Day 32

Day 32: Shepherd’s Field, Herodian, Hebron, Tombs of the Patriarch

Hey everyone!

Today was our final day of touring. It was a bittersweet moment, because part of me wanted to soak it all up because it was our last day and make the most of it. The other half of me was saying, “Really? One more day? I can’t wait for this to be over. I have had five weeks of this already and I am ready to go home.” But in the end, the day turned out alright.

The day started out weird, with us waiting a half hour to make our bus arrangements for tomorrow. Miscommunication and confusion prevented us from solving it very quickly. We finally made it on the bus and departed for the fields. Our tour guide, while very nice and well meaning, was a devout Christian and gave us the stereotypical Christian tour, talking about how these were the actual fields the shepherds were in and these caves were exactly the caves the shepherds stayed in during Jesus’ time.

He tried to give us four “proofs”, but they just turned out to be (1) this land is Judah, (2) Jesus was here, (3) the Bible says so, and (4) tradition dictates this land is the land…. I am sorry, sir, but I don’t that word (“proof”) means what you think it means….

We went to the Herodian where we found out that our tickets have expired, so we couldn’t get in. It was a small oversight on the behalf of our ticket holder, which frustrated us greatly.

Later that afternoon, we tried to get into the Russian Orthodox Church and they locked us out, saying this place was a place of prayer and not a museum, and slammed the door in our faces. That really urked me. What kind of signal does that send people who are not Christians, slamming the door in their faces and not letting them into the church? I just wonder what Jesus would have done….

Despite these setbacks, we had a good day. We still visited Hebron and saw the tomb of the Patriarchs—the traditional site of the burial of Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, Leah, and Rebecca. The place was divided in half, half mosque, half synagogue. The Jews would not let us in on their side, but the Muslims let us in to see. It was interesting to see how both of these faiths, while so divided, still shared the same ancestry.

Afterwards we toured Hebron and shopped a bit in the local markets. We found out that Jewish settlers had come into Hebron in the 90’s and took over many sections of the land. Hebron is now a hot spot because of one specific event that will always live in the minds of the people here.

In the late 90’s, one Jewish doctor settled in Hebron to try to make a living. After living there a while, he was fed up with all the Muslims living in the area, so he marched into the mosque that housed half of the tombs of the patriarchs and opened fire, killing around 20 people and injuring 80 more before the crowd swarmed him and killed him.

Immediately, the Israelis responded and set up defenses to keep their people safe before there were any repercussions. There were none, but the man who did the killing now has a tomb set up that is protected by the Israelis; it is like a shrine to the Jews here.

A few years later, the second Intifada broke out, and it was very nasty in this area. Many people died. It set back the community for a few years. In the aftermath, Israel set up certain streets to protect their citizens, making “sanitary streets” that the Palestinians are not allowed to walk on, only the Jews can walk on. Consequently, some Palestinians cannot leave the front doors of their homes because they are on the street. They are forced to climb down a ladder out their back window to exit their house every day.

Continuing our walk, we stumbled into a market with huge tarps spread across all over. Our guide asked us what we thought the tarps were for. We answered, “Shade,” but he corrected us by telling us to look ontop of the tarps and seeing what is on top of them. Upon closer inspection, we saw large piles of trash piled up on top of the tarps. Our guide went onto explain that Jews have settled into many of the apartments in the area. Instead of depositing their trash like everyone else does, they feel it is their right to toss the trash out of the window onto the street below. The Palestinians walking by would get heaps of trash dumped on them daily, and because they are unable to do anything in retaliation, they erected the tarps to keep their merchandise and themselves safe.

These are the conditions people live in over there. All of the things I have told you I did not make up. These are real events dealing with real people. I cannot be the judge for you to make a decision on who to support or what to believe; I leave that decision to you. I will just tell the facts like I see it from here on out. If you want my personal opinion, feel free to ask, and I will calmly explain it to you. Until then, I wish you the best and pray that God blesses you richly.

Following His Call,

Adam
Romans 1:14

Day 31

Day 31: International Center, Health and Wellness Center, Star Street, Church of the Nativity, Palestinian/Swedish Concert, Refugee Camp

Hey everyone!

Woke up this morning early to pack and get ready to depart for Bethlehem. As we were leaving, we passed a bunch of police with barricades set up at the entrance of the Lion’s Gate. Immediately I thought, “Okay… did I miss something?”

