Shalom again everyone! This time, I bring you shalom from the City of Peace, Yerushalayim in Hebrew, or as it is known the world over, Jerusalem.No trip to Israel is ever complete without visiting its capital city, the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the center of everything- it is from this city that Jesus, after His death, ascended to heaven, and it is to this city that He will return.
Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its neighbors combined. Yup, you read that right. It has the highest standard of living in the Middle East. The world's largest wholesale diamond center is in Israel, and most of the cut and polished diamonds in the world come from the country.
Israel recycles wastewater and 50 percent of its irrigated water comes from this. More than 85 percent of Israel's solid waste is treated to be environmentally sound as well, making Israel one of the most environmentally clean nations on earth.
Now, back to Jerusalem. From the Dead Sea and Jericho, we traveled up to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the capital city of Israel, and is one of the oldest cities in the world. It is a holy city to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. Join me then as I take you to places around the city, and I hope that as you see these places, you will have it in your heart to travel there one day. We spent the night at the Park Hotel in Jerusalem.
The building with the golden dome you see is the Dome of the Rock. On this mount stood the First and Second Temples mentioned in the bible. Jerusalem is also called Jerusalem of Gold, because when the sun rises and sets, the reflection of this on the buildings give them a golden hue.
Very early the next day, even before having breakfast, we went to the famous Via Dolorosa, to walk the same path that is believed to be the same path that Jesus walked on His way to Calvary. We went there earliest possible time to avoid the crowds, which was very good, because that way, we were able to enjoy listening to Mendy explain the places and what happened there. Everyone was willing to wake up earlier than usual, so we all went early morning.
During the day the Via Dolorosa is filled with tourists and there are also shops around so it is very hard to move freely. Mendy surely knew what he was doing, and we were grateful for the peace and quiet as we contemplated and reflected about what Jesus was going through as He was carrying His cross while bleeding and being mocked and insulted by the people.
Just to clarify though. Nobody knows for sure where the exact path was, and the Via Dolorosa is what the Catholics and Orthodox believers usually follow. We also went just so we had an idea about it.
Over the centuries Jerusalem has been described by many who have seen her glory as the 'City of Gold', mainly because of the effect that the reflecting sunlight of dusk and dawn has upon her buildings and walls. The rays of the sun give a special glow to these stones which make this city unique. As a result of this beauty, there is an ordinance that requires all new buildings in Jerusalem to be built with Jerusalem stone only.
This is the stairs beside the Holy Sepulchre Church, which the Catholics believe to have been the place where Jesus was buried. In this part of the city, the buildings and churches are almost interconnected.
The 'stations' are marked with small markers that are often missed during the day because of the crowds. During Good Friday celebrations, this is where the Catholics and Orthodox have their processions carrying crosses to commemorate the way Jesus walked to Calvary.
Look at these stones. These stones are very old- and they may have very well been from the time of Jesus, although no one really knows. What the city does is that they preserve whatever remnants they find, and just build around or next to it, that way, the ruins stay intact for the next generations to see.
Notice the comparison. The new stones are the square tiles on the side, cut and pre-shaped. The stones we are stepping on have not been cut or hewn, they were just placed on the pavement. To think that these stones were there in the time of Jesus makes it very interesting, isn't it? One can say that I have walked where Jesus walked!
Here are some more old stones on the pavements of Jerusalem. They look very old, but some are also quite new- you can distinguish the old ones from the newer ones by shape. If it has a definite shape, than that is already a new stone.
The arch that we see in the background is called the Ecce Homo Arch, where tradition says that is the place where Pontius Pilate displayed Jesus- beaten, crowned with thorns, and wearing a purple robe, and said, 'Behold the Man' , Ecce Homo in Latin. Christians believed this theory for centuries until archaeology proved that the arch was not there then.
Underneath the Ecce Homo Arch though, the remains of Hadrian's plaza was discovered. Hadrian was the Roman Emperor during AD 135.
This is the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Here the Catholics believe is the place where Jesus was buried. If you go inside the church, you will be taken to a place where they say is the exact place of burial. But the truth is, no one can prove exactly where the place was. There is an alternative place where it is also likely to have been the place, and we will look at that later.
Imagine walking in a city that is so rich in history, and virtually every place where you put your feet, history screams at you. No other place on earth can match the excitement of being in Jerusalem. I have been to a lot of places in my life, but nothing will compare to the memories I have made there.
