Day 4: More Stations of the Cross & the Jewish Quarter

Tianna's corresponding blog: (Click here!)

The single most important event that can be mentioned about today is that my luggage has finally arrived. It has been so frustrating being in this holding pattern wondering if the equipment I needed to start working on my project would ever appear. I couldn't even make definite plans for locations until I knew if my bag would arrive. So today the trip can officially begin. We didn't know the bag had arrived until later and even that was happen chance. We stopped by the Jerusalem Center and to our great astonishment my bag was there. Most of the day involved being tourists and finishing our explorations of the old city. We spent most of our time in the Jewish Quarter and were able to visit a few more stations along the Via Dolorosa.

First stop: Station V
This is the exterior of a small Franciscan Church where Simon of Cyrene was ordered to help bear the cross of Jesus. You would see little pilgrimages similar to this one were a tour group would carry a cross along the Via Dolorosa while stopping at each of the stations. This particular station has a small rock framed within the wall that these groups would all take turns touching. I was never able to find out the significance of this rock, so if anyone knows I am curious. I would assume that it was supposed to be where Jesus leaned to support his weight. This theory is all well and good until you see the other tourist spots where you can look down through grates and see the street level at Christ's time. Approximately 20 feet down. But then again the majority of sites in Jerusalem are the "traditional" sites and the action of following the steps (even if they are only "traditional") does get your mind thinking and that is worth the experience in and of itself.

Station IV
We backtracked a little bit and took some pictures outside station IV. This is the "traditional" site where Jesus encountered his mother. We decided to come back later to enter the churches since it was Sunday and the chapels were being used for Mass. This is a small carving outside along the street. The church must be mentioned due to its very unique name, "Our Lady of the Spasm." I am assuming that name doesn't conjure up such a unique image in other cultures as it does for me but thats the beauty of diversity.
This picture is of nowhere in particular. I had to photograph it after it destroyed all that I was taught in my Sunday School lessons about the keystone being the most important piece of an arch. That it was the part that held everything else up. This particular keystone looks like it is being held up by the arch not the other way around. Oh well, another object lesson down the tubes.
The Cardo. We headed over to this area to scout some locations for a couple of my picture ideas. This area is a remnant of the Roman city Aelia Capitolina. This city was built upon the ruins of Jerusalem after the Jewish rebellions in 70 and 135 AD. The first picture is an open air portion at the end of the Cardo. The rest of the section is one of the nicer Jewish shopping areas within the old city. There is a replica of a mosaic found in Madaba, Jordan that depicts this area of the old city where you can see the column lined streets.



We continued to explore the Jewish quarter and decided to stop by the Sephardi Synagogues. This building actually houses four synagogues. The first and largest is the Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai Synagogue. One interesting thing about the architecture in this synagogue is that they won't let the seams in the ceiling come together to resemble a Christian cross. If you look behind the chandelier you can see a circle to prevent that misfortunate symbol from tainting there Jewish experience.

The next one we went into was the Elijah Synagogue. The tradition of this synagogue was that nine Jews gathered for prayer one sabbath. This is one short of the required ten to form a minyan, the mandatory public prayer quorum. Then a mysterious Jew appeared with a white beard and then immediately vanished after the prayer. Tradition holds that this was the prophet Elijah, in fact they used to reserve a special chair for him just in case. This particular picture is looking up at the womens section of the synagogue. Men and women are kept separate by those thin veils during the services.


This one is just a random picture that I took because of a project my grad school adviser (Jan Rosenbaum) is working on where he photographs how people try to beautify there surroundings but oftentimes fail miserably. I saw this and thought of him.

On the way back home we stopped at Station III. Mass was now over and we had a few minutes before they locked everything up. This is the traditional sight were Christ first fell under the weight of the cross. The first two images were from a small chapel that is the actual station. The symbols in the ceiling are typical of early Christian art. You have the anchor and the chi-rho (which looks like an x and p overlapping and comes from the first two letters of the Greek 'Khrīstos') The early Christians used these symbols to point to the characteristics of Christ which they thought more important than what he looked like.

















The next three images are from adjoining chapels (including Our Lady of the Spasm, station IV) I found these to be very relaxing and eloquent chapels. Nothing ornate or gaudy like in the church of the Holy Sepluchre. Simplicity, tranquility, and reflexion were the only things I found in abundance in these chapels. In the third image if you look closely in the tiles of the floor you can see two foot prints. This is supposed to mark the spot where Mary stood and watched her son pass while he carried his cross.

For my final parting image, what a better way to end a long day than enjoying a little ice cream. Maybe Americans and Muslims have a little something in common after all. Deep down we are the same people and can find the same pleasure even in the little things. It would be nice if we could start looking for similarities instead of creating differences that we feel are worth fighting over.