As it turns out, yesterday was Dome of the Rock day (or maybe today is, I don’t know). Either way, there were a TON of fireworks going off last night all over the city. Considering we are only two blocks away from the Dome of the Rock, and we were right in the middle of the Moslem Corridor, we got to see all the action.

Apparently in response to the Dome of the Rock day and all the fireworks going off, a bunch of Orthodox Jews decided to march and parade around the city at night in honor of rebuilding the Third Temple. (If you don’t know history, the Dome of the Rock is sitting right where the Temple should be.) Obviously, you can see where conflict starts.

Thankfully, there were no confrontations, nothing really happened, but the police were still on guard today just in case. It’s just your average day in Jerusalem.

We just got back from a Swedish and Palestinian concert, which was pretty intense. Today was very eye opening into Palestinian life. We got to see first hand the effects of Israeli oppression on the Palestinian people. Here are a list of some actual things Israel has done or is doing to Palestine:

-          Since Israel owns the water, they only allow a certain amount of water into Palestine and charge an ungodly amount for it. One lady said she has gone without water at her house for twenty days now this summer because they simply shut off her water.

-          In the 90’s, Israel banned books from Palestine and would perform police searches each night to make sure they didn’t have any books in their houses. One man said he had to hide a book under the dirt outside his house each day so they wouldn’t take his book.

-          Certain books are banned from Palestine all together and any Palestinian entering the country with the book has it immediately confiscated.

-         One seventy year old lady was stripped searched at the airport because she was Palestinian.

-          Israelis are forbidden from entering Palestinian cities.

-          Israel spent $3.3 billion to build a wall around Bethlehem to divide Jerusalem and Bethlehem to keep the Palestinians out.

-          Not only do Palestinians have to pay taxes to Palestine to keep it functioning, but because they are currently occupied by Israel, they have to pay taxes to Israel, which happen to be more than twice as much as Palestine.

-          Israeli settlers regularly take land under the justification of “it is not being used by you, so it is ours”.

-          Refugee Camps have been set up for fleeing refugees from Jerusalem and surrounding areas who have had their land suddenly taken from them by Israelis

-          Many more Palestinians have been forced into ghettos by the Israelis

-          In the 1940’s, 70% of the population was Christian in Palestine. Because of the oppression by Israel, the current percentage of Christians is 1.2%. Most of them have fled to Europe and America.

Yet despite all of these setbacks, Palestine still survives. In many ways, it thrives. One of our guides today talked about how she refuses to have the victim mindset, but chooses to believe that God wants them to live an abundant life with what they have. Instead of being defeated and depressed by all the oppression all the time, they try to look on the positive and give hope for the future.

That is why they have built a community center and health center for the people, both non-profit. The International Center, as they call it, brings in people from all over the world to each people arts and skills they can use to make a living. It is a college for them here. Tonight, we saw some Swedes and Palestinians perform. The Swedes have been coming in and giving some music lessons to the Palestinians and then been holding jam sessions all week.

Similarly, the people here have built a health center to help with the social and psychological health of the people. Palestinians have enough hospitals. In fact, they have more hospitals here than they do in New York (while they may not be the same quality, they have more than New York, New York). What they needed was a health center so people could burn off the stress they are feeling from the oppression of Israel.

At the center, they offer Yoga, swimming lessons, work out programs, and psychological counseling. All at a VERY low cost. The idea is that people here can just get away and learn healthy habits that will help them in the long run so they are less stressed overall.

What was amazing tonight was seeing how these people release their stress through music. Several songs tonight dealt with the Palestinian-Israeli problem. These songs were not hateful (I could tell because a few of them were in English). They just expressed their turmoil and discomfort with the situation at hand. I mean, if someone came into your land and kicked you off of it you would be upset too.

All I know is that this place is really changing me. In a good way. I am learning more about how the world works and how to better associate with people of all nations. I am learning how to deal with tough problems like this and how to fix them. I am not saying I have a solution, but at least  I am informed now and understand the much bigger picture. I just hope I can convey that picture to everyone else.

Following His Call,

Adam

Philippians 2:12

Day 30

Day 30: Hezekiah’s Tunnel, Western Wall Tunnels

Hey everyone!

Today, we spent more time under the city than on top of it, which was really cool for a change. First, we went to Hezekiah’s Tunnel and then to the Western Wall’s Historical Tunnels. I knew that Jerusalem was an old city, but I never realized how much of it was just built on top of itself over and over again.