After the Holy Sepulchre, we went back to the hotel for breakfast, and after breakfast, we went to the Mount of Olives, and walked down the Palm Sunday Road. Mount of Olives I say? Yup, you read that right. The same Mount of Olives you read in the bible, and the path we are standing on was perhaps the same road Jesus took when He rode the donkey into the city, just a few days before His death.
You can read the account in the books of Luke chapter 19, in the book of Matthew chapter 21, in the book of John chapter 12 respectively.
Of course back then the road was not paved, there were perhaps no buildings on either side, well, maybe a few houses here and there. So many things happened at the Mount of Olives, just read your bible to find out.
Today, on the left side of the Palm Sunday Road is a Jewish cemetery, so the things we see in the picture are actually tombstones. But why are there small stones on top of the tombs? Back in the old times, when someone died, they would be buried and stones were put on top as a marker. Therefore the stones on a grave signify that the grave has recently been visited and that the deceased has not been forgotten. Some people who visit graves often select a pebble from their very own garden to signify their respect to the deceased.
Here I am, standing on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the Temple Mount. The golden dome we see in the picture is the Dome of the Rock. Inside the building is the rock where the Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammed took off on his way to heaven. The Temple Mount was where the First and Second Temples stood.
Here is the Mount of Olives from a distance, taken from the west. And this was taken from inside the moving bus.
Here is a closer look at the Dome of the Rock. In the time of Jesus, the city was walled, and he would enter the Temple from the Eastern Gate. The Old City of Jerusalem is surrounded by a wall containing eight major gates, namely Herod's Gate, Damascus Gate, the New Gate, Jaffa Gate, Zion Gate, the Dung Gate, the Eastern Gate, and the Lion's Gate.
The Eastern Gate, facing the Mount of Olives, is unique because it is completely sealed shut. The sealing of the Eastern Gate is seen as a fulfillment of prophecy. In the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament, in the 44th chapter, the first two verses say that this gate is to remain shut, because the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered through it.
The Eastern Gate was sealed shut in AD 1540-41 by order of Suleiman the Magnificent, who was a Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. It is believed that the reason for the closing of the gate was to prevent the Jewish Messiah from gaining entrance to Jerusalem. Jewish tradition states that the Messiah will pass through the Eastern Gate when He comes to rule. I say a sealed gate will not be a hindrance to the Messiah when He chooses to come back!
Here is a look at the city wall from the Mount of Olives. Again, you see the uniformity of the colors of all the buildings. There is no other color other than the Jerusalem stone.
On the right side of the Mount of Olives if you are coming down from the Palm Sunday Road, is the Garden of Gethsemane, where the Church of All Nations is located. The Garden of Gethsemane is the place where Jesus prayed just before He got arrested, where his sweat turned into drops of blood as He was praying in agony.
On the garden are several olive trees, one which is very old, much older than the one we saw at the Village in Nazareth. The picture of the olive tree though, will come from my 2008 trip as I was not able to take a picture of it this time. The Church of All Nations is named as such because the funds used to build it came from all the nations of the world.
The building with the onion shaped golden domes on top is the Church of St Mary Magdalene, the Mary Magdalene from whom seven demons came out. She's the same Mary who was there at the crucifixion, the same Mary who first saw the empty tomb. This church was built in her honor. It especially looks beautiful at night when its domes are illuminated by light in stark contrast to the trees that surround it.
We now come to the place called Golgotha, which means skull, and is the place in the bible that describes the place where Jesus was crucified. This is a close up shot of the rock face, so it is not very recognizable. Plus, over the years, erosion, pollution from cars have eroded the hill so the shape has changed overtime but it still looks like the shape of the skull.
Like I mentioned earlier, the Catholics believe that Calvary is inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the site was identified by the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine's mother, Helena. She then proceeded to build a church to commemorate the location.
However, Golgotha would have been located outside the city in accordance with Roman and Jewish customs at the time. The gospels too, seem to suggest that Jesus was crucified outside the city. The Romans at the time used crucifixion as a way of punishment to criminals, and the crosses would be placed at a place where there is a lot of traffic, people and otherwise.
This practice is to make a public spectacle of them, shaming them, and also, to serve as a warning to the rest of the people that if you do something bad, it could also happen to you. Our Lord Jesus was crucified in the same way, treated like a criminal, shedding His innocent blood, so that when we receive Him as our Lord and Savior, we receive eternal life.
This place we see in the picture that resembles a skull is indeed located on the side of a very busy junction, so a lot of people and traffic pass by it. So scholars tend to believe that this is a more likely location of the Calvary.
