Life is a Trip

by Fein, Judith

  Paul and I climbed up the narrow main street of Meron to two stone archways with Hebrew inscriptions (one arch for men and one for women) that led to the whitewashed tsyun. Paul entered the men’s section, looked around, shot a few photos, shrugged, and exited. “Don’t ask. Nothing happened,” he said pointedly. “Nothing.”

  But for me, things would be very different and unexpected.

  As soon as I entered the women’s side of the tsyun, my body started to shake and I began to sob. I looked around, self-conscious. A few women sat on benches and others stood facing the walls or the tomb itself, praying. No one was paying any attention to me as I wept, drenching the front of my pale blue shirt. I walked—no, I wove to the tomb, placed my head on the cool, white exterior, and prayed and cried for healing for my thinning bones. And I felt as though—how can I describe this?—I felt as though my words were heard.

  When I came out into the stark afternoon sun, Paul was waiting for me. I had been gone about twenty minutes. I told him what had happened, and he listened. He was surprised, but couldn’t really connect to it.

  For hours afterwards, tears welled up in my eyes. I knew that something had happened to me at the tomb of Shimon bar Yochai, but I didn’t know what it was.

  Our next stop was the tomb of Baba Sali in Netivot. Baba Sali was a Moroccan holy man who is credited with many miraculous healings. He died in 1984 and has a very large following in North Africa and Israel. I was turned off as soon as I arrived at the large and well-developed site with its multiple buildings; it felt institutionalized. A well-dressed male employee spoke to visitors, droning on and on about buildings and books and the history of the place. There were glossy pamphlets and wall plaques, and I wandered off to try to find a connection, a feeling, something personal and meaningful.

  Outside the tomb, a bus arrived and I watched as a line of Yemenite women got out. For some reason, I was immediately drawn to them, and I began to talk to them in English, broken Hebrew, French, and hand signals. One of them, an older woman, grabbed my hand, and I followed her. She took me to a small booth where a man sold boxes of candles. I did as she did and purchased one box for about two dollars. Then she led me to a large outdoor furnace where a fire was burning. One by one, she removed each of the twelve candles from her box. “Each one is a family member or good friend,” she explained. “I pray for them.” She prayed softly over each candle and tossed it into the fire. “Now you, now you,” she urged.

  Once again, I did as she did—asking for romance for friends, healing for a sick family member, general well-being for people I care about. Then she headed into one of the rooms, and announced, reverently, “Baba Sali.” She placed her hands on a tomb and began to pray. I watched. Several of the other Yemenite women joined her and did the same thing. They prayed aloud, fervently, obviously in a state of great devotion.

  A small group of tourists arrived and their guide began to speak in English about the tomb. “This is where the architect who built the Baba Sali Center is buried,” the guide explained.

  I felt terrible for my new Yemenite friend. She was praying at the wrong tomb! I decided to tell her this wasn’t where her beloved Baba Sali was interred so that she could redirect her prayers. To my surprise, the news didn’t disturb her or her friends at all.

  “If this was the Baba Sali architect or someone else, it doesn’t matter,” said one of them.

  It was a person associated with Baba Sali, and that was good enough for them. They continued to pray, and then they moved on to the actual tomb of Baba Sali and prayed once more. At each spot, they wept and intoned until it was time for them to board the bus. When my new friend hugged me good-bye, she put her hand over her heart and sighed. “Good, good,” she said. It was clear that she had gotten from Baba Sali what she’d come for.

  I felt as though I was on the trail of something—something vague that I couldn’t articulate or define. I began to ask Israelis about other tombs. They told me that the major annual tomb event would be taking place in a few days at the gravesite of Shimon bar Yochai, and it was important to go there before sunset.

  Great. I already knew where it was. I would go back. Paul agreed without much enthusiasm—I supposed he figured it was the price he had to pay for being married to me. And so, on the holiday of Lag B’Omer, in the merry month of May, we headed to Meron.

