Life is a Trip (12 page)

This was the kind of cultural exchange that propels me to set out, travel, e
x
plore, test, try on, adapt, adopt, and discover other ways of being in the world. While holding onto to my own values and beliefs, I am open to the diverse obse
r
vances that exist everywhere in the world.

It
certainly was odd.
An Israeli kindergarten teacher, who seemed intell
i
gent and sane, looked me in the eyes as she explained how she met her husband. “I was fo
r
ty years old, and I was just about to give up on meeting a mate. Then I prayed at the tomb of Jonathan ben Uziel, and two weeks later I met him. Eight months later we were married.”

I chalked it up to coincidence until I met an Israeli artist who was bubbly, u
p
beat, and very credible. “My life has changed,” she said. “I was so lonely but then I prayed at the tomb of Jonathan ben Uziel and met my soul mate.”

I was visiting Safed, in the vicinity of the tomb, and decided to check out the departed matchmaker. Armed with a healthy dose of skepticism, I entered the women’s side of the low, whitewashed buil
d
ing, called a
tsyun
. The tsyun is made of local rocks, cement, earth, and stones, and houses the remains of the famed first-century C.E. rabbi.

Inside, a dark velvet cloth was draped over the sepulcher. Women prayed ea
r
nestly from Hebrew prayer books and several deposited coins and bills into charity tins. The room was littered with prayer o
f
ferings: brightly-colored cloth, silk and chiffon scarves, plastic hair ornaments, and underpants. Underpants?!

I was in Israel on a personal mission. I was born and raised Jewish, but I was disaffected from institutional Judaism. Over the past few decades, I had bathed my soul in the spiritual waters of many different traditions, but, for me, the world of synagogues and formal, standardized prayer books was dry and uninspiring. I longed for deep connection; I wanted to be stirred, moved, and transported to transcendent realms. It hadn’t happened for me in America, but maybe it would happen in Israel. So even though the media assaulted us with daily images of Arabs and Jews attacking, shooting, bombing and threate
n
ing to kill each other, I was determined to find out if there was an
y
thing spiritual, mystical, healing, and holy in the Holy Land.

That is what had brought me and my husband, Paul, to the town of Safed in the area known as the Gallilee, in the north of Israel. Al
t
hough he had little interest in religion, holiness, or other affairs of the spirit (he dismissively lumped all of it u
n
der the heading of superst
i
tion), Paul had agreed to photograph whatever I found.

“This is where legendary rabbis inspired the Hebrew people tho
u
sands of years ago. It is also where, in the medieval period, brilliant rabbis developed and disse
m
inated the mystical Torah studies known as Kabbalah,” our guide, Nurit, told us.

The hills around Safed are dotted with ancient tombs. To Jewish believers, these tombs of long-deceased
tsaddikim
, or holy men, are the meeting place b
e
tween the living and the dead. People make pi
l
grimages to the burial places to ask for blessings, favors, surcease from suffering.

“They do not actually pray to the ancient rabbis; rather, they pray that the d
e
parted tsaddikim will intercede on their behalf with God,” Nurit explained. “And because God looks favorably upon holy men and the merit of their lives, he is more likely to grant a request.”

I wanted the hills surrounding Safed to be a spiritual place for me, but at the tomb of Rabbi Uziel, I was interested and amused, not i
n
spired. Paul came out of the men’s side (men and women are separated in Orthodox Judaism) and when I asked him what had happened, he tersely responded, “Nothing.”

Nevertheless, I decided to visit one other grave in the small, ancient village of Meron—perched on the side of Mount Meron, with its abu
n
dant greenery, trees, and views of Safed and the Galilee. Meron village is the resting place of Shimon bar Yochai. One of the most famous of the tsaddikim, he is credited with being the a
u
thor of the central book of Kabbalah, called the Zohar, almost two thousand years ago. Belie
v
ers go to his grave to pray for prosperity, peace in their souls, fertility, and healing.

Paul and I climbed up the narrow main street of Meron to two stone archways with Hebrew inscriptions (one arch for men and one for women) that led to the whitewashed tsyun. Paul entered the men’s section, looked around, shot a few ph
o
tos, shrugged, and exited. “Don’t ask. Nothing happened,” he said pointedly. “Nothing.”

But for me, things would be very different and unexpected.

As soon as I entered the women’s side of the tsyun, my body started to shake and I began to sob. I looked around, self-conscious. A few women sat on benches and others stood facing the walls or the tomb itself, praying. No one was paying any attention to me as I wept, drenching the front of my pale blue shirt. I walked—no, I wove to the tomb, placed my head on the cool, white exterior, and prayed and cried for healing for my thinning bones. And I felt as though—how can I describe this?—I felt as though my words were heard.

When I came out into the stark afternoon sun, Paul was waiting for me. I had been gone about twenty minutes. I told him what had happened, and he listened. He was surprised, but couldn’t really co
n
nect to it.

