Jerusalem
is not supposed to suffer from the effects of overcrowding. There is a Mishnah (Avot
5:7) that lists 10 miracles that were said to have been performed in the
Temple. The tenth and final miracle is that “no person ever said to his fellow ‘this
place is too hard for me to stay overnight in Jerusalem”.
Over the
past fortnight Jerusalem has been rocking. After two sad, quiet years of Covid,
the festival of Sukkot has blazed forth in all its glory. Tourists from the
Jewish diaspora as well as Israelophile non-Jews from all over the world have
poured into town. There has been much gaiety and partying, in keeping with the
ancient tradition of the Simchat Bet HaSho’evah, the water-drawing celebration
of Temple time that is so vividly depicted in the Talmud.
Sadly,
while every practising Jew prays for the restoration of the Temple and its
services, we have yet to merit the return of the miracle mentioned in our Mishnah.
In my local
butcher’s shop, the demand for meat for festive meals was immense. Although the
store had twice as many people working there as it normally did, the line of impatient
big-spending customers stretched out well into the street and moved at a snail’s
pace. I only had to wait an hour and a quarter to be served, but those who
queued up behind me were not so fortunate. On of the regular customers exploded
with rage that the store had not made special provision for the locals, who supported
it every week. How dare they make their loyal and faithful customers wait while
serving mere holidaymakers? Across the road, a little later, I listened to the grumblings
of a pair of visitors from abroad, irritated and indeed exasperated by the
remoteness of their prospects of picking up a swift coffee and bagel when there
were so many people in all the eateries.
While one
can sympathise with anyone who has to wait a long time to be served, there is
in general little to be gained—and much to be lost—by intemperate speech and
the raising of angry voices. The inconvenience of overcrowding is not an
objective that is keenly sought by local businesses: it is a consequence of
something that we should all be prepared to tolerate and indeed welcome and,
while making constructive suggestions for its alleviation, it is something we
should be prepared to bear with patience and fortitude—at least till we are
treated to a return of our miracle.
