That Time I Was An Idiot
So…. this one time I decided to head to the Old City when it was dark out. But first a little context.
On our planned trip to the Old City I was confronted with the choice of visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Armenian Quarter. Being the die hard Armenian that I am, and with the nudging of a friend, I decided to choose the latter. I do not regret my choice, since it led to an amazing experience which included Berj, our twelve year old guide, taking us on a running tour through the alleys and creases of the Quarter before hurrying to his soccer match.
But this blog post is not about the Armenian Quarter, so I will save my rants about it for another time.
Since my friend, who will remain anonymous, (his name rhymes with Salix) and I did not get a chance to visit the Holy Sepulchre, we decided, after much deliberation, to go during our down time after a Pod session. We left as dusk was falling. We had an hour and a half to get there and back, before anyone noticed we were gone.
We left the hotel and desperately looked for a taxi. A woman we had asked for advice on where to find one, looked at us strangely when we told her where we were going. The taxi driver did the same.
Since we were familiar with the area surrounding the Gate of Zion, we asked to be taken there. We were taken to Damascus Gate instead. At this point I started to worry, just a little bit, since everyone so far had warned us of the tension in the muslim quarter. We sped through the market, almost as if we were guilty for being there.
There were two factors that caused my worry to dissipate. First, we started asking people for directions and they were genuinely nice about it. Second, and more influential (no joke), we passed by a couple of European tourists wearing salmon colored shorts.
We arrived at the Holy Sepulchre with a half hour to spare before it closed. Almost as if we were being punished for our idiocy, the church had closed early that day due to an event scheduled for the next morning. Nonetheless, we had seen, from the outside, one of the most holy places in all of Christendom.
We had a few minutes to spare, so we headed towards the Armenian Quarter once again. Inside we found the traditional gathering of old men sitting in a circle, most likely gossiping. I started a conversation with them, within minutes we had come up with a detailed plan to resolve the conflict (to be published soon). Soon we were on our way towards the Gate of Zion.
Once again, we struggled to find a taxi and walked towards the Western Wall. Eventually we were driving through Jerusalem with only minutes before we had to gather in the lobby. Thankfully, the trekkers continued their habitual tardiness.
Real Talk
This experience gave me a better perspective on Jerusalem. My frequent trips to Lebanon have instilled in me the notion that danger is a relative term, and I believed that visiting Israel would only strengthen that notion. My adventure through the market at dark did just that. This is not to say that I understand or comprehend the security issues in Israel nearly as well as any of the trek leaders, since I surely do not. But, I stand by my argument of relativity.
During my time in Israel it was odd to me that people felt unsafe at times, when I felt completely at ease. This might be part of a larger notion that deals with the realities of how security issues in some countries might harden people to a point that they became desensitized to danger. This is a question I grappled with during my time in Israel, and one that I have been trying to understand more deeply ever since.
My parents have always heralded the philosophy that one should not allow risk or danger, in moderation, to stand in the way of one’s goals. This philosophy might have developed from their own partial desensitization which had in turn developed from their childhoods spent in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war. Because of their mindset I have become a strong proponent of this philosophy over the years.
I don’t believe I regret my choice. My only hope is that the trek leaders, who I value as friends, will not feel as though I took advantage of their trust. I struggled with the idea that I had been chosen to be part of such an amazing experience, yet I was deliberately defying simple and logical rules set by friends.
So, I ventured out when I should not have, and it was truly idiotic.
I have put off publishing this essay for two weeks now. As I read it over and over again I could not help but feel as though this essay would be read as an unapologetic and unwavering opinion piece based on my deliberate disobedience. I don’t believe I mean it to be confrontational, but hope it will allow my fellow trekkers to think of this issue through the lens of their own experiences.
Thus, I have decided to finally publish this short piece of writing that I have spent way to much time on, and that very few people will actually end up reading.
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Thanks to Gal for calling me out on FB, it motivated me to write this!
