The bright spots stop there for the rest of the scene is indeed one of utter desolation all too much the norm in Kabul. Thick layers of sand ? the result of the summer sandstorms for which the city is infamous – blowing in through the shattered windows cover everything in both the larger and smaller sanctuaries.
The decor spartan to begin with and consisting mainly of framed inscriptions in Hebrew is dirty and faded. In a corner of the garden the mikvah the ritual bath for women stands roofless hit by a rocket during the civil war a fratricidal conflict fought here around the slopes of Asmai a mountain named for the Hindu Great Mother goddess.
And yet despite its state the place is pervaded by a deep sense of peace the aura of places considered holy that have passed through destruction.
It is the same feeling one gets standing before the Mullah Mahmoud Mosque another shattered and empty place of worship that also faces a surviving garden amidst the total desolation of the old quarter of Kabul.
Or before the deep recesses where the Buddhas of Bamyan destroyed by the Taliban once stood now rendered ever more mystical by their very absence.
Or before the pregnant immensity of Ground Zero like all of these places a monument become ever more numinous by its mute eloquence against the blind brutality of fanaticism.
