Before we had even arrived several people had made sure to mention that this was their favorite city, that they’d live here if they could, and that it was the tech startup capital of the East. Even so, we came here without expectations. In the first few minutes here, it was clear that Israel was going to be a sharp blend of tradition as old as the book it comes from from, and a font of newness like fresh light. Just walking through the enormous modern airport awash with travelers from all faiths and dressed for the occasion, from burkahs to kippot, pouring into the gateway to the Holy Land, was a testament to the uniquely delicate but functional symbiosis of this place where tradition mingles with technology and old perseveres amidst the new.
On the recommendation of a friend we sat down to dinner that first night and got to taste Israel as much with our eyes and ears as our mouths. High school era hits bumped down from the ceiling. The staff behind the bar playfully danced with each other to the beat. The chefs chopped along to the rhythm, pausing every so often to pass a new dish around to share amongst themselves. A round of shots was poured for everyone, including the kitchen. Everyone waited until the last glass was full and then there was a cheers to life. Ten minutes later there was another, and then another. No one bothered to take themselves too seriously and in fact there was a genuine effort to avoid just that. It was like being at a friend’s house party. We all talked, about where we all were from and why they were there. They wanted to know what we thought of their home; we wanted to know more about what life was like here. Nothing was off limits; and nothing was sugar coated. The food itself was as powerful and vibrant as the people. It also might be the best kept secret in Israel. Each ingredient erupts in a concentrated version of itself; wistfully soapy basil, eye wateringly sharp black pepper, arugula that bites back, cauliflower that manages to melt, and even apples from Eden. It turned out that this joie de vie wasn’t just a lucky first night, but true of almost everywhere.
That first night as we meandered our way home dodging whizzing electric bikes and stepping over stale water poured out of closing market stalls, this Middle East city wrapped us in a sense contentment and natural ease that we hadn’t experienced in any city in Europe. Small tables spilled out of cafes crowded with friends late into the night. No where was left empty, and no one it seemed, was left alone. It might be the center of some of the world’s most enduring and greatest conflicts, but to the people in Tel Aviv it really is the land of the New Spring; guaranteed to be different tomorrow from the day before, leaving no moment wasted and unlived.
An hour’s journey from the wild youth of Tel Aviv sits the epicenter of the world’s most enduring conflict and its most treasured history. It was almost too real in its differences for us to wholly accept and understand it as other people’s everyday reality. In order to enter the old city, we first pass through a modern outdoor shopping mall at its border. During our first visit the entire place was ghostly empty in observance of Shabbat. Once inside the old city walls reality was for the time being, suspended. Some people would call this the beginning of a spiritual experience. We pass through the market in the Muslim quarter avoiding eye contact with pushy shop keepers. Orthodox Jews wearing enormous fur hats and long black coats in the hundred degree weather, shuffle past us with a determined gait. A group of boys practices acrobatic flips in a pedestrian intersection, while a nun patiently waits to pass. At the top of a row of gradually sloping steps there is an arch overhead announcing the entrance to the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the burial place of Jesus Christ. Above the arch an imam’s voice crackles from the speaker of a minaret.
That next afternoon we visit the Western wall, expecting to find a scene of a thousand prostrated bodies in a state of somber prayer. Instead we find scenes of celebration and levity. Young men celebrate their Bar Mitzfahs and families dressed in in their most bright and colorful formal wear pose for photos that will eventually hang in a place of honor in their homes. This birthplace of belief that is inexorably tied to in some way nearly every war in the world; this place of reverence and solace that is too often ruined for the many because it has been stained by the actions of an extreme few; this place doesn’t seem like any to those things today. Today it’s suspended from reality. Today it is a celebration of the gift of life and humanity. Today it was perfect. Those that live here though, were quick to remind us that tomorrow it all could change, and more often than it should, it does.
We walked on the powdered sugar sandy beaches of Tel Aviv for our last few days letting our time here crystallize. We watched a blotchy and broken sun, like a few strokes from God’s paintbrush, set over the beginning of our world. Along the waterline countless pairs played paddle ball, the sharp plink of the paddles, an off beat rhythm counting time not in minutes and hours, but in moments of now because they know that that’s all any of us really have. Together, Israel’s newness and its history create their own sort of harmony. Sometimes its a sad, deep and tragic harmony; while others it sings with a vibrance and zeal for life that make you want to live like this every day. We watched and we listened, and we thought about history, and the future, and our new reality and then promised to return here.
