Israel Day 6 – Shabbat!

I’ve never before been excited about a Sabbath, and heading into it, I’m not sure I was excited at the time.  But in retrospect, not only was it sorely needed, the two Shabbats we experienced in Israel lent a calm to the trip.

Before splitting into small groups for a Shabbat dinner with Isreali hosts, we joined Friday night services at a reform congregation that became popular in Jerusalem only after an Ultraorthodox neighbor snuck into one of their services and ran away with the Torah in hopes that the liberal reform congregation would leave the neighborhood.  Only after the publicity of the stunt did the congregation receive enough funding to build themselves a proper synagogue.  Thus begun my learning about religion in Israel.  Where we have ‘spiritual but not religious’, Israel has ‘Jewish but not religious’ – in that ‘religious’ denotes the ultraorthodox, and everyone else tends to self-identify as secular, even if they attend Shabbat regularly.  The State echoes this division, funding both the synagogues of the ultraorthodox and providing stipends and housing allowances (and military deferral) for ultraorthodox men who want to study Torah, but providing no financial assistance whatsoever for Reform or Conservative Jewish denominations.  There is a high respect in Israel for the devotion of the ultraorthodox, and in fact the two Chief Rabbis appointed by the Knesset have, up until now, been ultraorthodox. 

In our Shabbat service we were provided with prayer books that held the English translations of the Hebrew prayers (which are mostly sung) and if you listened carefully, you could follow along.  The Rabbi did occasionally insert a few English statements to keep his American guests (Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union was also in attendance) up to speed.  The message of the service was to shake off the remnants and pollutants from the week before and prepare ourselves for the presence of the divine.  During Shabbat, which is sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday, Jews are to have a day of rest marked by the scripture, ‘do not create’.  The interpretation of ‘create’ leads most not to cook, work, ignite (as in your car), or turn on electrical devices.  This does require that food be prepared ahead of time, and it was interesting to see how the hotel dealt with Shabbat restrictions in feeding their guests.  (On Shabbat, there was instant coffee rather than brewed, because the water could be kept hot all night, while coffee could not.  You can turn things off on Shabbat, but not on.)  So Shabbat becomes quality time with family.  People walk, bike, play card games, study torah, sing, and generally spend time together.  The city of Jerusalem comes to a standstill – no buses, cars, trams, and scarce pedestrians because all the shops are closed.  

The Supreme Court Building

I was signed up for a bike tour of Jerusalem, which was ideal in the empty city streets…until you remember the amount of hills in Jerusalem.  It was, at times, like biking San Francisco.  But it allowed us to get a bit more information about the state of Israel and modern (West) Jerusalem. Yeni (yen–AI), our bike tour guide, brought us to a hill overlooking the Knesset (the lone house of Congress in Israel) and through the Supreme Court.  The interspersing of rectangles and circles in the architecture symbolizes that law is flat, but justice is round. He pointed out how the Supreme Court building sits higher than the Knesset, signifying the supremacy of the law.  He also told us that Israel does not have a constitution, which complicates governing and law in the land.  There is a set of laws that might be considered a Bill of Rights and can be used as a guide, but there is no bedrock document that is referred to when interpreting modern dilemmas, because many religious Jews believe there should be no law higher than Torah.  (Jared also said that the lack of a Constitution has to do with the haphazard beginnings of Israel; since a Constitution is usually written before the founding of a nation (in a time of unity), now Israel is a diverse nation and the process drafting a Constitution would create bitter partisanship, especially considering the interesting balance of religious and political supremacy in the land.)  Two Chief Rabbis, who are elected by the Knesset, advise the executive, congress and court system on matters relating to religion – birth, death, marriage, and divorce. The Supreme Court is felt, by most progressive Israelis, to be the beacon of democracy and justice – and answer to becoming too theocratic under guidance of the Chief Rabbis.  Anyone is allowed to bring cases in front of the Supreme Court, and Yeni commented that recently, a Palestinian argued and won a case before the Supreme Court.  (That doesn’t necessarily mean the Israeli Supreme Court is objective in American terms…see theLefternWall blog for more examples.)

Knesset building from under the pine trees

While standing on a hill under a cluster of Pines, Yeni remarked that the pine is not native to Israel/Palestine, and in fact is a patriotic sign of the war.  When Palestinians were forcibly moved from the area and their home demolished, the new state of Israel had to do something to prevent them from returning and rebuilding on the same portion of land.  Where they couldn’t put Jewish people, they planted the fast-growing pine tree to occupy the land.

