Leon's No News Bulletin 105 Sunday 24th May 09

Dear friends, shalom,

A person’s memory is made up of unforgettable experiences. A beautiful experience is remembered because a person relives the beauty each time he remembers it.

In my job, guiding tourists, I help people have beautiful experiences and part of the beauty is that the experience is new and unique.

I don’t consider myself a teacher but I think that sometimes my tourists remember facts and figures better than many pupils in a classroom.

For example the other day I took a group of people on a sunset tour of Jaffa; we stood on the “tel” of ancient Jaffa and watched the sun set over the Mediterranean with its last rays shimmering on the sky scraper skyline of modern Tel Aviv arrayed along the pearly white beach.

I told them how Napoleon had conquered Jaffa and kept his sick soldiers in the Crusader church of St. Peter whose clock tower can still be seen from Tel Aviv beach reminding the modern Tel Avivians that, although their city is modern it grew out of a very ancient city. The past is always with us in Israel.

There is very little routine in my work; One day I’m in ancient Safed, the next I’m in the Druze village of Daliat el Carmel. One day I’m guiding a priest from England the next a rabbi from New York and so on.

Yesterday, after a walk in the busy Arab market of the Old City of Jerusalem, my tourist, a young Norwegian gentleman and I were wiping the humus from our plates at Abu Shukri’s.

I had explained in the church of the Holy Sepulcher, that Jews don’t have the same belief as Christians, namely they don’t believe that the crucifixion opens the way to Paradise, but that Paradise is open to all mankind, not just Christians.

My young tourist from Norway asked if I tell the same story to everybody.

Of course I do; my explanations of the various religions are part of the unforgettable experience because it’s interesting to learn about customs and beliefs of religions different from our own.

My opinion about the background to a belief or its origin, however, is reserved for people who want a little more detail, like this Norwegian gentleman, because usually there are many different opinions about origins and reasons for certain beliefs and customs.

For example, in my opinion the eager search for knowledge has its origin in the Jewish insistence on the constant personal search for repentance for Adam’s sin, examining the results to see how effective are the methods. Always measuring the success of the methods against reality..

The custom of animal sacrifice was the first method developed by humans in their search for repentance.

The temple was built as a place to practice this custom on a national scale. The twice repeated destruction of the temple however convinced the Jews that this wasn’t the way to repentance and since then prayer has taken the place of sacrifice as the way to obtain repentance. This is why Jews are obliged to pray with a congregation three times per day.

A few weeks ago I was fortunate to have the opportunity of watching two excellent documentary films at the annual Tel Aviv documentary film festival.

The first film, “A table in Paradise” was about a famous restaurant in New York called “La Circa”. The climax of the film is Pope John Paul’s visit.

The Pope enjoyed his meal and asked Sirio Maccioni, the old maitre d and owner of the restaurant, what he could do for him, the famous old maitre d asked the Pope for a table in heaven.

He considered his wish grated when he retired to Montacitini, the beautiful Tuscan village of his childhood.

The second film “Pete Seeger, the power of song” left me speechless with admiration for a man who spent his whole life demonstrating, through song for the right of every man to live a free life of dignity.

It was as if I finally met the man who had written, sung and popularized all my favorite childhood songs; This land is your land this land is my land, Tzena tzena, Wimoway, So long it’s been good to know you, kisses sweeter than wine, Kumbaya, Sixteen tons, If I had a hammer, Where have all the flowers gone.

I loved hearing those songs again and seeing the man behind them. I love his line “"Don't say it can't be done, the battle's just begun... take it from Dr. King you too can learn to sing so drop the gun."

Wishing you a great no news day

Yours truly

Leon Gork

Come for a Jerusalem Walk with Leon Gork

Jerusalemwalks.com

legork@netvision.net.il

Tel: 052 3801867