Israel 7.5

Today is very peaceful. The only scheduled activity was a political discussion with Amnon, the VP or Oranim. After that, many people went to the Christian and Arab quarters of the Old City to go shopping. That sounded fun and intriguing, but I really wanted to try to feel a sense of Shabbat. I am in Jerusalem, and I want Shabbat to feel like a different day.

Josh and I had goo conversations about God, Jesus, death, and the nature of Heaven. I think that Heaven is being reuinted with something that we have spent our whole lives longing for, without realizing it. As a child, I always imagined that I would have all of my pets and favorite people around me, but now I don't think so. I think that the perfect, welcoming love that we feel when we are reunited with God, that perfect happiness fills us up so much that there is no need for anything else. When we die, nothing in our lives matters anymore at all. All of the people we have loved, everything we have worked for and invested in is just shucked off. Like our bodies, the lives that we made for ourselves are no more important than a set of clothes.

I feel like I have such a fierce love for life and for my loved ones. It is crazy to really internalize the idea that I could just cast them off without a glance backward. Not because they weren't important, but because they will become part of something that is no longer relevant to me.

So, if all of that were true, when what and how much does one invest in this life? Well, a lot, I think. We shouldn't just spend it fucking off, obviously. We need to spend it trying to make the world better. I thin kthat helps us, helps our souls grow strong and ready for the journey we eventually make. But sometimes it's hard to say that th ereason that th eworld matters is because it's all that we have in this moment.

I wonder why this separation from God is necessary. Why do we need to spend a lifetime in exile? Obviously we have a job to do, to improve the world, but why does God choose to create an imperfect world? I don't think it's just to give us something to do. I think it must have something to do with free will. Being able to choose how our souls are shaped. God wants our choices to be authentic. God is only meaningful, goodness is only meaningful, if it is chosen. That is what I think.

I spent the rest of Shabbat afternoon napping. Lorena came back from her trip to the markets full of stories about all that they saw and did. The market is enormous, like a maze, and all enclosed. It is packed with poeple, and intermingled with all of these shops were holy Christian sites, including where Jesus was crucified and buried.

After dinner we went back to Ben Yehuda street to see how festive it is once Shabbat is over. People began filling the streets at around 9:30, as shops were opening up. The drummers and jugglers were back. A Korean Christian choir sang earnestly in harmony, eyes closed and hands outstretched or pressed to their hearts, apparently filled with the spirit of the lord.

When we first arrived in Ben Yehuda Street tonight we met a teacher from Romania here on vacation. We also saw an angry old man dressed in a white tunic, almost like a robe, and white pants and a white hat, maybe with some gold on it. He had a long, grey beard and shouted angrily into the night. We all tried to guess what he was shouting, but mostly we just did all that we could to avoid eye contact with him.