  Lag B’Omer is a spring holiday that is associated with bringing barley offerings to the ancient Temple in Jerusalem more than two millennia ago. Over the centuries, several tragic events happened at this time of year, and it is a period of semi-mourning for observant Jews. But on Lag B’Omer, there was surcease from suffering, miracles occurred, and the day is happy and celebratory.

  When we arrived at Meron, the place was unrecognizable. Pilgrims had to park ten or even twenty minutes away because the roads were jammed with cars. The town’s streets were bursting with women, children, and bearded men dressed in traditional Orthodox black; well over a hundred thousand believers came from all over Israel to pay homage to Shimon bar Yochai on the anniversary of his death.

  “He was the most joyous of the rabbis, and on his deathbed he revealed the light of the Torah to his students. He asked that his death be marked with festivity,” an Orthodox rabbi named Mendy explained to us.

  It was clear that Shimon bar Yochai’s devotees followed his wishes, and they arrived in a state of celebratory exuberance.

  The main street was like a carnival. Vendors in makeshift booths sold crafts, religious objects, clothes, books, dates and nuts and soft drinks. Families were camped out in tents. Men in long beards asked for charity or offered blessings.

  “According to tradition, if a man and woman are having fertility problems, the man gives out the contents of eighteen bottles of wine on Lag B’Omer to cure the barrenness,” Rabbi Mendy informed us.

  The number eighteen is favorable in Judaism, and it is associated with life and living. The origin of this belief seems to come from the two Hebrew letters—chet and yud—that form the word “chai,” which means life. In Gematria, or numerology, chet equals eight and yud is ten. If you add them up, you get eighteen.

  Young men pressed glasses of wine on Paul and me as we walked through the street; we drank, of course, because we knew they were trying to dispense the contents of eighteen bottles and it would be rude not to honor their desire for children.

  Loud Hebrew music blasted from loud speakers. On huge screens, there was a video of the much-admired Lubavitcher Rabbi, and people handed out fliers and prayer cards which bore the name of Nachman of Bratslav, another famed rabbi and mystic. People hawked wares and generally hung out. Was this Meron or a county fair?

  As the sun disappeared in the west, a great bonfire was prepared near the tomb of Shimon bar Yochai.

  “When Rabbi Shimon revealed the Torah on his deathbed, there was a blazing light around him, and everyone saw it,” explained a woman standing next to me. “To this day, he is associated with light, and fires are lit in his honor.”

  It was very difficult to see what was going on because of the thousands of people gathered near the sepulcher. Paul held his camera over his head, clicking away. A rabbi poured olive oil and the bonfire blazed—marking the formal beginning of the festivities. Immediately, there was an eruption of ecstasy. Men in black began to dance and sing. Everyone clapped and stomped and hooted with glee. Men wrapped their prayer shawls and fringed undergarments around each other. They danced, they bonded, they were transported with merriment. Women danced in a circle. Everyone shared food, drinks, blessings.

  By tradition, men bring their young sons to get their first haircuts on this night, so the actual tomb was mobbed. I was curious about what the faithful did inside the sepulcher, but women were not allowed entry. Paul decided to squeeze his way in so that he could get some photos. It took him about five minutes to work his way through the crowd, and I expected him to return in a minute or two, which is generally the limit of his tolerance for religious exposure.


  Half an hour passed, and suddenly I saw Paul. His face was flushed. “What happened?” I asked, afraid he’d had a negative experience.

  “I got pulled into the dancing,” he answered. “I was going to drop out, but I figured maybe I should just go with the experience. I had no idea what I was doing. I just followed what the others did. I put my hands around the shoulders of the men next to me, and I kicked up my heels. There were dozens and dozens of men in the dance.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Enjoy?”

  “Yes. Was it fun?”

  Paul grew very quiet. “It took me by surprise,” he said. “It wasn’t really about fun. I found it oddly bonding and moving. It was meaningful.”

