I am currently writing in the darkened room of our B&B in Tzfat. After one afternoon and a full day of exploring the winding alleys of this amazing city, Yonah and I opted to take a nap while Shuie visits the cemetery which houses the remains of many renowned rabbis. While it is considered auspicious to pray at the graves of some of these holy men, for obvious reasons I decided that I was not in the best place emotionally to spend time hanging around a cemetery. That, and I’m really freakin’ tired.

Tzfat has a rich history of torah study and mystical experience, so much so that for many years it drew some of the leading Jewish sages from all over the world. A few of them even left Jerusalem to taste the inspiration that this city has to offer and never came back. In fact, one of the things I learned from a guidebook in our room is that for a long time, there was rivalry between Tzfat and Jerusalem, as both vied for the title of “holiest city in Israel”. As a visitor from Jerusalem, I can vouch for the fact that the energy here is something completely different from anywhere else I’ve been in Israel (one of the local natural healers described Tzfat as “wind” and Jerusalem as “fire”). The crisp air is loaded with some kind of spiritual power that you can feel the minute you arrive. I remembered it from my two previous visits, and it is hitting me very strongly this time around. From the moment we arrived, I have been constantly on the verge of tears. Something about being here touches your soul and opens up everything.

Our trip began a little later than we planned because at the last minute we decided to rent a car. The delay was worth it, since we are now much more portable to sights outside of the city and don’t have to worry about entertaining Yonah for a 3-hour bus ride. We picked up a car seat from our friends Judah and and Ariella and after a few initial mishaps (missing our exit out of Jerusalem twice after turning around), we were on our way. The ride up, which included a drive through some Arab villages along the main highway, went flawlessly, Thank Gd, and we arrived in the Galilee in about two and a half hours. We immediately stopped at Simcha Laya’s B&B in the middle of the artist’s quarter, where we reserved a very cool room decorated in blue (Tzfat’s signature color) with domed cielings, a courtyard outside with a grapefruit tree, the company of a dog (Daisy), a cat and a turtle, and our hostess, Simcha Layah Hoffman, along with her two sons.

After settling in for a bit we decided to check out the artist’s quarter, which houses galleries of all types, and some of the most beautiful pieces of art I have ever seen: oil paintings, blown glass, Judaica, pottery. Of course I wanted to buy everything, but after falling in love with a painting that cost $20,000, I was able to convince myself to look but not touch. The artist’s quarter is all cobblestone alleyways with doorways right off the trail that lead into homes, studios, and even abandoned holes. We ran into an elderly gentleman named Masha who told us that he had been living in Tzfat since 1948. He fought in every single war here in Israel, and is also a Holocaust survivor. He led us down into his gallery and showed us a certificate of appreciation awarded to him by the Israeli government for everything he’s done for the country. Aside from being an art dealer, he is also known as a storyteller who entertains tourists with tales of Tzfat’s history. After meeting him and a few other local artists, I started getting the sense that most of the people who settle here have some kind of story behind them.

While Shuie went to daven maariv (the evening prayers), I wrestled Yonah’s stroller through the cobbled alleyways of the old city, which are lined with galleries, jewelery stores and synagogues that are hundreds of years old. Yonah and I decided to stop at a small playground so he could stretch his legs. We met a girl there who was also named Yona (here in Israel girls have his name as well — in fact, many Israelis, when they learn his name, ask me if he’s a girl. Awkward.). The sun was setting and as Yonah played at my feet, I took a moment to breathe in the air and realize that I am actually HERE. The first time I came was fifteen years ago, on a trip with my family (As it turns out, the hotel where we stayed, the Ruth Rimonim, is around the corner from Simcha Layah’s). The wild layout of this city makes it difficult to remember, but over and over I find myself in places that I know as well as the house I grew up in. I suppose that’s the essence of this city: the sense of homecoming it offers.

After we met back up with Shuie, we walked up to the Rechov Yerushalayim (the Jerusalem Road), the main road with restaurants and touristy shops. And by the way, when I say up, I mean up. Bisecting the hilly city between the artist’s quarter and the Old City, is a set of stone steps called Ma’alot Olei Hagardom (”Those who went up to be hung”). The steps, which number probably 200 (thank Gd for my hikes up Ramat HaGolan!) were used by the British in 1948 to separate the Arab section of the city from the Jewish one. The name of the steps refers to 12 prisoners that the British killed in the nearby town of Akko and then brought here to be buried. Nowadays, these steps exist merely to offer citizens and visitors a good workout and frustrate the hell out of parents pushing baby strollers.

We found a shwarma place on Rehov Yerushalayim where Yonah decided to sample off of Shuie’s plate and crawl out of the restaurant to visit with passersby on the sidewalk. He has been waving “Hi” to everyone (although his wave is actually directed toward himself) and has said the word “Hi” to both me and Shuie. Of course he charms everyone he meets, and although I will admit it is really hard travelling with a baby, especially in a hilly, stair-y place like Tzfat, the fact that he is such an easygoing kid makes it a lot easier than it could have been. After we came home Yonah partied in his crib until 9 p.m. (!) before finally passing out.

This morning we all got up around 7 and Shuie headed out for shacharit (the morning prayers) while Yonah and I visited with Simcha in the courtyard. She is a single mom with two boys and is raising them herself by working a myriad of jobs. When she told me her story, which began in Winthrop, MA and ended with her buying this amazing house while pregnant and in the middle of a divorce, just to realize a lifelong dream to live in Tzfat, I was completely in awe. This is the stuff that we women are made of. I’d like to think that if someone can survive an upheaval like that, I will be able to get through this rough time in one piece (and maybe even the stronger for it). Simcha laid out breakfast, including fresh grapefruit from her tree, which Shuie ate happily when he came home. Once we were all fed, we headed out to the Old City.