For hours afterwards, tears welled up in my eyes. I knew that something had happened to me at the tomb of Shimon bar Yochai, but I didn’t know what it was.

Our next stop was the tomb of Baba Sali in Netivot. Baba Sali was a Moroccan holy man who is credited with many miraculous healings. He died in 1984 and has a very large following in North Africa and Israel. I was turned off as soon as I a
r
rived at the large and well-developed site with its multiple buildings; it felt instit
u
tionalized. A well-dressed male employee spoke to visitors, droning on and on about buildings and books and the history of the place. There were glossy pa
m
phlets and wall plaques, and I wandered off to try to find a connection, a feeling, something personal and meaningful.

Outside the tomb, a bus arrived and I watched as a line of Yemenite women got out. For some reason, I was immediately drawn to them, and I began to talk to them in English, broken Hebrew, French, and hand signals. One of them, an older wo
m
an, grabbed my hand, and I followed her. She took me to a small booth where a man sold boxes of candles. I did as she did and purchased one box for about two dollars. Then she led me to a large outdoor furnace where a fire was burning. One by one, she removed each of the twelve candles from her box. “Each one is a family me
m
ber or good friend,” she explained. “I pray for them.” She prayed softly over each candle and tossed it into the fire. “Now you, now you,” she urged.

Once again, I did as she did—asking for romance for friends, hea
l
ing for a sick family member, general well-being for people I care about. Then she headed into one of the rooms, and announced, reve
r
ently, “Baba Sali.” She placed her hands on a tomb and began to pray. I watched. Several of the other Yemenite women joined her and did the same thing. They prayed aloud, fervently, obviously in a state of great devotion.

A small group of tourists arrived and their guide began to speak in English about the tomb. “This is where the architect who built the Baba Sali Center is bu
r
ied,” the guide explained.

I felt terrible for my new Yemenite friend. She was praying at the wrong tomb! I decided to tell her this wasn’t where her beloved Baba Sali was interred so that she could redirect her prayers. To my su
r
prise, the news didn’t disturb her or her friends at all.

“If this was the Baba Sali architect or someone else, it doesn’t matter,” said one of them.

It was a person associated with Baba Sali, and that was good enough for them. They continued to pray, and then they moved on to the actual tomb of Baba Sali and prayed once more. At each spot, they wept and intoned until it was time for them to board the bus. When my new friend hugged me good-bye, she put her hand over her heart and sighed. “Good, good,” she said. It was clear that she had gotten from Baba Sali what she’d come for.

I felt as though I was on the trail of something—something vague that I couldn’t articulate or define. I began to ask Israelis about other tombs. They told me that the major annual tomb event would be taking place in a few days at the gravesite of Shimon bar Yochai, and it was important to go there before sunset.

Great. I already knew where it was. I would go back. Paul agreed without much enthusiasm—I supposed he figured it was the price he had to pay for being married to me. And so, on the holiday of Lag B’Omer, in the merry month of May, we headed to Meron.

Lag B’Omer is a spring holiday that is associated with bringing barley offe
r
ings to the ancient Temple in Jerusalem more than two millennia ago. Over the centuries, several tragic events happened at this time of year, and it is a period of semi-mourning for observant Jews. But on Lag B’Omer, there was surcease from suffering, miracles occurred, and the day is happy and celebratory.

When we arrived at Meron, the place was unrecognizable. Pi
l
grims had to park ten or even twenty minutes away because the roads were jammed with cars. The town’s streets were bursting with women, children, and bearded men dressed in traditional Orthodox black; well over a hundred thousand believers came from all over Israel to pay homage to Shimon bar Yochai on the anniversary of his death.

“He was the most joyous of the rabbis, and on his deathbed he revealed the light of the Torah to his students. He asked that his death be marked with festiv
i
ty,” an Orthodox rabbi named Mendy explained to us.

It was clear that Shimon bar Yochai’s devotees followed his wishes, and they arrived in a state of celebratory exuberance.

The main street was like a carnival. Vendors in makeshift booths sold crafts, religious objects, clothes, books, dates and nuts and soft drinks. Families were camped out in tents. Men in long beards asked for charity or offered blessings.

“According to tradition, if a man and woman are having fertility problems, the man gives out the contents of eighteen bottles of wine on Lag B’Omer to cure the barrenness,” Rabbi Mendy informed us.

The number eighteen is favorable in Judaism, and it is associated with life and living. The origin of this belief seems to come from the two Hebrew letters—chet and yud—that form the word “
chai
,” which means life. In Gematria, or numerol
o
gy, chet equals eight and yud is ten. If you add them up, you get eighteen.

Young men pressed glasses of wine on Paul and me as we walked through the street; we drank, of course, because we knew they were trying to dispense the co
n
tents of eighteen bottles and it would be rude not to honor their desire for children.