We stopped near the Montefiore Windmill, the first and only windmill in Jerusalem, built in 1857 as a sign to the Jerusalem people that progress and civilization can live outside the walls of the Old City.  Yeni takes this opportunity to show us the panorama of Jerusalem – from the Old City on the left to the Security Wall and proposed E1 Zone on the right – and I take the opportunity to pick his brain about the occupation.  (E1 is a territory proposed by the Rabin administration (1995) and pursued by the Netanyahu administration that would unite Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and be surrounded by the same security fence.  This would heavily complicate Palestinian transportation between Bethlehem and Ramallah, two Palestinian towns north and south of Jerusalem, by making them travel around the outside of the wall enclosing the Jewish settlements.  More importantly, if Israel annexes the E1 zone, it effectively separates East Jerusalem, the Palestinian capital, from the Palestinian cities in north and south West Bank, effectively ending the potential for a Palestinian state.  As of November 30^th, 2012, Israel approved building in the E1 zone, supposedly as retribution for Palestine’s successful move to be recognized by the EU as a non-voting member.)

The security wall in top right corner at tip of trees

Yeni professed to be a lefty leftist, and is against E1.  He wants better human rights for Palestinians, but he admitted to being scarred and jaded by the ugly side of the conflict.  Trained as a medic in the army, he was near a pizza restaurant when a bomb exploded inside during the second intifada.  Wanting to offer help, he rushed straight into the grisly sight of children’s torn limbs across the restaurant.  Later that night, he saw the mother of the suicide bomber on television, handing out candy.  Of this, he told me that Palestinians and the Jews are people with different values.  He wants them to have their state, and for Israel to be less aggressive, but he expressed cynicism that the two peoples could ever share a common culture or citizenship.  He questioned the motives of the Palestinian people as well – citing how, within 5 years of establishing Israel, Jews had set up universities and hospitals.  In Gaza, where Israel withdrew in 2005 and foreign aid is plentiful, Palestinians have focused on obtaining rocket-propelled grenades in order to take revenge (referring to the recent conflict in 2012).  It became clear how much violence takes a toll on visions for peace.

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Reflection: Hope (or lack of it)

Our guide, Yeni

On Shabbat, I found myself contemplating the bloody turn of the second intifada, and how that complicated the instinct towards peace for so many Israelis.  I so appreciated the opportunity to speak with Yeni, a guide who was not enlisted to teach about peace, or identity, or politics, but simply shared his honest feelings on the matter of the occupation – someone to lend a new, independent, unassuming voice to what we were hearing.  Like Ben David, Yeni’s (inner) morals pointed him toward hope for a fair and peaceful resolution to the conflict.  But like Ben David, Yeni had developed a jaded outer crust towards the Palestinian people as a result of gruesome violence.  Living in a bit of a cocoon of bodily safety as I do on Chicago’s north side (the distinction is worth noting), I realize I can’t relate to the way spilled blood and uncontrollable violence can corrode your spirit and your hope.  But I think it’s a very real, visceral fear.  At one point early in our bike trip, as Yeni was speaking, there was a loud bang that startled us all.  We quickly found the source; a young woman, dressed in a punkish style, kicked an aluminum door a second time with such force that it reverberated all over the near silent street.  I thought how out of character, and probably disrespectful, it was to be out on the street creating such noise pretty early on the Sabbath.  But Yeni stared at her over his shoulder for nearly another two minutes.  I couldn’t help but wonder if that bang, which sounded eerily like a gun, caused a crisis reaction in his psyche. Just like it’s hard to teach fear to a generation that doesn’t know fear, I imagine it’s hard to unlearn trauma if you’ve seen it firsthand.

And yet, from Nusseibeh’s book, I remember the account of the would-be suicide bombers’ motivations for their crime; how a single mother with 5 children attempted jihad because she was so humiliated by Israeli soldiers who forced to strip and dance in front of Palestinian men at a checkpoint.  This public humiliation was enough for this woman to give up life – give up motherhood!  And it reminded me of a question Nilsa had asked; just what is a (wo)man’s breaking point?  How much can you push someone before they break, or become violent?  How far do you push someone before they give up on hope, and close the door to peace?

With each generation comes a new opportunity for social change.  I think about our issues at home; for some of my fellow organizers in Chicago, the social issues that are most in our sights are too easy.  They call the gay rights issue ‘won’, the fight for immigration reform ‘over’.  Why?  Because the upcoming generation has already acclimated to the victory. The majority of people in their 20’s know someone gay or lesbian, or have accepted the friendly stereotype so available in our entertainment, and so when this voting bloc becomes more engaged, the policy path is paved for victory.  (This is not to say the marginalization, bias, and discrimination is negligible.  Just that policy will change.)  Similarly, once a young person realizes they have been sitting in class next to an undocumented immigrant for the last 3 years in school, they rarely see the benefits of excluding that person from the American system.  The ‘illegal alien’ is also a friend, a classmate, or a team member on their basketball team. The dehumanization of labels becomes more and more difficult – especially in our social media age.

With each generation comes new opportunity for social change, but only if barriers are crossed, relationships are made, and walls are torn down.  Only if suicide bombings stop; only if Israeli abuse is curbed. Nusseibeh’s most salient point, in my opinion, was his statement of the wall as a barrier to relationship, not a barrier to terrorism. I am heartened that there exists the opportunity for Jews to enter their children into joint Jewish-Arab schools.  But listening to Ben David’s pride at teaching his children not to ‘hate Arabs’, but also hearing that the sentiment is often heard in Israeli circles, it feels like ‘peace’ is getting further out of reach.

