Epilog (Five, Four, Three, Two, One)
To try to summarize and write a comprehensive wrap-up of our journey is too difficult and would produce returns that diminish with each sentence. We all (as we were warned) left Israel with more questions than answers; emotions and ties to a land and heritage given new, vigorous life. During the flight home I mentally wrote and re-wrote this closing chapter numerous times; each draft with a different key idea to convey. And perhaps that is the point: these journeys with our Rabbi are not meant to tell us a story. These ventures expose us to raw materials: history, prayers, sites, people and ideas that reinforce and then contradict. We are each provoked to write and re-write our own stories many times over.
Each time we read a story of Labor v. Likud politics, recite the shehecheyanu, hear of a raid on a Gaza tunnel, learn about a child diagnosed with cancer, study the history of the (ephemeral) Roman Empire, read a news flash from the security fence (or the Lebanese border, or the Golan Heights, or the West Bank/Sumaria & Judea, or the Gaza Strip) or hear the first measures of the Lion King, we will have ideas and viewpoints that are vastly different from those we had before March 15th of 2009.
But, for those that want a summary:
Five millennia;
Four Quarters of the Old City (Muslim, Christian, Armenian and Jewish);
Three Religions;
Two national interests; and,
One G-d.
And, oh yes: “Can I get a group picture?!”
- Michael Patterson
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