Falling stones

Dawn walk to Mass

At the end of Tisha B'Av ... the commemoration of the destructions of the 2 Jewish Temples ... a medium sized stone fell from its wall about 3 metres. Luckily no one was hurt. A woman nearby was unhurt but was very shocked. But as everyone expected ... there were and still is a host of interpretations of this. It fell in a section where the govt. had allotted for "egalitarian" prayer ... meaning women and men mix and pray together, where women wear the prayer apparel reserved for men etc.. all these things are frowned and rejected by ultra-orthodox jews. Given this context, the ultra-orthodox immediately interpreted the falling stone as God's displeasure with this "egalitarian" heresy. The liberals who pray at this section of the Wall interpret it as God's displeasure over the enforced segregation of worship. Others saw it as God re-enacting the destruction of the 2 previous historical temples, and a reminder of the sins committed by the jewish people. Politicians and archeologists see it has a consequence of the muslim digging in the area behind that Wall. And so everyone has his version of the falling stone ... about 1 meter long and quite heavy. Watch the video.   https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/WATCH-Stone-falls-out-of-Western-Wall-above-egalitarian-prayer-platform-563176   and
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ancient-boulder-dislodges-from-western-wall-crashes-onto-egalitarian-plaza/

Meantime yesterday's jewish commemoration saw over a thousand jews entering the Al Aqsa mosque compound to lament over the lost of their temple. Ultra-orthodox Judaism doesn't allow that, but many politically minded jews enter anyway. A confrontation with police and muslims ensued for several hours ... quite tense at times ... but finally everyone went their own way and it ended quietly.   https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Over-800-Jews-enter-Temple-Mount-on-Tisha-Be-av-two-arrested-563113

Today's lunch

Today was a busy day but without morning class, it was less stressful. It's early morning Mass as the sun rises, at the Ivrea convent about 1km away in an arab village north of Jerusalem. Then after Mass, it's the usual round of bureaucratic paperwork with Post Offices that refuse to release our imported books for the library, the payment of taxes for these books ... it's endless. But noon was pleasant as Matthias offered to bring me out for lunch. He had sushi and I had Phad Krapau. Nice to have a warm lunch. Then afternoon it was back to work again. I did manage to rest for an hour though as my right shoulder still hurts very bad. Maybe I'll go back to see my physiotherapist tomorrow or the next day.

Almost everyone has gone off for summer holidays ... and I really hope I have enough time to do what I want to do this summer: read some Shakespeare, take long walks around the suburbs, sleep.