Went on a walk of Yemin Moshe and Abut Tor today. Yemin Moshe is probably one of the most physically attractive neighborhoods of Jerusalem. It's directly across the Gai Henom valley from the southern wall of the Old City. Most of the real estate there is owned by foreigners who only come once or twice a year. They rarely rent out, so the neighborhood is quite empty most of the year. Sad, really. Such a great location, in such a great city, and it's completely dead. In my opinion, people should only buy real estate here if they intend on living here.

Abu Tor is mostly Arab, but the upper part of it is actually Jewish, and quite exclusive. There are amazing views of the city and eastward toward the Judean Desert. The more I walk around this city the more I realize how many wealthy people live here. Poorest city in Israel? Those statistics are very misleading. I then walked from Abu Tor into the Armon Hanatziv park which is below the promenade I wrote about in one of my early posts. The park is actually one of the nicest and biggest in the city. Up to the top and I am on the promenade, 10 minutes from Ulpan Etzion. Lunch was an outdoor BBQ affair, with quality hummus.

Pesach - the holiday of freedom. More precisely, Pesach is the holiday of overcoming the lowest level of spirituality and physicality, as symbolized by our slavery in Egypt. Not only were we in a foreign land and suffered great abuse, but our observance levels dropped to previously unheard of levels. The Jews were in a complete rut. From the moment we left Egypt, we started to climb up the spiritual levels by increasing observance and growing closer and closer to Hashem. We were also elevating ourselves physically by nearing Israel. There are fifty Kabbalistic levels of spirituality (the actual structure is insanely complicated), and in Egypt we were at the lowest possible level. At the moment that we received the Torah at Mt. Sinai, we had reached the complete and total peak of spiritual realization as a people. We were literally in G-d's presence and we were elevated to a level that we can only imagine now. Shortly thereafter, we completed our ascension, "aliyah" in Hebrew, by entering the Land of Israel. Unfortunately, we slowly started to slip down the spiritual slope, and post-Torah Jewish history flows from there. As Jews, we have never been at the spiritual level we had achieved at Mt. Sinai. How did we merit it then, at that moment? At that moment, we came together as a people, there was no sina (hate) of one Jew for another, achiut (brotherhood) was in tzura shlema (complete form), and we all fully believed in G-d and his awesome power. Having reached that point, the Lord brought us to the Promised Land. From that point, the Torah ends. After that we have Prophets, Writings and all sorts of historical/interpretive texts that outline Jewish history, religion and practice since our first attempt at a State.

History has been both cruel and kind. But the point of Pesach is to teach us that regardless of how low sink, we have the capability to reach the highest spiritual level. And that, combined with being physically in the place G-d reserved for us, is how we will merit G-d's revelation in our physical world through the process of the Redemption. The ultimate goal is spiritual dedication and our presence in Israel. As a people we have not merited the full realization of these two goals. Hence, Jews must continually improve their level of belief and observance on the one hand, and strive to move to Israel on the other hand. That's why the apex of the Pesach seder is the statement "Next Year in Jerusalem!" - expressing the physical aspect of bringing about the Redemption. Of course, many of us are, in fact, already in Jerusalem. At this point, 43% of the world's Jews have realized the physical aspect of the goal of the Jewish way of life. So, Israeli Jews say "Shana Ha'Ba'a b'Yerushalayim Ha'Bnia!", meaning "Next Year in a Rebuilt Jerusalem." This means that even though we are here, we're not all here, and we, as a people still have a lot work to do. So our next step is to merit Jerusalem's rebuilding into the capital of the complete Jewish state, with the Third Temple rebuilt. That's when we get to the Redemption.

Almost there...