Erev Ride

Jerusalem
10:43 p.m.

Just called down for a 4:20 a.m. wake up call. That’s assuming I fall asleep. It has finally arrived. The eve of the big ride. Other than a morning tour of the Old City, I’ve spent most of the day focused on ride logistics.

The tour started with a short bus ride to the Mount of Olives with that classic panorama of the Old City. From there we walked. None of it had the power of some of my earlier visits. Not quite enough time at the Wall—even on Dad’s yartzeit. I pressed my head against the stone, mumbled my usual morning ablutions, adding as many words of the Kaddish as I could recall. Wrote the names of ailing loved ones on a small slip of paper, folded it into a skinny rectangle and wedged it in a crevice, praying for their wholeness and healing.

Sometimes you just do what you do. I felt more emotion later telling someone about my experience at the wall than I did when I stood there. Perhaps that’s why one is not supposed to recite the mourners’ Kaddish alone—it needs to be a shared experience.

Later, with joy I became reacquainted with my bicycle after a two-week separation. With great satisfaction I extracted it from its cardboard shipping carton, and with a little help from a mechanic reassembled it. I could barely wait to take it on a little test spin up Mount Scopus to the Hebrew University campus and back. I would have loved to ride around the campus but it is sealed tight as a drum with barbed wire and guards checking IDs at the gate. The ride was short, but very sweet.

I need to put down this pen and pray for some sleep. I can’t believe it’s all actually starting in a few hours—5:30 a.m. stretch; 5:40 am travelers’’ prayer followed by shofar blasts; 5:45 a.m. wheels rolling!