Dreaming Jerusalem

Dear friends,

It’s after midnight here in Jerusalem. Manu, my four-year-old just fell asleep. Ezzy, 8, just walked out of his room, “Can’t sleep.” Matan, 13 has a few more sudoku puzzles to finish before he can close his eyes. Today he napped five or six times, since last night he didn’t sleep more than an hour. A couple times he stood up from his bed, spoke to me from within his dream, walked to the other room and back to his, lay back down. Last night I walked out into the street with Manu around 2am. I wanted to show him the stars so his body might understand it’s nighttime. The yellow streetlights were too bright. I gave up and made us a snack. Around 4am he closed his eyes. By then Ezzy was up again. Erika walked out of the bedroom. I crashed.  

You might diagnose us all with jet lag. I ascribe it to something else. The psalms put it this way: 

בְּשׁוּב יְהוָה אֶת-שִׁיבַת צִיּוֹן הָיִינו כְּחֹלְמִים 

When YHVH returns us to Zion we become dreamers. 

Sometimes the pshat, the simple meaning of the verse, is deeper than the drash, the expounding.  

That’s how I spent the last 30 hours since we landed. Walking the streets of my childhood and the rooms of my parents’ house unsure if I’m asleep or awake. The dry air of the Jerusalem summer, the smell of dusty pine and cypress trees, the baking sun, the feeling that this city hasn’t changed at all since I was last here, before the pandemic began.  

One extra-sweet dream was a waking one (I think). I stared for long minutes at the yellow-orange light of the early evening sun ricocheting off the leaves of the giant Eucalyptus tree down the street. I hadn’t seen that color in a long time. I was reminded of a stage lighting class I took in undergrad, in which the teacher asked us about a quality of light that we know from a specific place. That color of light, a hazy shade of dark yellow is reserved for the holy city and its trees in the hour when the day wanes.  

"עֲשָׂרָה קַבִּין יֹפִי יָרְדוּ לָעוֹלָם, תִּשְׁעָה נָטְלָה יְרוּשָׁלַיִם וְאֶחָד כָּל הָעוֹלָם כֻּלּוֹ" 

“Ten measures of beauty were bestowed upon the world,” the Babylonian Talmud teaches. “Nine were taken by Jerusalem and one by the rest of the world.” 

That dream-like color has got to be one of those nine measures. 

The beauty is enhanced by the effort to come. Like every return to Zion throughout the ages, this one felt improbable, unlikely to come through, difficult, trying. Nor does the difficulty end once you get off the plane. Not in places that are in touch with reality like this one. Things here are made of stone. Even love can feel like rock here in the underbelly of the world. 

I hope this letter is not a dream. In case it is, please send it back my way in the morning. In the meantime, I’m going to try and get Ezzy back to sleep. 

Wishing you a shabbat full of dreams and light. 

יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה מִצִּיּוֹן עֹשֵׂה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ 

God sends blessings from Zion. He’s still making the sky and the land. 

Rabbi Misha