Today I walked through Hell with Fr. Kelly. The Hell I'm referring to is Gehenna. It is the valley to the southwest of Mt. Tsiyon where the Jews used to dump and then burn their trash. Before that it was the site of Canaanite child sacrifices. Christ uses it as a classic allegory for Hell: "If you eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into fiery Gehenna" (Matthew 18:9). We walked through the valley to the point where it intersects with the Kidron Valley, where David had established his Jerusalem. Now there is a thriving town in the Kidron. We climbed up the hill and peered at the Mount of Olives: our walk around the city had changed the position of the spires on the horizon. The tower of the Church of the Ascension was now the furthest to the right; from our perspective at the Notre Dame Center, it is the furthest to the left. We met some Palestinian kids that Fr. Kelly then talked to in Arabic. We then descended back into the valley, and ascended Mount Tsiyon. We passed the cemetary that contains the tomb of Oskar Schindler (In the picture, it is the tomb covered in rocks). We walked to Jaffa and then up the Latin Patriarchate. A good hour and a half expedition.
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