You couldn’t really see this in Hezekiah’s Tunnel. It was just a narrow underground cave that connected a spring from outside of the city to inside the city. Because Jerusalem was under siege at the time of Hezekiah, they built this tunnel so the enemy could not block up their water supply to drive them out of the city.

How they built the tunnel was fascinating. They started on both ends to try to finish the tunnel faster. They would drive rods into the ground and beat them with a hammer to make vibrations, to which the people on the other side of the tunnel could hear and start to dig towards the noise. Until eventually the two tunnels met up. It was pretty cool to walk through ankle deep water all the way from outside of the city to inside the city.

While Hezekiah’s Tunnel only covered one era of time, the Western Walls Historic Tunnels covered pretty much all of them. We entered underground and the first thing we noticed was that there were two bridges, built at two different times, right next to each other. Yet, under these bridges were cisterns, rooms, and bathhouses, indicating that the bridges were used for so much more. Or maybe they were not and the bridges were built on top of the bath houses.

To make things more confusing, when the Crusaders came in, they discovered these tunnels and made small churches and hiding rooms in there. We had Herodian, Greek, Roman, Crusader, and Ottoman eras all in about a block from each other.

If that wasn’t confusing enough, there were two major archeologists who were excavating the tunnels (which could easily still be excavated for the next hundred years, the area is so massive) who disagreed on some major things. The leading archeologist (the one who started digging in the tunnels) was the one who gave us the tour and his theories. He kept telling us that where he believed this thing, the other archeologist (that replaced him) would argue with him and say this other thing. For example, they argued over one bride, whether it was constructed by Muslims or Romans. The leading archeologist thought the Muslims constructed it because it matches with the time and architecture of the region. If it was Muslim, then that means the Muslims thought the temple mount (which the bridge led to) was a holy place and needed access to it.

Theories like these led to him being replaced by another archeologist that was more favorable to the Israeli belief system. The temple mount could not be holy to the Muslems, only the Jews, so the state of Israel brought in another archeologist that was more sympathetic to their cause and said the bridge was Roman, even though they have very little evidence to suggest it was Roman.

Anyway, you can see how involved the Israeli government is with everything over here and how much of control they have over everything—even archeology, which is supposed to be a scientific endeavor. Even with the conflict and confusion, I still had a blast.

Following His Call,

Adam

2 Kings 20:20

Day 29

Day 29: Holocaust Museum, Israel Museum

Hey everyone!

If you think the short list above indicates we didn’t do much today (compared to Day 28), then you are sadly mistaken. Whoa! Let me tell you, we were swamped! We should have spent one full day at the Holocaust Museum absorbing all that was in there and at least two days (maybe three) to get all of the Israel Museum.

The Israel Museum was interesting. I will talk about that first because it wasn’t as profound as the Holocaust Museum. We went to the Shrine of the Book which houses the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls (which was flippin’ sweet and I wrote about here). We had a private tour by the Shrine’s curator, which was pretty sweet. I was like a little giggly kid as I stood literally inches away from small pieces of cloth that changed history and reinforced Biblical texts. One guy even got onto me because I was too close to one of the displays (even though they are shielded by thick glass and sensor’s so sensitive if a fly farted it would set them off). Despite all of that, I was in love.

We moved on from the Shrine to the rest of the Museum. While we had a few hours left, my girlfriend and I saw only two sections of the museum. We started in the Archaeology section, and boy, that was HUGE! We went on in there for over an hour and realized we were running out of time, so we rushed through the last half. We still got to see the stuff that was found at Bethsaidsa.

Our professor was describing to us when he found a piece of the large stele with the moon god on it. He was touching it in different places, pointing to where it was broke and where it was covered in dirt. One of the security guards rushed over to him and told him not to touch or he would have to leave. We all just laughed after he left because our professor was like, “I touched this way before it was ever in this museum.”

We wandered out of the Archeology section right into the Art section. The Art section was just… weird… It wasn’t like normal art; it was the ultra modern, crazy art that nobody knew what it was. After being confused and somewhat creeped out a bit, we left and found ourselves back out front just in time to leave.  

