The first and the last pictures show the Golden Gate in Jerusalem. Sealed off by Suleiman the Magnificent who became famous thanks to the TV series, it remains closed to date. It srands high right in front of a neglected Muslim cemetery in which I walked for a long time with Tomek today. The view from the Golden Gate is breathtaking. It faces the Mount of Olives from which, according to prophet Zechariah 14:4 the Messiah will come. This is why all three Abrahamic religions have filled the Mt of Olives with their presence, you see a Russian church and a Greek one, and a Catholic and an Armenian and what not. And then there is the Seven Arches Hotel owned by the Jordanian government. It was seven arches which allude to a seven-arched bridge expected by Muslims to be built from the top of the Mt. of Olives to the Golden Gate when Mahdi (the Messiah) comes. The souls of the righteous, the mustaqim, will be the only ones who will be able to cross that bridge; the souls of the evil ones, al-ďālin, will fall into a river of fire that will be waiting to swallow them under the bridge. What caught my imagination the most however was the use Jewish cemetery sprawling right under the Seven Arches Hotel. Tomb after tomb after tomb after tomb of righteous Jews waiting for the great cosmic moment, the advent of the Messiah, the King of Israel, who will cross the Golden Gate as prophesized and put an end to the circle of suffering. The Muslim cemetery in front of the Golden Gate is almost abandonded. I stood there for a long time, the sealed off Gate behind me, and I looked at the many hundreds of Jewish graves lying across the Kedron Valley which separates the Mount of Olives from where I was standing, and I thought of the Messiah, of his significance for my own life and for the life of Israel, and I pondered on the notion of suffering, on the meaning of life, the Golden Gate remained close, will it ever open again, will it open again in my lifetime I wondered, my mind having become intoxicated at the sight of an otherwordly City inhabited by the dead who had put all their hopes in the coming of an ever elusive Messiah.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 22:45:45 +0000
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