Enlightened Food Poisoning

May 24th, 2008

When I was at the Western Wall, I asked God to send me a sign that I'm on the right track in playing a significant part in solving the world's inhumanity. That was also the day that I was feeling the strongest pull to Jerusalem. I woke up the next morning with food poisoning. The entire day, as my stomach throbbed with sharp pain, I couldn't help thinking that this is the sign I asked for. "Uh uh, homie," my body is telling me. "Jerusalem is not your home." When my hands were pressed against the Western wall and I felt vibrating balls of energy entering my hands, coursing through my body, the vibrating stopped momentarily when I asked for this sign. It's as if God were hesitating, filled with the knowledge that this sign would bring me pain. I kept my hands pressed vertically against the smoothed stone, soft from year upon year of wishing and tears, and finally the response came: one final, definite throb. I can never look at Jerusalem in the same light. It makes me slightly sick, a little nauseated to remember that at one point (only 2 days ago) I was in love with this city and could see myself living here.
Interestingly, though, here I have no reservations about referring to God. I've never believed in "God," just in this force of the universe. And perhaps that's what I mean when I say it-- it's just that this city is so ripe with spirituality that God--regardless of what form s/he assumes-- is ever-present. Jerusalem has new meaning for me now. Rather than being a homeland or a place to which I feel beautifully connected, it is now a place of my spiritual birth. This is also where I received the sign that blindly loving Israel is a misguided attempt to bring justice to the world.