While the Israeli Museum was pretty cool, the best part of the day was the Holocaust Museum. I tried to absorb all I could. I read every plaque. I listened to every speaker. I watched every video. Sadly, because of that, I only really saw about half of the museum. To me, the parts I did see in depth was the stuff I wanted and needed to see.

The stories of the survivors was what got me most. Watching these people tell their stories of their parents getting taken way, their family members getting shot in front of their eyes, their best friends die of hunger in the concentration camps, or the struggles they had to face every day really broke my heart. I am getting emotional now writing this, remember what I saw.

I would describe in detail what I saw, but some of it is too graphic. If you want to know more stories, tell me and I will describe them to you. In the mean time, just know that what happened to these people were horrific. I know you know that, but at the same time, words can’t really express what these people went through. I can’t describe to you the feelings these people shared on these interviews. To see their faces, to hear them cry and tell their stories with such passion and vigor, to hear the stories of hope and survival was too much.

I don’t really have a profound lesson in all of this. Just know that my heart breaks for what happened and I weep with the Jews and others who were persecuted during the Holocaust.

That word… Holocaust… has just taken on a new meaning to me. Growing up, I have heard all about it, as I am sure my children will hear about it as they will hear about the Twin Towers. But those two words—“Twin Towers”—don’t mean the same thing to them that they mean to me, like the word “Holocaust” doesn’t mean the same to me as it does a survivor of it. Yet, after going thought that museum, the word added a much deeper connotation; a meaning deeper than the definition itself. Now, when I hear the word, I remember, and a dark chill goes over me. I can only begin to feel what those people felt, but I am trying to understand what all they went through. At least I a little bit of an idea.

Following His Call,

Adam
Exodus 29:45

Day 27

Day 27: Jerusalem market, Way of the Cross, Church of the Holy Sepulcher, West Wall, Dome of the Rock, American Colony

Hey everyone!

Today was a whirlwind. We did what the typical tourists do today: visited all the most famous places in Jerusalem. While most people have a great spiritual connection to the places we visited, I (sadly, but not surprisingly) did not have any of these. Don’t get me wrong, I was fascinated and found it really cool, but I had no awakening spiritual moment, no burning bush or manna from heaven moment. You will see why as I continue on.

We started off on the Via Dolorosa (which was the same street we were living on that week). As we traversed “The Way of Sorrow/Grief/Suffering”, there wasn’t much suffering at all.  Most of the way was lined with shop keepers and merchants, trying to get us to buy their goods. It was a very different feeling knowing that this may have been the path Jesus took to and from trials. Despite the peddlers, many people still traveled down this path on their spiritual journey. We saw many tour groups and several processions of people singing, chanting, or reading from scripture in their own languages (Spanish and Chinese were just the few I saw).

I had a slight hang up at the security checkpoint when I realized that I accidently left a knife in my bag that went through the scanner… yeah… HUGE “Oops!” moment… Anyway, after I talked my way out of that one, we finally reached the West Wall (aka: “The Wailing Wall”, but Jews don’t like calling it that because of the connotation). In fact, there was very little crying at the West Wall when we were there. Most people were celebrating. We ran into at least four boys having their Bar Mitzvahs at the wall. It was really cool, because people there had no shame; they did not care about the tourists running around with their digital cameras and recorders taking pictures and video. Our professor was telling us that this is an exciting day for the entire family; their son just became a man. They celebrate the occasion unashamed because it is an event everyone should enjoy and celebrate.

It hit me how sometimes we can be so ashamed to tell our best friends about how much Jesus has changed our lives. These guys were dancing and singing in public, hugging and kissing each other, shouting and clapping, having a great time. Yet we can’t sit down and have a conversation with someone about the Greatest Love of all time. It was really eye-opening to me and made me think a lot about my own faith.

We moved on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher –or as I like to call it, “Jerusalem’s Jesus Theme Park”. Why do I call it that? It’s not to be disrespectful at all, but I am telling you as I walked through the “church”, I didn’t feel like I was in a church of that time frame or region at all. People were pushing others out of the way, everyone was touching everything, children were running around, babies were crying, and tour guides were talking loudly over the crowds either with their voices or loud speakers. To see my full review of the theme p—church, you can read about it here.

