So, I'm already a week behind in my "Finding East" posts, #2 - talk about dropping the ball on resolutions! The reality, I was a bit conflicted about my Rosh Chodesh Adar post. I had just come off of a week of Yarzheit's - English and Hebrew dates - and was looking forward to "increasing my joy" so to speak in bringing in the month of Adar. As has become my practice, I made a special point about going up to Har HaBayit (Temple Mount) for Rosh Chodesh. There is a special group that goes up and I have left it mostly to chance in terms of my timing in meeting up with them.
By way of background, the group is led by Rina Ariel whose daughter Hallel, just 13 years old, was murdered in her bed by a terrorist who invaded their home in 2016. The young girl loved going up to Har HaBayit and to honor her memory her mother organized the Rosh Chodesh aliyot (going up) as the Hallel prayer service is recited on Rosh Chodesh - it serves as a beautiful and ongoing tribute to her daughter's memory.
As I said, it is informal on my part in joining this group. I'm not big into groups, but sometimes I don't feel comfortable going up to Har HaBayit on my own as I have been harassed by the Wakf watchers for taking pictures, while at other times I prefer the company of my fellow Jews in both asserting my rights, but also in declaring my Jewishness - not that I actually ever hide it.
On Rosh Chodesh Adar, the group had already left and I went up on my own with no expectation of joining them. In fact, the first time I was harassed by the Wakf I had been standing near the Jewish group, taking pictures of stone slabs in the torn-up walkway near the Golden Gate. At the time, I was specifically told I could not join the Jewish group by the Israeli police (I understood this to be a matter of safety, so I'm good with that since at the time they didn't know from Adam).
I mention this since as I approached the group on Rosh Chodesh Adar, Rina saw me and spoke with me to find out if anyone else was waiting at the Mughrabi Gate entrance; it was at that point I asked one of the guards escorting the group if I could join them. He shrugged, which I took as a yes. It was unusual - Jewish groups are escorted at all times - I was grateful as I was able to hear words of Torah and thoughts on the upcoming holiday Purim.
As I consider myself a lifelong learner, I was pleased but at once dismayed to learn that Esther had a child with Achashveros. I wasn't so much surprised, but confused as to why I had not heard of this before. Was I that uninvolved in my learning growing up? Was it some hushed secret that was deliberately kept out of my 12-year long Orthodox Jewish education and beyond? Turns out her son Darius, who later became King Darius II was responsible for lifting a ban which had prevented the re-building of the Temple at the time - so thank you Queen Esther and King Darius II for overturning the edict which paved the way to the rebuilding of the 2nd Temple. Who knew...I did not.
The fact that Esther actually had to sleep with the King makes her sacrifice for her people all the more impressive and yet she definitely is put in the second chair of veneration and respect relative to Mordechai. In retrospect, the fact that she slept with Achashverosh seems logical, if not problematic and which should be viewed as an unacceptable compromise considering even if her actions were a means of saving the whole of Persia's Jews and stopping overall the genocidal Haman. Granted it was a sacrifice she probably took on willingly to save her people, still not exactly kosher on the surface. Some things happen for reasons which seem contrary to logic and reason, which defy what is known about rules and laws which we are commanded to follow (more on that in my next post) in a seemingly endless array of questions without answers, let alone easy ones!
For this post, I would bring up a picture that caused some controversy - a logic-defying hullabaloo to be more precise. The photo in question was a magnificent picture of a rainbow whose arc brought it directly on top of the Dome of the Rock - the golden dome - taken during/immediately following the rains one early morning. The photo controversy occurred the day after I went up to Har HaBayit. From an aesthetic standpoint, the picture was framed beautifully against a darkened sky, but wait apparently looking at a rainbow is a no-no. I've heard this before when I was teaching a class here - oy.
From a science standpoint the rainbow is a magnificent manifestation and reflection of the mysteries of this world, of creation, of light refracted into a spectrum of visible colors, of the hidden, of the coherence which creates both the bow and an anti-rainbow where the ROYGBIV order is reversed if one is lucky enough to see it.
The controversy, however, was about looking at the rainbow which apparently offended a goodly number of people. Now I realize I should probably be more tolerant of people whose views are less tolerant than mine. But oy-va-voy, the scandal this caused in the group. The bow is a symbol of God's promise not to bring utter destruction onto the world after the destruction caused by the flood even at times when the world would seem to "merit" another flood to restore sanity, reality whatever needs a fixin! The bow is a symbol of that covenant not to bring utter destruction. As such, it is not necessarily a good sign, but it is an eternal one.
We live in unsettling times, take your pick of issues or lump sum these together. To me, the rainbow is a symbol of an enduring connection, a beauty manifest in hundreds of different ways. Perhaps the bow over the Temple Mount is a reminder that things don't always turn out the way we expect or even want, but they will follow their natural course while still hopefully under the guiding hand and with a bit of intervention from Hashem. Maybe the Dome has served to keep a focused lens on Jerusalem...maybe the Dome has protected it from being weathered away over time...maybe its there as a reminder, like the rainbow...maybe we'll find out one day.
As an aside, I did leave the group's WhatsApp group. I don't always expect to find or associate with like-minded individuals or groups - that gets to be quite boring. But I don't have to engage any more than is necessary with people whose views are so inflexible or narrow-minded so as not to be able to see the forest for the trees or in this case the rainbow for the promise.
I have elected not to post a picture of a rainbow, since any of the images that I have pale by comparison to the picture I saw. Instead, I offer a few choice images, a magnificent rock at Ramat Rachel, along with a few others from my Finding East journeying, including the Kotel HaKatan (small Western Wall), and elsewhere.
