Though I am many posts away from my day spent on the Mount of Olives, today, being the holiday, the agnostic pilgrim ruina Palm Sunday.
That picture is pretty much what we imagine. Until recently, we did not notice that everyone is too white and too clean, but aside from that it looks about right. Until you actually go there. Shall we?
Having spent my morning wandering the valley directly below the Temple Mount, a place stuffed with biblical references, which I will share eventually, I went up hill away from the city, which is the Mount of Olives.
Which Mount of Olives?
What was not obvious to me until I got there is that there are literally thousands of hills filled with olive trees in historic Israel, which is modern Israel and the Occupied West Bank. Here a mount, there a mount, everywhere a mount!
Also not obvious to anyone until they come here, is that the hills are steep. I learned that while hiking through the Galilee and the Ellah Valley, but did not anticipate that Jerusalem really is on hills that would make Rome look flat. Mount Zion is not the site of the temple, by the way, but right next door, a few blocks away, and has biblical spots of its own. But I will talk about that another time.
Jumping Jehoshaphat!
The valley is often called the valley of Jehoshaphat, which in Hebrew means ‘God has judged,” and refers to the low spot that lies between the temple mount and the mount of olives. The prophet Joel names this as the place where the Last Judgment will begin.
That is why the east side of the valley, which is part of the Mount of Olives, is a gigantic Jewish cemetery. Like Hindus who wish to die bu the Ganges so they go straight into moksha, so Jews buried here believe they will be the first to be resurrected. I did in fact stop in to look upon some of the graves as I came up the hill. They are all small, almost too small to contain a corpse. Some have names I can read, some have numerical dates as Hebrew used letters for numbers for a long time. I saw two from the 1930s and 40’s and thought how fortunate to die before their world was brought to the brink.
Up at the top after a long walk, I can look across to the Temple Mount and realize how large the Muslim cemetery is that is at the foot of the temple walls. The living and the dead each have a claim on Jerusalem and the dead may have the better claim.
From there I see the famous view that centers the golden Dome of the Rock. I take pictures of course. Then following the road as it snakes down into the valley, there are modern lookouts. I take more pictures. Two young women sit on the benches and consult their phones. Two young men chat elsewhere. No groups up here. Not even much noise.
Walking down the road, which runs along the edge of the Jewish cemetery, I encounter a high school group from somewhere in Eastern Europe. They wander back and forth and their adult handler is clearly trying to corral them. I stop at the Dominus Flevit church gate, The Lord wept, as it sits where Jesus stopped on the entry into Jerusalem and wept over the city he foresaw being destroyed, according to the gospel.
No wonder Jesus wept
It was closed that day and I had to come back later, which I did and found choked with visitors. The chapel there, not old, faces the temple mount and frames the best view. While sitting in the small chapel with a few other devout folks, tourists came in every few seconds to crouch down and take ‘the picture’ before leaving for their next photo op. It was enough to make a person weep.
Was this actually on the road from Bethany? Zounds, I never thought of visiting Bethany, which is modern Al-Eizuriya, named for Lazarus. Probably cannot.
Were You There?
At some point I crossed whatever ancient road Jesus came in on. Virtually everything but the olive trees came after that day. There was a cemetery then, but way below, where the oldest tombs still are, though empty now.
Now, I wondered why Jesus rode a donkey or colt. Clearly, he was doing some performance art, thought I, mocking the pretensions of kings who ride on horses. That’s even what I preached in the past, but now another thought arises. This is one seriously steep hill. A horse would not be at their best going down with a rider on its back. But a donkey, as I learned in Petra the day before, climbs and descends steps really well, even with a rider. Maybe that was the way even the powerful rode around town with all its vertiginous slopes. Nothing like a simple fact to ruin your midrash.
Returning to the vertiginous street, the next church, to Mary Magdalene was closed as well, which has several gold domes in the Orthodox style and competes with the Dome of the rock for glitter, as was the Church of the Virgin’s tomb.
If the story happened at all like the Christian Scriptures say, Jesus would have entered Jerusalem to the north of the temple. The gates to the east were always closed, opened only for symbolic days in the Jewish Calendar. And those on the west were restricted to priests who needed to maintain ritual purity between their lodgings and the temple. Thus entrances for ordinary people were on the north and south walls, and he likely came in from the north, probably through what is now the Al Ghazali gate. That gate is only accessible to Muslims today.
The Trees Remember
The one site open was the church of the Agony, in what was the garden of Gethsemane. It is Roman Catholic, and the latest of several church built around a rock (holy rocks turn up a lot here, don’t they?) on which Jesus prayed even sweating blood as he contemplated the fate before him. The current church, at the bottom of the hill, dates from the mid 20th century. The rock is framed by a huge wrought iron ‘crown of thorns.’ A small clutch of pilgrims, mostly European and a few Asian, sit in the pews or take pictures of the rock.
Adjacent to the church is a grove of olive trees in a square fenced garden. Some are clearly quite old. Tradition says the four oldest trees were around when Jesus was here, living witnesses to the event.
Being Friday, and Erev shabbat, the last tram is at 230. I have enough time to make that tram if I start climbing up the other side now. The Muslim community is now leaving the Temple Mount, filling the Jericho road with people as they wait for buses heading east. Two old men – meaning my age – with hats and caftans, separately but just a minute apart, start talking to me in half english. They are cheerful but mostly unintelligible. One even tugs at my two weeks worth of shabby whiskers. Did not understand that at all, but it was odd.
Back to my Bethany
I thread through families waiting for buses, dart across the street when traffic is stopped, to get into the shade and the further I ascend the thinner the crowd, though it never totally vanishes. Into the Old City, I go in at the famous Damascus Gate of the Moslem Quarter. Such a hubbub is not far from the dickering Jesus condemned within the temple. Here it is quite appropriate.
In a few minutes, working my way past the discerning women haggling and the men pushing goods along, and even the occasional motorcycle, I am on the Via Dolorosa. This will be my Saturday agenda. It is good to get a sense of it. Up steps, passing several stations of the cross without noticing, I think about supper. Shabbat really shuts this town down. But do I have time to find something to take away? I have a list of places open from the hostel. There is a pastry stand nearby as I think. I strike a bargain for some baklava, or what looks like baklava. I pay too much but not way too much, 20 shekels for two handsome triangles.
Sweets in hand I head for the walls. Waiting for the walk sign, a pair of bicycles pulls up beside me. Two orthodox youths wait with me, modern helmets on their heads but with a perfectly shaped plastic box on the back to hold their broadbrimmed hat. Tevye would approve. At the tram stop, the sidewalk fills up with folks because of the hour. The tram comes, then sits for a long time before leaving. No matter. I am on the train. Two stops later, at Davidka square, I get off. Good to take a rest, but the dinner question is real. A long siren starts, which I first think some danger . But no, it means time to close shops. What will I do for dinner?
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