Something else that really struck me was when we went to the Dome of the Rock. Up there, it was so quiet and reverent, very different than what I thought it would be. Well, it was quiet until an obnoxious Christian tour group came by, with the guide lady squawking on her yak-box, “…if these stones could speak, they would tell a story… everyone know what this building is? Well, since most of you do, I might remind you that God still does love the Muslims too, and we need to love them so they can see the Truth …”

I was appalled. Look, I may not agree with Islam either and I may agree that they need to hear the Truth too, but I don’t go to one of their holy sites and say that on a loud speaker for all of them to hear! I’m sorry, but that was just rude. My girlfriend had to direct me away because I was angry about the arrogance and audacity of the lady. If she wanted to tell that to the people, why didn’t she tell them on the bus? I just didn’t understand. She wouldn’t want some Muslim tour guide to come up to her church and start talking about how Christians still need to submit to Allah, would she? Jeez!

So that was my day. Pretty busy and ridiculous, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. All in all, it was a great learning experience for me in more ways than one. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds.

Following His Call,

Adam

Matthew 5:16

Sepulcher

Hey everyone!

I decided that instead of giving you my opinion of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, I would simply describe my experience. Hopefully you will realized why I called it the “Jerusalem Jesus Theme Park”:

Our group turned the corner of the narrow alley we were walking down crowded with venders and merchants, trying to sell us their wares.

“We’re here,” said Cole (pseudonym), one of the students who had been there before.

“Where?” I asked, looking at the large opening with a door that to me looked like a large warehouse.

“That’s it,” he said, pointing to the door.

As I looked closer, I could see that the reason I didn’t recognized the building as a church immediately like I did the other churches we visited was because the building had been added onto so many times. We stood outside as our professor told us a story about the church:

“The church here is home to three—well, technically four—different Christian denominations: Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian, and some Ethiopian. Not all of the denominations get along. In fact, they argue quite frequently. In the past, they didn’t trust each other because they had to share the building. Consequently, each denomination would show up earlier and earlier in the morning to try to beat the other people to get in the building, arguing over who would get the key and would unlock the building. Finally, they gave the key to a Muslim family in the area, and to this day, one of the Muslim family members comes here every morning and unlocks the door of the church and locks it up at night because none of the churches trust each other.”

After hearing this story, we walked into the church and immediately saw a large crowd of people standing around a stone slab on the floor with incense hanging over the top. As I got closer, I saw people pushing and elbowing each other out of the way to try to get down to the slab. People were kissing the stone and rubbing relics all over the stone slab, muttering prayers and sentences in various languages—one I recognized as Latin.

Slipping past them, it tried to find a place where there wasn’t so many people. Sadly, it took a while navigating through the hallways before my girlfriend and I found a room where there wasn’t many people. The church was so loud, with kids running around and people talking—sometimes shouting at each other. Tour guides with loud speakers talked from room to room. This was totally different than previous churches we had visited where we had to totally cover up and could not speak at all.

My girlfriend and I entered a larger room that looked different from other areas of the church. Nobody was in the room, and judging from the pictures and decorations, it looked like a shrine to Joseph of Arimathea. It was nice to have some quiet for a moment and just observe everything around the room. The decorations, while very old and tarnished somewhat, were still very beautiful. The pictures on the walls were faded due to flash photography, but we could still tell that at one point they would have been strikingly awe-inspiring.

As we casually walked around the room, we heard a gentle thundering that sounded very much like a stamped of horses. We turned around in time to see about eight kids—from about age four to twelve—running down the stairs, yelling at each other, and pushing each other. They were just kids being kids. They ran past us and immediately ran up onto the altar and started touching all of the relics and pictures all over the wall and table set up front. When they got bored touching everything, picking stuff up and moving it around, they started to play tag in the room.

One kid—about ten years old—found a very large heavy metal chain on the floor used to keep people back from the altar (that had obviously been moved) and picked it up. Realizing how heavy it was once he got it to his waist level, he dropped it on the marble floor, causing a ear-piercing clang that made my girlfriend and I wince. The boy smiled and picked it up again and dropped it again, this time holding it higher and dropping it with much more force than the first time, making an even louder clang. He repeated this process several times, with both my girlfriend and I wincing each time. Just when I was about to go over and stop him, another kid tagged him and he joined the tag game.

Looking around, I saw three more women come down the stairs, two of them carrying babies, talking very loudly to each other in a foreign language I think was Spanish. When they saw the kids running, they shouted at them and the kids ran, laughing out of the room. The women walked up to the altar and looked briefly, stopping their conversation only for a moment, before turning around and heading back up the steps after their kids. My girlfriend and I just looked at each other dumbfounded and left the room.

