It’s another thing that was trodden upon by the foxes who roamed the desolation of the Har Habayis — the ability to look at the other and see the image of God

Chol Hamoed Pesach. As we waited to meet our tour guide by Jaffa Gate, we were swallowed into the moving mass heading to the Kosel. It’s our own proximation of aliyah l’regel, flocking to the holiest place on earth. There, as in former times, we longed liros ul’heiraos — to see and be seen. To see, sense, experience closeness. To be seen, to regain a sense of significance, worthiness, life itself.

Soon enough, we found our tour guide. He’d promised a tour of the Old City that was “off the beaten track,” and eager to find activities, I’d signed up. Proximity to the Kosel, some history, a good story or two, and hopefully we’d get close enough to the Moslem quarter that my teenage boys would think we’d given them some action.

The tour guide was in his early thirties, longish curly hair topped with a small kippah, a rough T-shirt and jeans that looked like they had seen better days. My boys surrounded him, asking for stories of his days in the army. We meandered through the streets of the Old City, then moved on to the Moslem Quarter, visited the Kosel Hakatan and passed the tourist shuk, where housewives in abayes and hijabs argued over the price of melon, and mustached men fingered prayer rugs. The smell of incense mingled with the tang of fresh-squeezed oranges.

We turned a corner, walked up a street, and stopped outside an elementary school. A one-hundred-shekel bill slipped hands; the security guard swung open the iron gate and we trooped inside and up a small flight of stairs.

“Here,” said the tour guide, “is the best view of the Har Habayis.”

He motioned to two large windows cut out of the stone wall. We took turns peeking out.

A great expanse of lawn. So many people. Fur trees. I craned my neck and the Dome of the Rock came into view: octagonal walls covered in mosaic, glittering gold cap. Behind, the dark circle of the Dome of the Chain. Breathtaking. Devastating.

I duck out of the window to allow someone else their turn. The tour guide begins to speak. “The first time came…” he swallows. “It is not something that’s fun to do.  It’s very, very hard. To see the place of the Beis Hamikdash like this, so close you can almost touch it…”

“When did you first come here?” my son asks.

“On the day of my chatunah. I wanted to rebuild a home for G-d in the home I was about to create, so first I had to see, to feel the sorrow of the Shechinah.”

His eyes glistened. The curiosity and wonder and interest at the view through the window fell away, and I was left only with the exile of the Divine presence. That, and the silent anguish of a nondescript Jew with a magnificent soul. I’d missed that in his manner, maybe in the thicket of curly hair. How? How had I missed it? How did I fail to see?