  I looked around me. This was not the cerebral, institutionalized Judaism I had found so empty. It was an outpouring of joyful, crazy, irrational ecstasy. Whether I agreed with their brand of Orthodox Judaism or not, it was undeniable that these men in black and their families were moved and transported and had faith.

  Faith. Yes. That was the key to it all. It was faith that made women looking for their soul mates leave behind scarves and underpants at the tomb of Rabbi Uziel. It was faith that I felt when I entered the sepulchral building that housed Shimon bar Yochai. Faith that I could be healed. Over the years, millions of people had entered that same room, praying for favors and for healing; they had left behind a palpable energy that had emanated from their prayers and tears. It was faith that brought the Yemenite women to the tomb of Baba Sali, faith that he and everyone associated with him would help them to find well-being. And it was faith in the streets of Meron on Lag B’Omer. The belief that young couples could become fertile, that the spirit of Rabbi Shimon was hovering around, that humans could be blessed with prosperity and community and wholeness. That through the year-round study of torah and mysticism, they could find union with humankind and with God.

  When I came home, I started to notice people all around me who yearned to be moved in their souls. Some of them were transported by music. Others by nature or art, cooking or ministering to their elders.

  I felt a longing to be connected to the dead, to transcend the boundaries of time and space. I bought a Yahrzeit candle, which is the commemorative candle-in-a-glass that Jewish people light every year on the anniversary of the death of their near and dear ones. After dinner, when the phones weren’t ringing and my computer was in sleep mode, I lit the candle and began to talk to my father, Eddie, who died when I was young. His passing left a deep, unfillable hole. Not only had he been deprived of a full life, but I had spent all of my adult existence without a father.

  First I told him what was going on in my life. I spoke about my work, my marriage to Paul, how my mother was doing. I said I had been to Israel where I visited the tombs of the rabbis. I talked freely about this and that, and then I began to ask him questions. “Are you okay?” “Are you at peace?” “Are you watching over us?” “Do you think I am doing the right thing with my life?”

  All of the questions could be answered by “yes” or “no.” And I swear to you that when the answer was “yes,” the flame of the candle grew bigger. And when the reply was “no,” the flame flitted horizontally from side to side.

  Was I imagining it? I don’t think so. Is it really that easy for the living to access the deceased? If both parties are willing, I believe the answer is “yes.”

  Maybe I just have faith or a yearning in my soul to connect to something larger than me. If you have faith, you may want to try it.

  Istanbul, Turkey, probably has as many great hotels as it has kabob skewers, but a small, clean, simple hotel called the Zeynap Sultan is one of the top-rated places to stay in the city.

  It’s in the historic Sultanahmet area of Istanbul, where it shares space with the nearby Blue Mosque (an early seventeenth-century marvel adorned with blue tiles); the domes and minarets of the sixth-century architectural masterpiece Aya Sophia; the Byzantine hippodrome where chariot races once took place; the archeology museum; Topkapi Palace; restaurants and shops which offer everything from silk carpets to caftans worn by a harem beauty, to silver-threaded towels and shawls from an Ottoman bride’s trousseau, to baseball caps and T-shirts.

  Breakfast is served on the roof of the hotel, and guests absent-mindedly eat yoghurt, olives, cheese, and hard-boiled eggs as they look out over some of the most beloved tourist sites in the world. And this is where most guests meet Abe Akyunus, the owner of the hotel. “It was once my family home,” he tells them.

  Something must be wrong with Abe. Although he once owned and ran a pharmacy and developed cutting-edge products for the cosmetic and beauty industry, he never learned that business is about money. He’s so clueless about the bottom line that he drops everything and shuttles guests around, makes calls for them, and folds himself in half and in half again, like the hotel’s sheets, to make his clients happy.

  If you spend any time talking to Abe, he’ll probably invite you into the bowels of the hotel, which used to be the basement of his childhood home. He’ll hand you a flashlight and lead you down rickety steps to what may be among the oldest examples of Byzantine architecture in the city. You’ll see remnants of frescos and pillars that were possibly part of an early church—maybe even older than Aya Sofia.

