Arabian Nights

Today was one of those days when I just let God guide me. I began the day off by taking my son on a fun day. He wanted breakfast out. His idea of breakfast is a chocolate croissant and orange juice. After we did a few errands and went bowling. He'd never gone before and it was great fun for him. There's only one bowling alley in Jerusalem. Of course, the principal of his school winds up being in the next lane. How embarrassing. I was tired and fortunately Hubby was nearby and drove us home. Thank God for leftovers because that's what everyone ate as I slept. I have a big night. I got an e-mail from Eliyahu that the Green Sheikh is in Jerusalem from London and if I'd like to meet him, I should get in touch. Do they come in different colors now? Turns out he's a Sufi Sheikh Abu'l Qasim, who was born in Jerusalem in the Mugrabi quarter which was just by the Western Wall. Before I left the house,I read one chapter of Abbie Hoffman's biography, the 1960s hippie/yippie anti-war revolutionary. In the book, I'm up to the year 1967 - when flower children/hippies converged on the Lower East Side of NYC. So I get off the bus and walk towards Jaffa Gate and see a circle of - hippies. Like they had just jumped out of Abbie Hoffman's biography. Yes. They're back. They're young. They love peace. They love love. They're wearing beads. They are dreadlocked. They're dancing and playing guitar. It looks like San Francisco c. 1967 except that we're right outside the Old City gates. The Arab children were curious about these crazy looking dancing Jews. We invited them to join us. They ran back to their mothers. I don't think they've ever been invited to join in with dancing Jews. They see me in my purple glory and suddenly the hippies young enough to be my children, open the circle to let me hold hands with them. We sit down and they begin to read Song of Songs by King Solomon. It's Tu B'Av. A Jewish festival/holiday of love and what's more appropriate than chanting King Solomon's love songs. The neighborhood children get braver and approach us. We paint smiley faces on their hands. They clamor for more. I met the crowd going to the Sheikh and we invited our new hippie friends who came along. We were 40 strong. We walked along via Dolorosa and entered Sheikh Bukhari's home. There's another city inside these walls. We walked inside his home, went on a rooftop, took steps down to another section of the complex until we finally got to where the Green Sheikh sat. He explained that we were zero, all creatures are zero and when we combine to the right with the number 1, the zero becomes a 10, which is a completeness and that God is a 10. If we don't have a connection with God, we stay a zero. Of course, the way he delivered it was much more eloquent than the way I present it but that's how I summarize. "I don't know you, you don't know me, but I'm happy you're here!" We went on to the rooftops where our host showed us the family tomb and the adjoining mosque where the Sufis where chanting over and over again - allah, allah, allah, allah, allah, allah, allah. And other chants. Like a mantra. We listened to them, while smelling the huge jasmine bush overflowing on the rooftop. He asked us if we want to meditate in the family mosque. We took off our shoes and entered. "I don't have a head covering" I whispered to the Green Sheikh. "Don't worry" he laughed. "God will cover your head." We chanted, we listened to him pray that God is light, God is the light of lights, the lights were out, we sat down, we stood up, we went around in a circle at the end and shook hands. Whatever I witnessed was very spiritual and very beautiful and we all prayed for God to do what we humans can't do - to change the air so that people will breathe differently to think differently and learn to love one another in this holy land, and especially in this holy city of Jerusalem.