It was cool inside, albeit dank and musty. Immediately, Rina was hit by a cry from an elderly, blind beggar. It was anyone’s guess how he had become blind, but Rina knew of an old Arab custom. Some men, after they made their haj to Mecca, felt that nothing else was ever worth seeing. So they purposely blinded themselves. Rina wondered if that’s what had happened with this man. He continued to plead, palm stretched outward. Rina fished through her purse and dropped a shekel in a jerky dried hand. The man’s bony fingers closed in on the coin.

The guard looked at her with angry eyes that said there was no time for charity. Get a move on.

Rina took a deep breath as she entered the heart of the mausoleum. It smelled like a compost pile of rich, decaying vegetation, as if the shrine echoed God’s very words—for dust thou art and unto dust thou shall return. Rina walked through the memorial, stopping in front of the shrine for Abraham and Sarah. Something ethereal came over her, a sense of personal history. As if she were looking through her parents’ scrapbook. She thought about the Five Books of Moses, specifically B’raisheet, the book of Genesis. In a sense, B’raisheet was the scrapbook of the first Jews. These people weren’t fairy-tale characters or mythological creatures, they were real people. And like all real people, they had lived, they had died.

And Rina was standing at their graves.

Every visit to the cave brought Rina that much closer to her ancestral roots. With a shaking hand, she took a pocket siddur from her purse and began to pray. First, she did formal prayer—the Shemona Esreh. Then she made her own requests of God. First came the prayer for her family’s safety and health. Next came the prayer for the Jewish people. Lastly came the prayer for mankind. She prayed for everyone. She prayed for peace.

When she was done, she put her siddur away and turned to the soldier. “I’m done.”

They both squinted as they came out of the shrine. The soldier wiped his face with the back of his hand and quickly escorted Rina back to her car.

In Hebrew, he said, “Wait here. I tell the next group going back to Jerusalem to keep an eye on you.” He sighed, his expression street-worn and melancholy. “I’m sorry it has to be this way. I’m sorry it is not the same Israel you once knew. But we all must adjust to reality. If HaKadosh Baruch Hu has a better idea than our prime minister, let Him run for office.”

Rita smiled and thanked him.

The soldier ran his boot over the dust of the ground. “Where are you from in America?”

“Los Angeles.”

“I have a cousin in Los Angeles. Micah Golan. You know him?”