Walking up the steps
to the cave of our fathers
and mothers.
I look to the right
and see the stage being set.
Hear the tech guy on the mike
chanting
achat, eh, achat, shtayim.
Smell the hooka
as a circle of guys
breathe it all in.
I walk up to a crowd
of pushers.
All wanting the priveledge
of praying at the graves
of those who came before us.
I pass through security.
They take my compact
telling me to come get it
when I leave.
I notice that the cabinet
they place it in
is full of knives.
Guess makeup can be dangerous.
(LOL)
I pray my heart out
in the sweltering heat.
I retrieve my goods
and descend the stairs
stopping midway
to take a seat.
to breathe in the sights.
And to cry for what I've missed.
For what I still miss.
Harachaman Hu Yakim Lanu Es Sukkas David Hanofales...
9 comments:
Never been to Chevron myself, though I wanted to several times and it never worked out. So thanks for sharing your experience.
Chevron is really special. I was only able to go once on chol hamoed when the kevarim of Yitzchak and Rivka are open, but I've been a few other times.
I long for the day when Chevron will once again be a Jewish city and we won't have to need armed guards to watch over us as we daven at the kvarim of the Avos...
This is my first time on your blog, and as I read your poem about Chevron......I guess I'm speechless in a way...
For a second I was transported back to the first time I visited there. What an experience--it was Shabbos Parshas Chayei Sarah, jam-packed, stifling, toe-crunching, unbearably claustrophobic--but what an experience! After I got over my terror of possibly being trampled (and mind you, I almost did!) the feelings that Mearas Hamachpelah holds are just spine-tingling...
(And can you explain how makeup can be dangerous? :-) I feel a bit thick for asking...)
LOL- corner, you are reminding me of the time I went to Beitar (which is on the road to Chevron) on erev Shabbos Chayei Sara (maybe Thursday?), not knowing that it was such a hot time... a 20-min ride took forever, by the time I got there it was time to turn back already!
About the makeup, I think Dreamer was just wondering the same thing, not actually agreeing.
I dont like going to Chevron.
Its always so tense..
I just pray that peace should come..
and that we shoould finally see the avos and imahos in person..
Beautiful post...Enjoy whats left ogf ur trip..
btw..whats a hooka?
Bas melech,
I still don't understand about the makeup... Like, okay, go contemplate that, but why here? Why right after seeing a cabinet full of knives?
David,
Hooka is this weird looking usually ornate glass (maybe ceramic) vase with a pipe coming out of the top, filled with drugs that you smoke. It's very popular in the middle east. I wonder how they transport them...they must get kinda heavy... You see them sometimes in Arabic or Israeli steakhouses in the states, and in Israel they're all over. On my school campus they had to forbid girls from smuggling them to the roofs of the dorm buildings :)
basmelech - hadn't been there in about twelve years. twas good to go back. and the last time i was there, there wasn't any concert or anything like that... so different...
scraps - amen.
corner - welcome! what are you speechless about?
well, they took my makeup and put in in the cabinet full of kitchen knives... so i was wondering aloud why they deemed it dangerous...
david - wasn't tense when i was there. though there was a shooting nearby the next day, and they locked e/o who was there into mearas hamachpelah until they felt that the danger had passed...
and if you're ever in flatbush, there's a hookah place on coney island ave. near ave. P, though i wouldn't advise going there...
sometimes, there aren't such strong drugs inside, but rather, these fruit flavored kind of things.
never tried it, though i've seen the contraption and smelled the fruit stuff a couple of times...
wow. u just made me so homesick.
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