Visions of the Afterlife - Jerusalem My journey through a Jerusalem of the imagination.

by Alon Kaplan

Alon is a prolific writer and co-creator of creativejewishliving.com. He is the father of three wonderful girls and the husband of Nishima Kaplan. In this Heaven, you walk quickly through the streets of Jerusalem made sticky by the crushed grapes fermenting in the sun.  You pass by the Western Wall of the Temple in time to see the black hatted Orthodox Jews dispersing after the afternoon prayer.  Hurrying on you turn a corner and merge with a flood of Muslim men winding towards the Dome of the Rock, heads bound in checkered cloth to signify they have made the pilgrimage to Mecca.  Through the slit of sky visible between the tightly pressed awnings of the Suq you glimpse the Archangel Gabreel raising the golden dome upwards by its cresent handle.  The labyrinth of sweets-shops swallows you in azure shadows until you emerge into the glare of sunlight behind an Arab Boy swinging a brass tray of mint tea held in elegant glasses.  Before you is the Temple of Solomon where ten miracles are occuring continually;  the smoke of the burnt offering flows upwards in a rigid pattern defying the seasonal winds blowing in from the Judean desert, the outer courtyard packed with worshipers magically expands to accomodate the fervent devotees throw themselves face down as the tinkling of bells on the hem of the High Priest's garment announces that he has entered the Holy of Holies.  A pressure of blocked traffic behind you forces you on to a spot under an olive tree where you witness a Temple burning under the assault of Babylonian soldiers in a famine-struck city, a few streets on, a new vista presents itself of a Temple of gold descending from a fiery sky.  The Temple has twelve gates, each of a precious stone and an angel circumnavigates the edifice measuring the dimensions of holy space with a golden rod.  Further on, an aged man binds his grown son to a stone altar and raises a copper dagger as an angel twice calls out the Aged Man's name and shatters the terrible silence.  Faster you move between the houses of pink stone as more and more Jerusalems offer themselves.  Joyful, mundane, frightening to behold and feverish.  The sun bakes your head as you seek your own Jerusalem among the myriads of Jerusalems until you find your own Jerusalem: A stone staircase leading down into the Muslim quarter where stacks of oranges and bursting pomegranates peek out through the stone archway and the bottom stair flavorful with the dust of empires and scooped out by the passage of countless sandals into a hollow which fits your aching body like a womb in which you can close your eyes and dream of Jerusalem.  For nothing is lacking in this Heaven except the absence of the dream Jerusalem.  And that you yourself must supply.

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