APPROACHING THE HIGH HOLY DAYS

I'm sure some want to ask: "So, what's your point?" My point to the Jews is that if we don't possess our inheritance, someone else will! As we approach the High Holy Days, consider the gift of educating your children and visit the Kotel.

For now, let’s abandon the argument of whether it is kosher for a Jew to ascend the Temple Mount as it stands today. And let’s focus on the excuses of Jews not visiting the Western Wall, the significant Kotel.
The sad truth is statistics report more and more Jews are showing less interest in visiting the Wailing Wall, also known as the Western Wall. Even among very religious Jews, much less secular Israelis, children are not being taught the importance of visiting the Wall on a regular basis, not even to go up to Jerusalem for the Shalosh Regalim: Pesach, Shavuot and Succot, as Torah commands. The lack of a show of interest from the Jews plays into the propaganda machinations of Islam and confirms to the world that dominance over the Temple Mount should remain within Islamic control, and more so, that Jerusalem in reality belongs to Muslims because they display more fervor for the Holy site and the City where it stands.
A few years ago, when it was exposed that the debri from Solomon’s Stables was being discarded in the Kidron Valley, there was a major demonstration at the site of the so-called ‘rubbish’. Already our fine youth had retrieved a number of huge stones from the Temple era. Later, as they sifted through the ‘rubbish’, fine treasures were discovered, and are still being found, proving the Jewish Temple once existed.
I remember touching one of the damp cold stones and it was as though a message was transmitted in the contact. As a result, I wrote the following poem in memory of our forefathers and mothers.

ANCIENT STONES OF JERUSALEM
Huge stones tumbled into the Kidron Valley,
hewn stones cut with skilled hands in ancient times,
Temple Mount antiquities reduced to waste,
cast among the rubbish on an obscure hillside.

I stumbled upon the stones
one cold damp evening
in the dark eerie place they had come to rest.
Moisture from the dew of night,
formed seeping drops of tears ran down the sides.

A sudden urge, an impulse within,
I stretched out my arms
and lay my breast upon a stone.
Quietly I lay, heavy hearted.
Then I heard a mysterious sound
that suddenly awakened my soul—
Like waters of the sea rushing in with the tide!

Hush! Be still! Quietly I lay ear to stone,
until I finally realized it was voices instead of waters
contained within the stone!
Voices! Tens of thousands of historic voices!
Voices of many Jews crying out to their Maker:
“Have mercy! Forgive us, O L-rd, our G-d!”
It was the voices of our fathers and mothers
weeping for their children:
“O L-rd! Keep them safe until they return to their Land!”

Overcome with emotion,
I gathered their many voices—
pleas and prayers—
to my heart,
and lifted their burden upon my soul,
carrying the weight,
I returned all to their original place,
and lay it safely at the Kotel,
the Western Wall of the Temple Mount,
the only remaining evidence of the Jews most sacred place.

A Variety of Birds at the Jerusalem Zoo

Quite a variety of birds find a comfortable homing place at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo. Colorful cranes with their gangly legs referred to as 'sticks', and elegant, twisted necks which makes for a lot of fun as you watch them and put together the puzzle of which neck and head belongs to which body. Rowdy little ducks and swans grace the open waters, while those on the wild side are found homed in huge pens. I personally used to find this caging of birds and animals difficult to deal with since I felt the wild should have their liberty. But, when you learn of all the horrific poaching of wildlife in the animal kingdom, you have to sometimes realize being caged is safer in many ways. Especially since so many wild animals are on the list of extinction in the very near future.

Animals at the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem

I'm not so sure that the animals were not somewhat confused at seeing baby tigers and lions, plus other baby animals being carried in the arms of that odd species called "human beings"! But none of the disguised babies were abducted by the incarcerated species of creation. Yet I wonder who was observing who as each species ganged up on one side or the other, the human and the animal, and you wonder whose more the 'odd balls', you or the monkeys! What are the animals thinking about the human species gaping across at them? I guess that is why monkeys are not my favorite animal to observe. Their conduct and mannerisms fit too close to home.
The favorite entertainers of the day were not the elephants or the monkeys as in years past, but it was the bears who stole the show!