A New Year in a Holy City

September 20, 2006

I have learned much in the course of this past year since making Aliyah and settling in the Holy City of Jerusalem. One thing I learned is that it takes more than calling a city holy to make it holy.

In a peregrination through the city you see ample evidence that people revere more with words than deeds the very center of Judaism and the font from which our ethical-religious tradition flows. Heaps of garbage adorn empty lots and piles of refuse bear reeking testimony to picnic rites held in our many parks. Dogs do, people discard and nearly everyone seems to turn a blind eye to the daily desecration of our holy Jerusalem. And litter is not our only problem.

Driving through this city is an adventure; a risk of life and limb challenging even the most skilled of drivers and testing the mental acuity of anyone foolish enough to sit behind the wheel of a vehicle. And there, from that vantage point, one is afforded a remarkable view of the human comedy played out on the stage of Jerusalem’s roadways. Here, everybody is in a hurry—car horns blare seconds before the light turns green, drivers weave in and out of traffic to squeeze even one car-length ahead and seem to accrue points to themselves for every other car that they can out-maneuver in a reckless (and too often, lethal) ballet. Then, there are those drivers that one encounters on an annoyingly regular basis who block traffic on our already crowded thoroughfares by double-parking with a cavalier attitude of, “I’ll only be a minute!” While the driver is off on his or her “quick” errand, irate drivers curse and cringe while assaying a circumvention of the offending vehicle at the same time trying to avoid the metallic kiss of on-coming traffic. “Yes,” I think to myself each time I encounter these insensitive dolts, “you may be blocking traffic for ‘just a minute,’ but you’ll be a jerk for ever!”

As long as I am on to my Sturm und Drang on insensitivity, let me tell you about this fellow in my Uplan (Hebrew language) class. Wendy, my friend and classmate Stuart Geller and I call him the Yitush—the mosquito. Like the offensive insect he is small and seemingly insignificant, but annoying as hell! He interrupts the class constantly; answering rhetorical questions, “correcting” other people’s mistakes (usually incorrectly) and always being the first to volunteer to read (often without taking the trouble to actually volunteer). The Yitush is a man about 65 or 70years old. He was originally from England where—from what we have gleaned from him—he lived an orderly and remarkably ordinary life as a bank clerk. You know the kind…so caught up in the indignity of their lowly estate that they ennoble themselves by assuming aristocratic airs as they, in their full bureaucratic self-importance they haughtily tell you that you filled out your social security number or account number incorrectly and must do the whole thing over again—in triplicate! I knew his kind in elementary school. They were the audio-visual monitors who found great satisfaction in wearing as many keys as possible at their waist, each a kind of Croix de Nerd—first-class. I make mention of the Yitush because he has a quotidian ritual that would be most annoying, if anybody really cared. Each day at break time, students from the various classes gather in the foyer where Kobi the wonderful owner of the building’s kiosk dispenses cappuccino, hot chocolate, tea and soft drinks, as well as sweets and sandwiches to the long line of hungry Ulpaniks. Many of the students—some well on in years—seem to have difficulty managing the five or ten minutes standing in line before they get to the front and place their order. Not the Yitush, no, while everyone else waits in line, he goes to the side of the coffee cart, takes a cup and then walks around behind the tiny counter and makes himself a cup of coffee while our dear Kobi bravely soldiers on in the coffee wars obviously doing his utmost to ignore this attack to his flank. Watching on, I can only describe the Yitush’s manner as being like someone who tries to act unobtrusive and nonchalant, all-the-while desperately hoping that someone might notice that he could do something that they couldn’t…except that nobody reacts at all, it is as if they did notice. Nothing, if not persistent, he repeats this tactic in his battle plan to win the admiration and respect (or at least the grudging envy) of others the next day and the next and the next.

What do the litterers, the insensitive drivers and the Yitush have in common and why do I mention them here? Like I said, it takes more than calling a city holy to make it holy. Jerusalem may indeed be blessed with an intrinsic holiness that God, or Jewish tradition has bestowed with loving grace upon it. But it is we who inhabit the city make it holy each and every day. How we treat our city and how we act in it actualizes that sublime holiness that informs our sacred sentiments or makes a mockery of them. You can’t desecrate something by offense or neglect and say that it is holy. You can’t be insensitive to others and their needs and say that you live in holy space. You can’t promote your self-worth while denying the worth of others and take pride that you reside in a holy state (if not a state of holiness). It is we, by our actions, who make our place and our lives holy and by that I mean, understanding and acknowledging that we live in the presence of God. Jerusalem is truly a holy city only if and when people act within its precincts in holiness.

Isn’t this true of our lives, wherever we live? Don’t we all seek to bring a sense of transcendence, of holiness into our lives? Isn’t that, after all is said and done, what brings meaning and significance to our lives? Isn’t that exactly what these High Holy Days that we are about to observe and celebrate all about?

And, if the truth be told, we know all too well that within each of us dwells the spirit of the litterer, the insensitive driver and, yes, even the Yitush. The city of our lives is populated by all of these characters, and more… What is most annoying about them is that they remind us of ourselves, the part of ourselves that we seek to purify and sanctify during the sacred days ahead. The High Holy Days is our time for cleaning up the city, of making things run right in our lives. Then, and only then, can we aspire for our souls to dwell in a truly holy place.

To you and yours, Wendy and I send our best wishes for a happy, healthy and fulfilled New Year.

Shalom from Jerusalem.