Priestly Blessing

Jewish priests blessing the people

Today is the 3rd day of Sukkoth ... the day the Jewish priests, descendants of Aaron, come to the Wailing Wall to bless the nation. Thousands of jews and some foreigners came to the event. There 1st blessing was to take place at 9.30am and the 2nd at 10.30am after the relevant morning prayers.

I went early as I knew it would be packed and I won't get a good place. Also my jewish friends were there ... not for the blessing but to work as security. The blessing was late ... almost 9.50am. The cantor called hazzan called out sonorously "kohanim" meaning "priests" and all the priests, having washed and purified their hands and feet, gathered along the Wailing Wall with prayer shawls covering their bodies, raised their hands and sang the blessing of Aaron form Number 6:24-6.

Arab and Israeli police scuffle
photo from Haaretz

Though I go for the blessing every year, it never fails to strike me. It's very profound, very ancient, very surreal. An ancient ritual which took place 2000 years ago when the priests use to bless the people in the Temple.

But there was trouble on the way home. Arab women and students were waiting for the jews to leave the Wailing Wall and began harassing them, shouting insults and blocking the streets. Police had to come in and separate the jews and arabs. Later more arab demonstrations in the streets tough nothing violent. Nevertheless several people were arrested, including jews who attacked arabs.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.678063?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook

Bro Denis, our longtime teacher at my secondary school, died last night. A french canadian Gabrielite brother who spent his entire life in Singapore as a teacher. Great man and missionary. RIP

Meantime the eclipse of the super moon 2 nights ago is causing zionist christians great fear ... superstitious and lacking any theological formation, a spirituality based on superficial reading of the bible and blind zionism, they now think the eclipse is the end of the world. Good for them.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Last night's full moon
over the City Walls

2nd Day of Sukkoth and the nights saw running battles in the neighbourhood behind my house. This morning going out to Herod's Gate I saw the street ("Herod's Gate Ascent" of course) with rocks and broken bottles strewn everywhere and the street reeking with tear gas. Strangely during the day it's very peaceful ... and it's in the Territories that riots break out, like the violent one today in Ramallah. http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Clashes-erupt-in-West-Bank-following-Temple-Mount-confrontations-419394

Empty piglet baskets and
a pot of chinese tea

I don't have much time to follow these riots, though I'd love to ... because I have lots of work to do. Instead today I was at the Media Centre where I once was the director, to edit a news clip. Have lost touch with the editing process ... The present director told me that I have to come back and work one day a week because I produce and direct very good programmes. Maybe I will .... if I have free time.

The Mid-Autumn Festival passed quietly ... I think I was the only one to celebrate it .... there's a chinese sister next door and a korean sister further down the road but I don't think they celebrated anything. I had piglet cookies and chinese tea. Hmmmm forgot to invite the 2 sisters over.

The moon was still full yesterday and quite lovely. The night wind was cool, about 23 degrees. Sitting out on the terrace was pleasant ... except for the rioting downstairs between arab youths and Israeli police. There were lots of fireworks and firecrackers ... which could be joyful on such an occasion ... if they were not used as weapons against the police.

Total eclipse of a supermoon

Full moon over the Mt. of Olives

A night of clashes and running battles in the Muslim Quarter. The rest of the City was very quiet though the Jewish Quarter was awake all night with the Sukkoth celebrations. Way into 3am I could hear the Jews at the Wailing Wall blowing the shofar (ram's horn). Arab youths barricaded themselves inside the Al Aqsa compound, vehement against the entry of Jews into the area.Inevitably clashes occurred and this morning the Israeli police did a rare thing by actually raiding the Mosque compound to capture the muslim youths or trap them inside the mosque itself. The fighting spilt out into the streets where I live. At 7am there were huge explosions behind our house; arabs were shooting fireworks and throwing stones while police fired tear gas and stun grenades. It wafted into my room and I couldn't breathe. Decided to move out to my workplace up north of the City to avoid anymore tear gas. My asthma is bad enough.  http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.677830

The little dot of light in the
middle is the "diamond" before
the moon went out totally

It was the autumn moon and it looked enormous. But at 4am the total eclipse began. I watched it for an hour till it virtually disappeared ... with the final "diamond on the ring" moment. Then the eclipsed moon glowed blood red in the earth's shadow. It was amazing. The next a full supermoon is eclipsed totally will be in 2033. I'd probably not be around so it was good I caught it last night. Took many photos of it but they didn't turn out good.

There's something seriously wrong because despite my daily medication, the asthma has worsened these last 3 days. It's like I'm not taking any medicine at all. Yesterday I blacked out because I couldn't breathe. Lucky I was next to my bed so I didn't hit my head on the ground again like the last time. Maybe it's time to see the specialist again.

Sukkot / Mid-autumn festival

Restaurants have booths/sukkah
outside their main doors

This morning saw a sudden rise of tension in the Al Aqsa Mosque compound ... apparently arab youths again threw stones and bottles at Israeli police and this time the Israeli soldiers came in force and occupied the mosque area. It was very forceful as the military had little time to restore order in the compound because the jewish feast of Sukkoth begins tonight. It's the most tense moment among all the autumn feasts because some jews believe the messiah will return during this feast of Sukkoth so they must destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Jewish Temple to hasten the Messiah's arrival. This usually means extremist jews entering the Al Aqsa compound trying/symbolically rebuilding the Temple by bringing in bricks. Muslims will feel provoked and react ... and the cycle of violence starts. It happens every year.

