I entered the gate of the adobe rust-colored wall and found myself inside a paradise garden, perfect in all its beauty. I sat down in the shade of a luscious Jacaranda tree, admiring the hues, the flowers, the trees, awake with the singing of birds. A place favored by the wealthy, I felt an outsider, barely visible, somewhat hiding, somewhat proud to be one of them if only for a very short while. This garden, this tropical Eden breathing history.
Life outside the gate is fast and chaotic, fascinating too. How traffic pushes through the streets, fighting for space, scooters crisscrossing, noisy, scaring away tourists, not hindered by any rules or anyone in sight enforcing them. If you want to know more about that reality, close your eyes, then blink, re-open and find yourself in the Mellah of Marrakesh.
Time travelling to some 700 years ago, when the walls of this city were built. Who decided how much, how little, how high, how low, how thick, what materials to use and who to allow to enter the gates? Did the Jews who lived there then, read the Talmud, Bava Batra? What’s mine, what’s yours? How high can my wall be and how high yours? How do we live in harmony on this land?
The Mellah was the place to be then. Walls between neighbors didn’t exist (at least not metaphorically), Jews and Muslims living side by side, sharing, exchanging their cultural lives, their festivals, their business. Until 50 plus years ago, when the Jews were forced to leave, their synagogues stand empty today. There is not much left in the Mellah, except cheap trinkets that are sold as remnants of Jewish life. Mezuzahs, chamsas, chanukiot, even a Torah scroll, said to be very old, but looking very new. That which was, is no more than shameful commerce, seducing the ignorant tourist. There are dilapidated homes within the walls of the Mellah, homes of those who left to safer places, pushed, chased, persecuted by anti-Zionist propaganda. The Jews of Marrakesh now live behind other, newer adobe walls, in the suburbs of the city. Walls of gated communities were those who stayed, live affluent lives. Their paradise gardens are far away from the reality of the city. These walls bring shelter, they bring home and family. They give you a framework. They give you neighbors, just like in the old days.
I visit the 15th century Jewish cemetery “Beth Mo’ed Lekol Chai” with more than 20.000 graves. Many Tsadikim (saints) are buried here. A guard watches over them 24 hours a day. He is a Muslim, whose family has been guarding the cemetery for many generations. How comforting that Muslims watch over dead Jews. I pray they will watch over live Jews one day. And of course, there is a huge wall.
Are the Jews who stayed in Morocco among the prophets of modern times? Are they the sages the Talmud talks about, who could foresee the future in this land? (Rabbi Avdimi states: Even though prophecy was taken from the prophets, it wasn’t taken from the Sages.) There is peace in Morocco. Jews with Moroccan roots return from faraway places to help rebuild the Jewish communities. I met one in Essaouira many years ago.
The question of prophecy is problematic. There cannot be one people that is superior to another people. Then how can we say that Am Yisrael is a people of priests and/or prophets?
After the noisy filthy Mellah, I came back to the garden behind the rust-colored thick adobe walls. I feel safe here, even though I conclude that safety is mostly a state of mind and isn’t dependent on any walls. So much for the lengthy wall discussions in Bava Batra. This is how we learn.