Are We Losing Har Tzion?

People who know me well know that I possess an invaluable attribute as a traveler: an almost uncanny ability to get lost. Of course there are times when it really does help to be able to read a map such as when you’re trying to catch a train. But as many seasoned travelers will affirm it’s sometimes the wrong turn the unintended visit to the place not on the itinerary that turns out to be the highlight of the trip the memorable encounter the image that is vividly remembered after  almost all else has been  forgotten.

Such was my first encounter with Har Tzion.

The year was 1979 and I was a tourist visiting Israel for the first time. I don’t recall where I was trying to go but I do recall looking around and realizing that where I was standing was definitely not it. Then I saw an elderly Jew dressed in black and with a long white beard (I had no idea back then that there was such a thing as chareidim and that this was the way they dressed) who seemed to be signaling frantically to  me. Thinking he or a member of his family might be ill and need help I approached him. 

He motioned for me to go inside a stone-fronted building. When I did so my heart froze. The room was damp and dark illuminated only by what seemed to be dozens of small candles. Not knowing that it was a Jewish tradition to light tea candles at the kvarim of tzaddikim and other memorial sites (we didn’t do that in Kansas) I was seized with fear that I had mistakenly entered some Christian missionary’s shrine. But by this time my elderly guide had raced ahead and was once again frantically motioning for me to enter a more brightly illuminated room.