Inside a sukkah

Meantime I took a stroll around the New City this morning. Almost all the restaurants have sukkoth (meaning booths) outside their shops. It's stipulated that jews during the 8 days of this feast, must eat inside these booths and not indoors. It's rightly called booths and not tents because as you can see from the photos, it's square/rectangular and has branches as its roof. The sides are removable, usually made from wood planks, branches or nowadays plastic. It's meant to be a storage space where the autumn harvest was kept while farmers were harvesting; they'd eat in these outdoor booths and even sleep in them till the harvest is over. Sukkoth (singular is sukkah) is therefore the autumn harvest feast. Some people would hang fruit (real or plastic) inside the sukkah.

The Shawarma restaurant below Mandarin Restaurant had a sukkah built but placed it directly in front of Mandarin's door, blocking entrance to it. Ah Ling the manager was very angry and got her 2 male workers to re-position it in front of the Shawarma shop and threatened to tear it down if the Shawarma owners pushed it back to block her entrance.

Well Sukkoth is celebrated at the same time as our Mid-Autumn Festival ... so here's wishing everyone a happy mid-autumn. Don't overeat the mooncakes or piglets, though chinese tea is good is good for your health!

Protestants gather in Jerusalem for Sukkot

Things were calm and quiet today. But thousands of protestants are converging into Jerusalem to celebrate Sukkoth with the jews. It's organised annually by the International Christian Embassy and protestants from over 80 countries converge for the feast of Sukkoth in order to fulfil the prophecy of Zachariah 14:16 ‘the nations...shall come up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles'. It culminates in the Jerusalem March where the protestants march through downtown Jerusalem in support of the Jewish People.

The Singapore delegation
to Sukkot

Singapore is represented by a small group of protestants. I met some of them along the Via Dolorosa. As expected they were misinformed about the sites and of Catholicism. So after visiting and explaining to them some sites and it's biblical textual and archeological proves, they came out wiser and more open minded. In fact they were very appreciative of the new information they learned. We chatted a lot and in the end they said they'd send up some Char Kway Teow and Chay Tao Kway when a group comes to Israel. What a nice thought.

However not everyone is happy. Rabbis have viewed this protestant enthusiasm with great suspicion. This year the 2 Chief Rabbis have actually issued a public statement condemning this protestant march and asked the police to stop the event. They claim it's a trick by the protestants to convert jews to christianity. Well let's see if the police will heed their call. After all the several thousand protestants bring in a lot of tourist money which the govt. needs in this dreadful time of low tourism. Let's see if money or faith is more powerful this week.

Meantime Muslims are winding down with their Eid al Aha celebrations. For the past few days the muezzins have been singing litanies of Allah Akbar ... which at 4am can be quiet a problem for those who are asleep. My problem however is a fever and diarrhoea and asthma. Don't know what to do about it.

Call to help Syrian christians

Inspecting the damage in Syria

It's Friday ... and the City is deadly quiet. After yesterday's feasting, almost all the muslims are taking a day off. Practically all the shops in the Muslim Quarter are closed, hawkers are not around to ply their goods, bedouin women are not selling their fruit and vegetables ... the streets are eerily quiet. There were hardly any jews going to and from the Wailing Wall as well. I guess most of them are busy at home putting up their tents or booths because Sunday night begins the feast of Sukkoth. Since tomorrow is Sabbat, they cannot work and Sunday is too short a time to create the booths, so I guess they'll start working on it today.

My asthma is dreadful and I get exhausted climbing stairs or slopes. Yesterday an older friar told me it could be my heart ... he had the same symptoms before. He urged me to go have my heart checked up. I'm a little apprehensive.

Syrian refugee children cared for by
the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul
in Lebanon

We received photos from Syria showing the dreadful destruction of the city of Aleppo. It's still under siege and it's only a matter of time that all the christians in there will be killed ... including our parish, friars and schools. I also received photos from Lebanon where the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul care for the Syrian refugee children, providing them clothes, food and some form of basic education. All your donations have gone to help these missions. Please continue to be generous. Remember to check out http://holylandassist.blogspot.com

Climax of Eid al Adha

So the surreal events of Israeli celebrity Bar Rafaeli's wedding continues. She wanted her wedding in the Carmel Forest to be private so the Civil Aviation Authority ordered a no-fly zone there ... meaning  commercial and private flights will all be diverted. Then the Minister of Transport ordered a reversal because "the sky belongs to all Israelis" after a public outcry. Today the Civil Aviation Authority decided to defy the Minister's orders and went ahead with the no-fly zone over the wedding.

More chinese coming to work

Unbelievable? Over here money and celebrity pulls the strings.

Last night muslims spent all night in the Al Aqsa Mosque praying. It marks the high point of the Eid Al Adha feast. It was very crowded as Israel lifted all restrictions to muslims entering the Old City - a goodwill gesture as the newspapers say. The noise in the streets was dreadful and kept me awake the whole night. The morning prayers at 5am was attended by thousands. Then sheep were slaughtered as part of the ritual. This evening there will be lots of mutton to eat.

There's something in the air that's causing my asthma. And it's pretty bad. Am getting 24 hours again despite taking Telfast everyday. And my stomach ulcer is hurting again. Well I guess I'm not the only one in pain: news is out that Israel will be bringing in 20,000 more chinese workers in the construction industry. This is upsetting local workers (not that there're many) and politicians who claim these workers are being abused, made-used of by unscrupulous agencies, pulling wages down and discouraging technological advancement. I hope this won't lead to anti-chinese feelings.