We wandered the alleys of the Old City without any real plan, stopping in a few of the famous old synagogues. A bunch of them were locked, but the one that stays open constantly is the shul of R’ Moshe Alschich. We came in to find it empty, as if it had been waiting for us to come. In the middle of the high-cielinged sanctuary is a blue-painted bima (raised platform), from which prayers are led and the Torah is read. The cielings are painted with a Spanish mosaic, while cushioned benches line the walls and surround the bima. While Yonah slept in his stroller I prayed a bit (and of course started crying) and Shuie read aloud from the weekly Torah portion, Bereishit (Genesis, the first torah portion of the cycle). Afterwards, Shuie read an article on the wall about a Torah scroll in the synagogue that once belonged to R’ Alschich himself. When 10 men tried to remove it from the synagogue, they all died. Later on, during one of the few famous earthquakes that struck the city, the Torah scroll disappeared. “It was sent back to where it belonged,” the article said.

Down the alley from the Alschich shul is the Abohav shul, another holy synagogue. Between the two of them is a women’s learning center called Tzofnat, where I was interested in doing some learning. While I was ringing the bell, a local woman told me that during the Lebanon war, a Ketusha rocket hit Tzofnat and destroyed the building. There were men praying in both the Alschich and the Abohav synagogues, but by some miracle, none of the students were in Tzofnat at the time the rocket hit it. It was a miracle, she said. Something tells me those sort of miracles are pretty commonplace here.

After some more alley wanderings, including an aborted mission to the Tzfat Cheese Factory (the steps were too much for the stroller and the pregnant lady), we went up to Alkabetz, one of the Old City’s main roads, and got some drinks at Ashira, a small Kabbalah cafe run by a Yemenite man named Ronen Jarufi. The walls of the cafe were lined with books in several languages all about kabbalah and other mystical topics, and sitar-heavy, meditative music played in the background. I was ready to curl up and fall asleep right there on my bench. Ronen chatted with us from behind the counter while he made Yemenite bread dishes (sort of like little pizzas, only with funky spices and no cheese) with his crescent-moon shaped knives. The knives have handles on both ends so he can rock them back and forth without risking getting his fingers caught.

Underneath the cafe we visited an art exhibit about Torah and Science. There were vibrant photographs on the walls with accompanying articles that talked about the connections between various scientific issues and halacha (jewish law). For example, one halacha says that Jews are not able to eat food that comes from a non-kosher animal (like milk from a pig). Why, then, can we have honey? Bees are not kosher. The article explained that bees actually have two stomachs, one for digesting their food and the other specifically for making honey. The honey tummies have no digestive enzymes, so the honey remains bee-free. Hence, it is a kosher food. In the days of modern science this seems pretty cut-and-dry: pop the bee open, do a little snooping, and you find two stomachs. Hooray. But the law regarding eating honey was written 2000 years ago, before the days of dissection. The rabbis said (I’m paraphrasing here), “The honey has no trace of the bee in it”. That they were able to know something like that back then was pretty mindblowing. Another cool article was about the halacha that baby boys must be circumcised on their eighth day of life, never before and not after (extenuating circumstances aside). For thousands of years, people just went with it, assuming that Gd knows best. But now, modern science has found that babies do not produce a certain protein (the name of which escapes me at the moment) that enables them to heal from wounds and/or surgeries until they are –you guessed it — eight days old. If babies were circumcised any time before that point, they would die. Gd did know best, obviously, and in this case, we can see how.

By the time we got about three-quarters of the way through the exhibit I was tapped out and hungry, a lethal combination. Shuie and I headed through the rest of the old city, passing through a natural foods restaurant (where, unfortunately, all the food made me want to gag), and headed back up to the Midrachov Yerushalayim to have lunch a Cafe Baghdad, a cute dairy place with tables that overlook the city. Yonah shared our omelettes and brown bread and before long made it obvious that he was (a) tired of being strapped in his stroller and (b) ripe for a nap. Back we headed to Simcha Leah’s, where he and I both turned in for a much-needed snooze.

After naptime Shuie returned home and we headed out for dinner. On the way, Shuie led me through some of the lower alleys of the artist’s quarter, where we marveled at all the empty, abandoned spaces just screaming for refurbishing. How we wished we could claim one of those spaces as our own. Since we got here, Shuie and I have been toying with the idea of ditching Jerusalem and coming here to stay for the rest of the year. As I said previously, the energy here is something remarkable and even while there is life going on there is a sense of calm and quiet that forces you toward introspection. It’s a nice mix of people, very relaxed. However, I’m not sure we would be able to find the kind of learning we want here, and this constant, intense spiritual feeling is a lot to handle. Plus, all these stairs are a killer. It’s certainly an option, but I’m going to table the discussion until further notice, or at least for the next fifteen minutes.

Now it is bedtime again. Tomorrow morning we are going to make our own pottery at a gallery nearby, visit a few more places and then (as of now), our plan is to head over to Teverya (Tiberias), which has a slew of hotels along the Sea of Galilee and healing hot springs. We’ve decided to take our last night of vacation to just be tourists and treat ourselves with something nice. I laughed when I thought about us leaving this city of all things spiritual just to indulge our materialistic sides. Nature of man, I suppose.

Holy crow. This post turned out to be a tome. From now on, call me Charles Dickens.