Temple Mount and Travel Day: Week 5 / Day 31 / Feb 10
Jerusalem, Israel: Today is a travel day and I am ready to hit the road. I am flying overnight to India (if I have to be in a plane for almost 7 hrs, better to do it overnight and have one less night to pay for lodging), so I have most of the day to explore before leaving.
I made my way, as usual, down to the Old City and went through the markets. There are so many of them that they become commonplace, but are still interesting to see.
Because our time had been so limited there earlier, I made my way up to the Temple Mount for another look around.
After the Al Aqsa mosque, I made my way over to the Dome of the Rock.
Out of all of the things to have happened here, I think my favorite is Muhammad’s ascension into heaven. On the night of his Great Journey, Muhammad went to heaven, prayed with the prophets, and met with God. After his meeting with God Muhammad sees Moses again and Moses asks him what God said. Muhammad tells him that God instructed him to have the people pray 50 times per day. Moses says the people will never do this and Muhammad needs to go back and get this reduced. Muhammad returns and gets it dropped to 40 times per day. Moses tells Muhammad that is still far too much and to go back. After several more rounds of negotiation it has been dropped to 5 times per day. Moses wants Muhammad to get it reduced further, but Muhammad thinks this is a fair deal.
Two things I think about this: 1. Where were these negotiating skills when Moses was getting all of the dietary laws? Who doesn’t want meat on their pizza? 2. There is nothing more prototypical of the markets that I went to than being willing to negotiate with God and not giving up until a 90% reduction in the price has been achieved.
The weather has been all over the place today. Sunny with some blue sky, 30 minutes later raining, then sunny, then raining again. Unfortunately, given the limited open hours on the Temple Mount for non-Muslims, it started to rain now. So, I had one last look around and headed out.
Leaving the Old City I walked over to a park near my apartment and visited the Israel Museum. The most significant items contained within the museum are probably the Dead Sea Scrolls. These are stored along with the Aleppo Codex (a 10th century copy of the Tanakh or Old Testament) in the Shrine of the Book. Unfortunately, no photographs are allowed within the shrine.
Leaving the museum I headed back through the park which contains both the Knesset (parliament) and Supreme Court buildings. It was raining too hard to take any pictures though. I also went past Kraft Field, built by the Kraft family that owns the New England Patriots.
Finally, I gathered up my stuff and headed off for the airport. The best part of going is that they just recently added a high speed rail line to the airport from the station right near where I am staying. It is currently free to anyone holding a card for the transit system. So, with the purchase of a card for $1.65, I get a 25 minute train ride to the airport.
