The Gate Behind the Wall: A Pilgrimage to Jerusalem

When Samuel Heilman took a sabbatical from teaching sociology to spend time in Jerusalem, he did not know that it would become a personal pilgrimage. "Not until I had been to Jerusalem and observed and joined in the act of lernen the Talmud would I be able to discover its centrality to my own Jewish existence," Heilman writes. "What had begun by engaging the social scientist in me would end by awakening the Jew."
As he met with Talmudic scholars, with mystics and preachers, and with the ordinary people of Jerusalem, Heilman sensed the opening of the gate in his wall of resistance to the past. While studying the holy books he had previously put aside in the name of science, he breached the boundaries of time and place and discovered a spirit that linked his modern world with his ancient heritage.