I chose these for the illusion we sometimes see or don't; for the reflections we sometimes see or don't, and the beauty hidden in nature in its mysteries and the secrets often found below the surface...
By way of background, the group is led by Rina Ariel whose daughter Hallel, just 13 years old, was murdered in her bed by a terrorist who invaded their home in 2016. The young girl loved going up to Har HaBayit and to honor her memory her mother organized the Rosh Chodesh aliyot (going up) as the Hallel prayer service is recited on Rosh Chodesh - it serves as a beautiful and ongoing tribute to her daughter's memory.
As I said, it is informal on my part in joining this group. I'm not big into groups, but sometimes I don't feel comfortable going up to Har HaBayit on my own as I have been harassed by the Wakf watchers for taking pictures, while at other times I prefer the company of my fellow Jews in both asserting my rights, but also in declaring my Jewishness - not that I actually ever hide it.
On Rosh Chodesh Adar, the group had already left and I went up on my own with no expectation of joining them. In fact, the first time I was harassed by the Wakf I had been standing near the Jewish group, taking pictures of stone slabs in the torn-up walkway near the Golden Gate. At the time, I was specifically told I could not join the Jewish group by the Israeli police (I understood this to be a matter of safety, so I'm good with that since at the time they didn't know from Adam).
I mention this since as I approached the group on Rosh Chodesh Adar, Rina saw me and spoke with me to find out if anyone else was waiting at the Mughrabi Gate entrance; it was at that point I asked one of the guards escorting the group if I could join them. He shrugged, which I took as a yes. It was unusual - Jewish groups are escorted at all times - I was grateful as I was able to hear words of Torah and thoughts on the upcoming holiday Purim.
As I consider myself a lifelong learner, I was pleased but at once dismayed to learn that Esther had a child with Achashveros. I wasn't so much surprised, but confused as to why I had not heard of this before. Was I that uninvolved in my learning growing up? Was it some hushed secret that was deliberately kept out of my 12-year long Orthodox Jewish education and beyond? Turns out her son Darius, who later became King Darius II was responsible for lifting a ban which had prevented the re-building of the Temple at the time - so thank you Queen Esther and King Darius II for overturning the edict which paved the way to the rebuilding of the 2nd Temple. Who knew...I did not.
The fact that Esther actually had to sleep with the King makes her sacrifice for her people all the more impressive and yet she definitely is put in the second chair of veneration and respect relative to Mordechai. In retrospect, the fact that she slept with Achashverosh seems logical, if not problematic and which should be viewed as an unacceptable compromise considering even if her actions were a means of saving the whole of Persia's Jews and stopping overall the genocidal Haman. Granted it was a sacrifice she probably took on willingly to save her people, still not exactly kosher on the surface. Some things happen for reasons which seem contrary to logic and reason, which defy what is known about rules and laws which we are commanded to follow (more on that in my next post) in a seemingly endless array of questions without answers, let alone easy ones!
For this post, I would bring up a picture that caused some controversy - a logic-defying hullabaloo to be more precise. The photo in question was a magnificent picture of a rainbow whose arc brought it directly on top of the Dome of the Rock - the golden dome - taken during/immediately following the rains one early morning. The photo controversy occurred the day after I went up to Har HaBayit. From an aesthetic standpoint, the picture was framed beautifully against a darkened sky, but wait apparently looking at a rainbow is a no-no. I've heard this before when I was teaching a class here - oy.
From a science standpoint the rainbow is a magnificent manifestation and reflection of the mysteries of this world, of creation, of light refracted into a spectrum of visible colors, of the hidden, of the coherence which creates both the bow and an anti-rainbow where the ROYGBIV order is reversed if one is lucky enough to see it.
The controversy, however, was about looking at the rainbow which apparently offended a goodly number of people. Now I realize I should probably be more tolerant of people whose views are less tolerant than mine. But oy-va-voy, the scandal this caused in the group. The bow is a symbol of God's promise not to bring utter destruction onto the world after the destruction caused by the flood even at times when the world would seem to "merit" another flood to restore sanity, reality whatever needs a fixin! The bow is a symbol of that covenant not to bring utter destruction. As such, it is not necessarily a good sign, but it is an eternal one.
We live in unsettling times, take your pick of issues or lump sum these together. To me, the rainbow is a symbol of an enduring connection, a beauty manifest in hundreds of different ways. Perhaps the bow over the Temple Mount is a reminder that things don't always turn out the way we expect or even want, but they will follow their natural course while still hopefully under the guiding hand and with a bit of intervention from Hashem. Maybe the Dome has served to keep a focused lens on Jerusalem...maybe the Dome has protected it from being weathered away over time...maybe its there as a reminder, like the rainbow...maybe we'll find out one day.
As an aside, I did leave the group's WhatsApp group. I don't always expect to find or associate with like-minded individuals or groups - that gets to be quite boring. But I don't have to engage any more than is necessary with people whose views are so inflexible or narrow-minded so as not to be able to see the forest for the trees or in this case the rainbow for the promise.
I have elected not to post a picture of a rainbow, since any of the images that I have pale by comparison to the picture I saw. Instead, I offer a few choice images, a magnificent rock at Ramat Rachel, along with a few others from my Finding East journeying, including the Kotel HaKatan (small Western Wall), and elsewhere.
I chose these for the illusion we sometimes see or don't; for the reflections we sometimes see or don't, and the beauty hidden in nature in its mysteries and the secrets often found below the surface...
Comments
Post a Comment