a few short videos and patched them together:

An elderly Arabic woman watches the festivities from her rooftop rose garden

Two old friends also enjoy the parade from aloft

Mount Moriah (Temple Mount) as seen from Mount of Olives 

The descent into Gethsemane

The obligatory Fake White Jesus Bored On His Ass

Gethsemane from above (with Dominus Flevit Church and, far left, the Russian Orthodox Church of Mary Magdalene) 

The Golden Gate of Jerusalem (Gate of Mercy/Eastern Gate/Beautiful Gate): Jesus entered through this Gate on Palm Sunday, which was highly significant since  according to Jewish tradition, this gate was where the Divine Presence entered the Temple and the place where the Messiah would, when he came, enter the Holy City.  It was bricked shut when the Ottomans gained control of the city in the 16th century, and many believe the motivation was to prevent the Jewish/Christian Messiah from returning. To add insult to injury, Suleiman (the conquering Ottoman sultan who closed the East Gate) built a massive Muslim cemetery in front of the gate, which is clearly still in existence.     

Church of All Nations/ Basilica of the Agony in Gethsemane, on the traditional spot of Jesus' lamentation

Polish Catholics represent!

Beautiful Gethsemane

The very spot (behind the Church of All Nations) where according to tradition, Jesus prayed with his disciples 

View of the Golden Gate from inside Gethsemane

Church of Mary Magdelene (golden domes -- Russian Orthodox) with Church of All Nations

Entering St Stephen's (or the Lion's) Gate

Little Muslim children stood on their balconies smiling and waving at the pilgrims, "anointing" us with rice and flowers

Inside the Holy City

For Passover, I took the bus to Rishon le Ziyyon and had Seder with my new sister-in-law's enormous, rowdy, bursting-with-love Jewish family.  Good times and great food.  The Seder Supper begins with about an hour of liturgical readings and singing, accompanied with symbolic dishes (the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread) telling the story of Israel's freedom from captivity in Egypt.  D and I got a real kick out of the circa-1980s imagery which accompanied our Hebrew-English Order of Service, to wit-- the 10 Plagues depicted as humorously as you'll ever see them, I wager:

The cow is my favorite. The fish with the water slicing through him runs a close second, though. D's favorite was the guy with the boils: "Whaat? What's this, with the boils? I go to sleep and then these boils I have to deal with?!"

The generations gathered together...like so many Pesach Dominoes

Again I took a brief video of some of the singing.  It's a counting song ("Ten are the Ten Commandments!", etc.  I wonder if it's the song this Gospel classic is based on...) :

Jews know how to expertly combine such solemn affairs of remembrance with an unparalleled celebration of life and the living present.  Thanks for letting these little Gentile siblings partake in a memorable feast!