Making our way around the church once more, we ran into Cole. We told him what happened in the room we were in, and he seemed unaffected, like it was normal behavior. Changing the subject, he asked, “So, you were in the Armenian Quarter; did you see the floor?”

“Yes, what about it?” I asked.

“Did you notice the tiled design?”

“Yes, why?”

“Well, last time I was here, some of the priests were telling me that during times when the churches are feuding, they won’t let priests of the other denominations touch anything in their church, including the floor. So, for these preists to get to their respective quarters, they are only allowed to walk on specific tiles to get to their quarters. It’s almost like playing hop-scotch down the hallway—or hot lava, whichever you played when you were a kid.”

As we moved on, we noticed random objects lying around the church. Ladders and scaffolding along with various repair tools lined the hallways. I was looking to see if there were doing remodeling or something, but as I looked up, there wasn’t any sign of remodel. Going over to the ladders, I noticed from the cobwebs and dust that they haven’t been used in a while.

We finally reached the traditional spot where Jesus rose from grave. There were so many people waiting in line to go into the tomb, my girlfriend and I decided not to go. Instead, we went into the chapel where they previously conducted services. Services no longer are conducted in the building, but rites and processions still go on. The room was so large, with high, domed ceilings. We stood in awe at the expanse of the place.

Off to each side were benches people could sit down on and relax. On one of those benches sat a couple and their children—a four year old, a two year old, and an infant. The two year old was not having a great time and was screaming at the top of her lungs, which echoed very loudly off of the high arched ceilings. The child screamed there for at least fifteen minutes, with the parents doing nothing to try to calm the child or remove her. They just sat there ignoring the child, oblivious to all of the glares of everyone who walked by, wincing at the sound echoing off the vast ceiling.

It was after this point my girlfriend and I decided we had enough, so we decided to leave. It seemed that most everyone else had the same idea and was already outside. Thus concluded our tour of the Jerusalem Jesus Theme Park. I hope you will understand why I did not have a spiritual experience at the place like many people do. That’s not to say I didn’t have fun. I found the whole place entertaining and fascinating. I learned a lot and really respected the decorations and art that was everywhere throughout the building. Would I go back? Absolutely. Do I expect to have a religious experience there next time? Probably not. That’s alright; God speaks to me in other ways. He is a great God like that.

Following His Call,

Adam

Acts 7:48

Day 28

Day 28: Armenean Church, Church of Gethsemane, St. Peter’s Church, David’s Tomb, Last Supper Room, Mt. of Olives, Burnt House, Wohl Museum, Ben Jahuda Street

Hey everyone!

If you can’t tell from my splurge of places we visited today, we were pretty packed. Our day was awesome, but I was exhausted at the end of it. I am writing this blog the next day because I was so tired. After all of the events, our professor still wanted to take us to Ben Jahuda St (I think that is how you spell it) for some night life. Needless to say, I went home early from there.

The thing that struck me most yesterday was the Burnt House and the Wohl Museum. I will talk about the Wohl first because it was just awesomely cool and then the Burnt House. While the Burnt House was very cheesy (which I will explain in a bit), it did give me some interesting insights and stuff I want to comment on.

But first, let me talk about the Wohl Museum. Underneath the Wohl Museum are three priestly houses that existed during the time of Jesus. May I clarify and say that there were two houses and one mansion. The place was HUGE! It had over a dozen rooms and several baths in the place. It was amazing! I just stood down there in awe, first marveling at the fact they just built a museum over the top of this thing to preserve it and didn’t manage to destroy anything beneath, and the just sheer awesomeness of seeing this fancy place! Sadly, I had no pictures because it was a museum, but man, you should ask me about it sometime, and I will paint you a picture. It is too much for a post, plus I think you will be bored if you can’t hear my excitement.

So onto the Burnt House. The Burnt House is exactly what it sounds like: a burnt house. But the title is a bit misleading because the house that was burnt was one that was burnt when the Romans invaded in 70 AD. In fact, they found an inscription on a clay piece that indicated who the house belonged to. Apparently, it belonged to a family that was cursed in the Babylonian Talmud.