In a nearby garden, there was an unused tomb. And since at the time of death, it was a special Sabbath as it was the Passover, and if it Sabbath, Jews are not permitted to carry loads. So since the special Sabbath was about to start, and they did not have time to bury him properly, Joseph of Arimathea, being a secret disciple of Jesus, boldly asked Pilate to take the body of Jesus. He and Nicodemus then wrapped the body in linen and spices, and laid Him in the garden nearby, since the tomb was new and empty.
This is that tomb spoken about, and it just a few hundred meters from the place of the skull. The tomb was hewn out of the rock, and we see that the structure has been fortified in some areas to make it stronger and preserve it, otherwise, all the other features are of the original material.
This is what it looks like inside the tomb. The rock was hewn and shaped like this, so that a whole body could fit.
At the entrance of the tomb they put this door with a sign that says, he is not here, for He is risen. He is risen indeed, for the bible says that after 3 days, He rose again!
Outside the Church of the Dominus Flevit, where tradition says is the place where Jesus wept over the future fate of Jerusalem. You can read that passage in the book of Luke chapter 19. But what I am showing here in the picture is the same plant that they used to make the crown of thorns that they put on His head. The thorns are big, and you can imagine those thorns digging into His flesh as they beat Him repeatedly.
Here is another look at the tomb. On the right side, where there are square blocks, those were put to reinforce and repair the damage to the tomb. The rest are the original, save the retaining wall on top as well, where you see the square pieces again.
This is the Al Aqsa Mosque with the gray dome on the left, and the area in the foreground is the Mount of Olives. The bible says the Jesus ascended to heaven from the Mount of Olives, and there He will return when He comes back to earth. You can read this passage in the book of Luke, chapter 24.
We also took time to visit the Yad Vashem Memorial, which is a memorial to the 6 million Jews who died during the Holocaust. For those who have no idea about the Holocaust, it was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of the Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators during the leadership of the late Adolf Hitler.
Photography was not allowed inside, but what you see there are different things- clothes and shoes worn by the people in the concentration camps, parts of a train, jewelry, TV screens mounted where the survivors share their horrific stories. Tears were flowing down my cheeks as I read descriptions, listened to the stories of the survivors.
How can anyone have so much hate in his/her heart to want to kill a whole race? I believe that the Holocaust was inspired by the devil, but he did not succeed, because there was a remnant left, and that remnant went back to Israel, from the ashes of the Holocaust, to build Israel into what it is today.
The place I am standing at is the other side of the memorial. Inside the building is dark,like being in a tunnel, which represents the period of the Holocaust, which was indeed a very dark time for the Jewish people. The place where I am standing is bright, with trees in the background, signifying that there is light after the tunnel.
I am borrowing a picture from the Yad Vashem website itself, just to have a glimpse of the inside. One goes through the building in a snaking pattern, going through the different things on display. It was such a horrific period, but God did not allow them to be totally annihilated.
After that dark time, the nation of Israel again became a nation in 1948, and here in the picture you see the young men and women who serve in the military. When one turns 18, every personal plan is put on hold, for them to serve their country first.
And if you've been reading my other articles about Israel, you will know that Israel has become one of the most advanced countries in the whole world.
At the Yad Vashem, there is also a place called the Garden of the Righteous, where the people who helped hide, save and shelter the Jews during the Holocaust are honored, a tree being planted for each person. Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch shoemaker, was one, and they say that the day she died, her tree in the garden also died, so they planted another tree in her honor. Oskar Schindler, made famous by the movie Schindler's list was another one.
The Jewish people know how to show their gratitude to those who have helped them in their times of darkness. In the Philippines, our then President Manuel Luis Quezon opened the country to some Jewish refugees, and because of that, we Filipinos can travel to Israel without a visa! A monument has been erected in Israel to commemorate this 'Open Doors' policy of the late president Quezon.
We also visited the Shrine of the Book in Israel Museum, where the scrolls of the books of the bible that were found in the caves of Qumran are on display. The longest intact scroll is the scroll of the book of Isaiah, although the one on display is just a copy.
The white structure behind us was inspired by the apocryphal writings also found in Qumran, where a text called 'The War against the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. The white dome represents the Sons of Light, and the black wall which is not seen in the picture represents the Sons of darkness.
In the museum we also saw a 3d model of what Jerusalem looked like in the time of Jesus. This was during the height of its glory, when the Second Temple still stood on the temple Mount. The reconstruction is based on descriptions from Jewish sources, and on archaeological finds.
