This image hasn't left me since the first time I found myself alone with Jerusalem at night. And it's not even an image, but an understanding. Yes, yes—an understanding. I've long noticed that among the many inexplicable talents of this City, there's one that stands apart from the others: any thing or situation, however insignificant, caught in its aura, can suddenly grow to enormous proportions and reveal itself from a completely unexpected angle. Moreover, this thing is the most insignificant and completely unnoticeable in everyday life. And when its aura covers such a powerful image like a shadow...
People come to this City. They think they are great and important. They walk its streets with spears and swords. They put on tefillin, or wear crosses, or count rosary beads with their eyes closed. They think they decide the fate of the world. Then they leave. Others come in their place. With pistols and machine guns. And everything repeats itself all over again: tefillin, crosses, rosary beads, the fate of the world... Then they too leave. Turn of history after turn, century after century. And the City watches this endless dance and remains silent. And silently, generation after generation, it absorbs these people. Their passions, ambitions, delusions, and insights. It absorbs and leaves their vague, blurred shadows on its streets. For us, we are. And for it, we are they. And for some reason, it seems to me that this is precisely how it sees us.