The Burnt House was just like the Wohl Museum, a building built on top of ruins in order to protect it. We descended the stairs that had passages from Josephus and the Babylonian Talmud describing the destruction of Jerusalem. Again, I couldn’t take any pictures. We emerged into a very small area with some of the artifacts they found in the house. Then we see the house itself a very small priestly house with a few rooms, a kitchen, and living room.

I wasn’t ready for what was next. We sat down on some bleacher seats to one side of the room and watched the lights go out as a video popped on a screen overhead and started describing to us the house. A scrim folded down from the back as well as two projector screens behind it. Images then were projected onto the screen as they played out a story of what may have happened in the weeks before the house was burned.

The drama was filmed in the style of a really cheesy soap-opera, so it was hard to take seriously, especially since the actors were speaking Hebrew and the voice-over was English (and the English voice actors were really bad). I was sitting there the mostly entertained, thinking about how they did this entire thing with my arms crossed and eyes darting over everything, trying to catch it all.

All of the sudden, the dramatic part happens. The father of the house runs into the room screaming and crying, yelling, “They’ve done it! They have finally done it! I can’t believe it! Noooo……” He yells for his family and they run into the room. He rips open the curtains to see the Second Temple burning in the background. While most of the play was really bad, they really captured the drama and emotion behind the temple being burned down.

The feeling hit me right in the chest as I watch the older man slouch down the window sill, tearing his robes and crying hysterically. I saw the wife bring her hands to her mouth and gasp, crying as the temple burned. The servant girl fell to her knees, unable to stand. The entire time dramatic music played in the background with huge sound effects of a city being invaded.

At that moment, I caught a brief glimpse of the agony of seeing the Jew’s beloved Temple burn. My heart grieved for them and, for a moment, I felt what they felt. I felt their mourning, their agony, their grief. I cried with them (not literally, but in my heart). I mourned for them. I wanted to help in any way I could to relieve their grief. To me, it was like a child seeing their mother die horrifically right in front of their eyes. I wanted to reach through the scrim and comfort them.

But then the narrator came back on and started addressing us. He was telling us that this could have been prevented; this could have been stopped if the Jews would have just worked together and not been so divided. They were divided between Sadducees, priests, Pharisees, Essenes, and Zealots.  Nobody could get along and nobody agreed with each other, and because of their arguing, God gave them over to their enemies.

This is not me who is saying this. The quotes on the wall from the Babylonian Talmud word it better than I could. It said something to the effect of, “The first time the temple was destroyed, and it was because of Israel’s disobedience. The second time the temple was destroyed; it was because of the people’s own hatred.” Again, I am paraphrasing, not quoting. The narrator was making it very clear that it was the fault of the Jews for the second temple being burned down.

The priestly family in the drama was one of the cursed families described in the Babylonian Talmud. The Talmud blames families like this one for their stubbornness and apathy to deal with the problems. The pride of these people prevented them from working together to solve a very dire problem.

There are a few things we can learn from this. First off, we need to realize that what happened to the Jews was tragic. Losing some that was so close to them must have caused so much agony and grief within their culture. Yet at the same time you must also understand that they lost it. It wasn’t stolen from them; it wasn’t wrongfully taken. They gave it up from their inactions. Yes, what the Romans did was horrible, and God will judge them for it. At the same time, (I’m saying this with as much grace as I can) we need to understand that the Jews are not entitled to something that they lost due to their own pride.

Also, we can learn about our own pride within Christianity. How many times do churches not work together because of pride? “Oh, we cannot work with (insert arbitrary church name) because they don’t believe what we do.” I’m sorry, but how would sharing an event with another church (even if you don’t agree with everything doctrinally) be detrimental to the kingdom of God? Can’t we get more done by working together than apart?

Before I am crucified, I have to clarify and say that there are some churches out there that we can’t work with. Churches that do not believe in the Trinity, don’t believe Jesus is the Son of God, or believe everyone will eventually be saved are just some examples of churches we can’t work with because the doctrine is so far different. Problems come with the basic core message and alter our message. Some of those things are irreconcilable and change the basic doctrine and foundation of Christianity.

What I am saying is: what does it matter if a church sings songs differently than ours? What does it matter how the church baptizes their people? Those things should not be reasons to divide. Our own pride is what is causing us to lose the war, and Satan is storming into our cities and tearing down our temple because we refuse to work together for one common purpose: to advance the Kingdom.

Remember that next time divisions start to arise and doubts come. I will be praying for you all.

Following His Call,

Adam
Galatians 2:20