  Abe was born Muslim, but he is horrified by organized religion. Probably the only thing he won’t do for you is pull out a Koran, accompany you to a religious service, or engage in serious conversation about Sufis, whirling dervishes, mysticism, prayer, prophets, or phylacteries. He is an equal opportunity secularist; no organized religion is more or less attractive or interesting to him.

  Some guests only know Abe as the friendly hotel guy who waves and asks how their day was and what they did. They notice that he really listens and, if they express any need, he tries to fulfill it. Others have tea with Abe and he regales them with funny, sad, and crazy stories of growing up in the fabled city. A few experience “essential Abe” if they get sick and he checks in on them or if they say they have heard about the fabulous dried fruits at the Egyptian spice market and suddenly they’re being proffered apricots or figs.

  “Hey, Abe, you’re a middle-aged guy. You’re working insane hours. You have more than enough money. Don’t you ever get tired of ministering to your clients?” I ask.

  He looks at me as though I need a lobotomy. “They are guests in my house,” he says. “Do you expect me to ignore them?”

  I have become very close to Abe and his wife, Gulhis, over the years. I was a guest at his hotel, stayed in their house, and once Abe drove seventeen hours to take me from Bodrum (which was Halicarnassus in ancient times and produced homeboy historian Herodotus) to Istanbul. We speak on the phone regularly, exchange emails, and have spent long hours together. I have never seen Abe be anything other than generous and hospitable. Even after the seventeen-hour drive, when his eyes looked like glazed donuts, he wanted to be sure I had a good dinner and was comfortable for the night.

  Abe’s hotel is all about Abe. And when Abe’s not there, his staff has been trained to treat guests the way he does: with care, concern, and boundless hospitality. No wonder the place beats out so many other hotels that offer startling architecture, sumptuous rooms, and five-star amenities.

  Abe enjoys creature comforts, luxury, ease, and the finer things in life. But the very finest thing to him is human relationships and helping others. He does not believe we were born to shop, consume, and then die. He feels good when he makes others feel comfortable and respected. He gets high when he helps his friends. Despite his secularism, Abe has penetrated the core of what religions are about: doing to others as you would have them do to you and practicing care, concern, and what my Buddhist friends call lovingkindness.

  In a world of bottom lines and spreadsheets, this one man reminds us that a business can do well by doing good things for people. In a sense, you can take good will to the bank because people are drawn to establishments where they feel nurtured and cared for
. They will frequent them again and again and tell all their friends. It all boils down to one word: service. In dreamy Istanbul, this is the secret of Abe’s success.

  I was uncharacteristically and deeply unhappy. Maybe it was the bitter cold, or the overwork, stress, insomnia, and exhaustion. I had surfed the Internet and rented a little cottage half a block from the beach in San Diego. My fantasy was waking up to pale golden light streaming in through the windows, saluting the sun, languorously stretching on an exercise mat unfurled on the polished pine floor. After a light, healthy breakfast in an outdoor café, there would be a walk along the ocean, watching surfers and communing with the waves. In the afternoon, a rented paddle boat would glide gently through the water. As the sun retired for the day, it would linger for a moment in the backyard where I sipped margaritas, watching the pink and gold afterglow that illuminated the heavens.

  Reality intruded. It was winter and San Diego was groaning under the lashing of storms, cold, ill winds, and torrential rains. The little dream cottage was a nightmare of dog dander, dust, dirt, half-eaten blobs of food in the fridge, illegal and hazardous wiring, lack of insulation, and a tiny heater the size of two fists. If we plugged in a hairdryer, the fuse blew. As I sat in darkness, Paul crawled through the only closet—past the dust and hangers draped with the homeowner’s suits, wetsuits, T-shirts, shorts, and pants; past his salted-away hardcore magazines with photos of engorged parts and lip-licking ladies; past the single, plastic shoe rack that was allotted to us for our clothes—and groped around to reconnect the loose wires that hung off the wall.