At the heart of the city stands the Temple Mount. Kings who built the city, and King Herod and his descendants were greatly influenced by the Greco-Roman culture, as clearly reflected in the style of the buildings, the layout of the streets and all other features. The building we see in the picture was the Second Temple. I could not take a better picture because we could only stand and look at it from a certain distance.
All the other buildings look grand as well, and we see that the city was walled for protection from possible invaders. The houses nearest the Temple belonged to the priests.
We were there just as the sun was about to set, so we did not stay there for too long. You can see we used our time to the max, so that we can see almost all the places there is to see.
We also dropped by the large menorah at the Knesset. The Knesset is the Parliament building of Israel. The menorah is one of the national symbols of Israel.The menorah is described in the bible as the 6-branched lampstand that continuously provides light to the altar.
The Knesset Menorah was designed by a jewish sculptor who escaped from Germany to Britain. It was presented to the Knesset as a gift from the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1956, in honor of the eighth anniversary of Israeli independence at the time.
Each portion of the menorah depicts the suffering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Perhaps that's why they chose the location being in front of the Knesset to remind everyone the horrors they went through before they became a nation once again after they were scattered all over the world.
That's the Knesset building in the background. It was already evening when we stopped by, so we just took some pictures and went back to the hotel.
This picture was taken on our way to the Wailing Wall. One of the members of our group took this picture and I love it because of the young man in the picture with me wearing the traditional costume, and since I am also wearing a hat, I felt like I was the same, ha ha.
I add this picture here because they put in a painting to have people see what the streets of Jerusalem looked like in those days. Full of merchants, full of pedestrians, very busy street.
And now, the highlight. This is the Western Wall, also called the Wailing Wall. In Hebrew it is called the Kotel, in Arabic it is known as Al Buraq. This wall is an ancient limestone wall that was a retaining wall of the Temple Mount. When King Herod built the Second Temple, he enlarged the area, hence he needed a retaining wall to keep the Temple Mount safe and stable.
Since the Jews are prohibited to pray at the Temple Mount itself, the Jews and Christians from all over the world come to pray at the Western Wall. At the entrance by the Dung Gate, one of the gates of the Old City, there is a written description that the presence of God never left the place.
When I first approached the Wall during my first visit in 2005, as I was walking towards it, tears just started pouring down my face. I cannot fully explain why, but the tears just kept falling. I prayed at the Wall, as all the other people were doing, thanking God for having the opportunity to visit the place where He lived as a human being.
This area though did not look like this before. It was actually a garbage dump, to humiliate the Jews who visited it. But come they did, to pray, and visit during the Jewish festivals. The prayer area for men and women is partitioned, to segregate them as is the Jewish custom.
It is a common practice that prayer requests from people all over the world, even those that do not visit, send written prayer requests to the ones who do, and those prayer requests are inserted into the crags in between the rocks. When the Wall is cleaned, these prayer requests are then collected, not to be thrown away, but to be buried at the Mount of Olives.
At the surrounding area of the compound is a large area, and at the back are yeshivas, schools and other offices. We arrived at the Kotel late Friday afternoon, just as the Sabbath was about to start. And then the most amazing thing happened. I definitely had goosebumps as I witnessed it happening.
To explain what I am about to share, a day in Israel starts at sundown, and ends the next day a t sundown as well. So the Sabbath, which is a holy day to them, starts at sundown Friday.
So when Sabbath was starting, people began coming down the stairs from the schools near the area. We turned our heads to the buzz created by these young people, so excited coming down. And what do they do when they get down?
They formed a circle and started singing songs and dancing! To celebrate the sabbath! To celebrate life! I tell you, the hairs all over my body stood up to see such a sight.
We were so reluctant to leave the sight. We wanted to stay there for as long as we could, but we had to leave eventually. This time so far, was the most special time I had at the Western Wall. One thing I will always treasure in my heart, for as long as I live.
This is Jerusalem at night. We took walks at night to explore and visited the Mahane Yehuda market, but I will be sharing pictures of food and other things separately.
The harp shaped structure we see is the Chords Bridge, which is also called the Bridge of Strings or the Jerusalem Light Rail Bridge. This bridge was built to enable pedestrians to cross from Kiryat Moshe to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station.
Thus ends our tour of the City Of Jerusalem, and please look forward to more articles as there are more places we visited! So exciting, so memorable, indeed the trip of a lifetime. Shalom for now and lehit raot! See you again!
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