"You may even see in these faces your own face"
Geula -- Behind the Hustle-Bustle
When I answer them "Geula," often they look a bit puzzled,
and ask, "Why there?" I suppose they can more readily
imagine me living in Ramot or Arzei Habira or maybe Har Nof -
- those sections of Jerusalem where there are more English
speaking compatriots. There have been lonely, wintry days
that can add up to a whole week of not having any friendly
visitors who show up at my door. And then I also wonder why
in the world I've chosen to live here where most people are
busy with their extended families and don't speak English
anyway. On those kind of days, I could have a good cry,
thinking over how they don't need me the way I need them.
Those kind of days have become more rare as time goes on.
I've made some good friends who are like family to me, and
I've come to appreciate the warmth of the neighborhood. It's
just not American-style, the kind that is dished out with
whipped cream and chocolate sauce with a cherry on top.
The neighbors are genuinely happy to share in my family
celebrations and rush over to help find the problem in the
electricity or the pipes. They send over cakes, noodle
kugels, and babysitters when needed.
In general, there's a certain reserve, but I've stopped
taking it personally. In fact, I've come to appreciate the
way it can give me a feeling of space in a neighborhood that
doesn't have many real physical open spaces. There's a
respect of boundaries and a privacy that feels more and more
natural to me as time goes on.
Geula doesn't have landscaped boulevards, vistas, or green
garden spots. But when I'm essentially tuned in to the
spiritual dimension, I can sense the lush growth springing
up all around me in the people who are seriously working on
themselves and their relationship to Hashem.
I walk the streets and see it on the faces -- beautiful
Jewish faces with the struggle to come closer to Hashem
lined and written in them. Even on the faces of the
children. Every Jerusalem neighborhood has these faces, but
these tight city streets bring them up closer.
The physical world of crowded bookshops and faded signs
announcing bakeries or shoe stores or falafel eateries
appear to be a flimsy backdrop to what's really happening
there -- it's the prayers that pour from the dozens of
shuls, at least one on every block. It's the sweet voices of
the cheder boys joining the sea of Torah surging
through the streets.
Here in Geula, you can really believe the dictum of our
Sages about This World being a corridor to the World to
Come. It does have the feeling of a corridor that no one has
bothered to pretty up.
My first glimpse of Geula was through the blurry window of a
bus on a cold, rainy night. I was taking the bus from an
uptown hotel, and I got off around Kikar Shabbos, right in
the center of the neighborhood. My companion was a young
religious woman who had convinced me to accompany her to
Geula to have some dinner.
There I was sitting at the back table of a greasy-spoon
felafel store. I had already come to understand that G-d
exists, but here in Geula it seemed very natural that I take
the next step to believe that He was interested in me, even
to the point of providing my daily sustenance.
After dinner, my new friend handed me a prayer book, and I
took it without hesitating. I said the Grace After Meals for
the first time in my life. I saw it as a perfect response of
gratitude and acknowledgement to Him for bringing me this
far. I remember toiling over each word as if my life
depended on it.
During the years before I returned to live in Geula, I
thought of it as a luminous spot on my world map. The spark
of my Yiddishkeit was kindled there in a place where other
American tourists see a European ghetto or a journey back in
time to the 19th century.
I sometimes pass these tourists on the streets of Geula, and
they look at me as if I were an oddity. I want to buttonhole
them and say, "Look around you at these faces. They are the
faces of your grandparents and great- grandparents. And if
you can see beyond the distinctive clothing and other
superficial differences, and you can look deeply, you may
even see in these faces your own face."
