Yesterday I was guiding a couple on their very first trip through Israel. Nice people. Smart and successful people. But not especially religious or ideological. As we started driving out of Jerusalem together, the husband leaned over to me and said:

“Rabbi, I don’t like history, I’m not religious, I’m not spiritual, and I don’t like long explanations.”

I chuckled. But inside I was thinking: Oy vey, I’m in trouble.

Because where was I taking him that day? To the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. This is possibly the worst possible place for a person who just announced that he dislikes history, spirituality, religion, and long explanations.

Maybe I should have taken him to float in the Dead Sea. Or to spend the afternoon on a beach in Tel Aviv. Or to wander through Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem to eat knafeh and drink microbrewed local beer.

Hebron is intense and ancient, a place where almost every stone comes with layers of history and religion attached to it. To explain Hebron properly, you have to start at the beginning of everything: Abraham buying the cave in Genesis, King David ruling there before Jerusalem, centuries of Jewish communities, massacres, exile, return, religion, politics, and competing narratives.

Hebron is not a “walk around and vibe” kind of place. And yet that was exactly where we were headed.

As we drove south from Jerusalem into the hills of Judea along Route 60, past the checkpoint and into the area that we call Judea and Samaria, and what the West calls the West Bank, I kept wondering how this day was going to go. The husband was perfectly pleasant, but clearly not someone looking for a deep spiritual experience. Throughout the morning he asked practical questions about security, geography, and daily life. Nothing suggested he was about to have an emotional breakthrough in Hebron.

Honestly, he had no idea what he was about to encounter.

Hebron itself does not exactly ease people into........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)