Wed 7th Jun 06
You might know that my family is somewhat scattered over the face of this
great earth of ours. My one brother, Raymond and his family, lives in
Australia.
To my great joy Bernard came to visit me the other day and to spend time
with his nephews, my sons.
Needless to say we all had a good time with lots of partying, chatting about
old times and above all touring together through
If I asked Bernard what was the highlight of his tour, besides the pleasure
he had from visiting the family, I think he'd say it was the train journey
he made to Hedera to visit some of his wife's family. Bernard was excited
about everything he saw and did in
the excellence of that train service; it was quiet, comfortable, punctual,
cheap and very fast. He was also very impressed with the wonderful bus
service throughout the country and in the cities. He even considered the
transport system here to be better than the one in
If you asked me, what was the highlight of Bernard's visit, besides the
obvious pleasure it gave my sons to spend time with their uncle, I would say
it was his visit to the Western Wall tunnel.
This archaeological excavation is under the houses of the Arab neighborhood
of the
of the Western Wall that had been hidden for nearly 2000 years.
A small part of the Western Wall, known as the Wailing Wall, has always been
visible, since the time of the destruction. Jews have been going to pray
there from time immemorial. But this tunnel, dug laboriously for 20 years
from 1967 to 1987, provides one with a clear glimpse of the magnificence of
the
Stones buried deep underground kept their newness and look as if the temple
was built only yesterday. The narrowness of the tunnel and the strong
reinforcing prevent the Arab neighborhood above from being damaged. Above
the tunnel the Arab population continues their lives undisturbed. In fact
the exit of the tunnel is in that neighborhood and we walk back to the
Western Wall that way.
One of the conclusions that I came to, on seeing the massive stones of the
Josephus in his history of the Jews. Besides being a place of worship it was
also a place of refuge in times of war.
We have several examples in Jewish history when it was used for this
purpose. No army had ever succeeded in penetrating The Temple by force. The
only way that the attackers entered the
the defenders.
This makes it quite surprising that the 10th Roman Legion, in the year 70
chose to attack the
surrender.
Also, judging from the account in the Talmud, the high priest was in the
middle of making the afternoon sacrifice when the Romans broke through and
took him by surprise, it appears that the Jews never expected the Roman army
to try to conquer the Temple by force but to make an agreement.
The Talmud gives us a clue to the reason why the Romans chose to attack,
conquer and finally destroy the
agreement. According to the Talmud the
punishment for unfounded hatred between one Jew and another.
In my opinion, the worst form of unfounded hatred is treason, which is an
act against the nation. It's unfounded because it's not a specific hatred of
one person who's done something specific to harm the hater. It's the result
of a general feeling of hatred of an entire nation and it harms the entire
nation.
Only information, provided by a traitor could have shown the Romans how to
penetrate the
incitement could have urged the Romans to carry out the terrible act of
destroying the
After our visit to the Western Wall tunnel I am convinced that the
destruction of the 2nd
by the Talmud, the act born from the worst kind of hatred, hatred without
reason, namely treason.
Wishing you a great no news day.
Reply to: legork@netvision.net.il
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Leon Gork. Israeli Tour Guide.
Tel/fax 02 5810732
Mobile phone 052 3801867
http://www.geocities.com/leongork
http://www.jerusalemwalks.tripod.com