Living on Higher Ground

Today the temperature climbed above thirty degrees.
After my husband and I walked to the Kotel and back, I received a phone call while we were having brunch at Roladin Café. I needed to pick up an item from a store on Hillel Street, not far from Mamilla, where we had stopped to cool off after our visit to the Kotel.

“Just walk straight when you leave here,” I was told. “It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”
Raphy went to daven Mincha at the daily 1:15 minyan that gathers in front of Foot Locker, while I started walking toward Hillel Street.

As I climbed yet another incline, my legs suddenly felt unbearably heavy. I had to stop and rest on the steps of an antique shop displaying vintage household treasures.
“Why does every street in Yerushalayim seem to go uphill?” I wondered as I finished the last sip from my water bottle.

I was clearly dehydrated and knew I had to do something.

While waiting for my husband to come and pick me up, I had time to think about why so many of Jerusalem’s streets require us to climb.

Then the thought came to me.

Perhaps one cannot truly live here without wanting to reach a higher madrega, a higher spiritual level.
In the yeshiva world there is a familiar expression: steigen. It means to keep growing, to keep climbing. Not only with our legs as we walk the hills of Yerushalayim, but with our minds, our hearts, and our souls. Learn. Study. Attend a shiur. Do something each day that lifts you to greater heights.

Please, dear friends, don’t take this as a political statement. There is enough controversy in our country today regarding Torah study and army service. That is not what I am talking about.

I am simply a tired, overheated, dehydrated woman who found herself climbing the hills of Jerusalem and suddenly realized that perhaps these streets are teaching us a lesson.

Living in this holy city means learning how to climb.