I remember Ophir’s words – that if you’d take a ‘strategic risk’ in waging war, why not take a risk in waging peace?  For those of us who are not Chief Defense Ministers or holding a gun at a checkpoint, I feel like the most important risk you can take is to be vulnerable.  This may mean vulnerability in your geography, vulnerability in your principled stand, or vulnerability in your interactions with others.  There is vulnerability in opening your ears to hear your enemies’ story.  There is vulnerability in allowing your children to befriend the ‘other’ and try to balance the biases that will inevitably come falling down on them as they grow.  I guess the most important vulnerability is in taking the first step, the one that seems small, unexpected and impossible.  Sometimes, in our lives, small steps are all we can do to make Beverly Harrison right;  “Hope is believing in spite of the evidence…and watching the evidence change.”  But small steps lead to new generations. 

Israel Day 5 – Friday - Yad Vashem

Let me just start this post by saying, if it wasn’t for Ophir’s guidance on this particular day, I would have been lost, confused and flattened.

Settlement of Efrat

We left Bethlehem early (and shivering) to travel to the Settlement of Efrat, south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank.  Efrat has been in existence for over 20 years, so it has more of the feel of a suburb rather than frontier community.  We were to be hosted by Rabbi Aryeh Ben David, a psychiatrist and American-born Jew from New York that made aliyah (Hebrew word meaning Jewish return to Israel) in the idealistic spirit of the 60’s or 70’s.  The home was very comfortable, similar to a smallish townhome, situated on a hill with a beautiful view out of the patio doors. (In terms of size, it wasn’t much different from the Palestinian home where we overnighted.  The main differences were view, condition of the streets outside, and quite frankly, the heat.)  Ben David was an intelligent, hospitable man who tried to be as authentic as possible – knowing that many of us would not be sharing his point of view regarding settlements, so after introducing himself, he took a round of questions.  He related that there used to be the potential for neighborly relations with the Palestinians when he first arrived, as he had attended Jewish wedding celebrations with Arab attendees.  His 1960’s liberalism was tested when the PLO began punishing Arabs seen as too friendly with Israelis (or Israeli settlers?) by hanging them from telephone wires.  Israel demanded the practice stop or electricity be discontinued to the territories during that particularly cold winter, but according to Ben David, the Palestinians responded with, ‘go ahead, cut it off’ and continued to hang targeted community members.  Ben David pointed to that interaction as his impetus to put his life into the ‘battle of wills’ and decided to move to a settlement.

View from Ben David's patio

Ben David oft repeated that the land was Jewish land, and Jews were forced from it against their will, creating a ‘historical glitch’ similar to a woman who remarries after her first husband goes off to war and is presumed dead. He repeatedly returned to Arafat’s statement that Israel should be wiped from the map as justification for dismissing the Palestinian concerns and moving forward with unregulated settlements. Ben David seemed to dismiss Israeli culpability in the conflict, while insisting that Palestinians must prove their peaceful intentions for at least 10 years by changing their curriculum and halting all bombings before Israel should make any concessions.  In the meantime, settlements should continue, in his opinion, because the land is the Jewish inheritance from God.  (Interestingly, during our homestay in Bethlehem, our Palestinian host made the offhand remark that Jews claim it is their land from God, but their people broke the covenant, and therefore have no more right to the land.  It was an unsolicited comment, but apparently she knew this line of religious-political thought.) 

Home in the Efrat Settlement

Ben David has never been to a Palestinian territory, and has known Palestinians only through his military service and limited interaction with his gardener.  He shared a harrowing tale of the complex builder, an Arab, who was spotted in the settlement grocery store by a neighbor who, confused by his abnormal presence, looked closely and recognized explosives.  This settler neighbor, who happened to have a gun on him, shot the man in the grocery store and avoided a bombing that might have been the end of the Efrat settlement. Regarding peace with Palestine, our host explained that he specifically prohibits his children from saying they ‘hate’ Arabs (a meager answer if there ever was one).  He also made a point of letting us know that any American who thinks they know the answer to the conflict is simply naïve.  When challenged, Ben David bristled, saying that he does want peace and will sacrifice his home – given conditions like those above are met (which he thinks will never happen).  You got the sense of a self-fulfilling prophecy that allows him to believe he supports peace while exploiting the situation without acknowledging his complicity. However, in the last few moments we had with Ben David, he pulled on his psychiatrist hat and with grave seriousness and admirable vulnerability, reminded us that this is the Holocaust generation that is in power in Israel right now.  He argued that the trauma from the Holocaust is alive and well in Israel, and we can’t discount the effect that has on a population, when more than half of any gathering has a family legacy of loved ones murdered under genocide.  In contrast to our American arguments about prosperity, the argument in Israeli politics is existential (whether the state of Israel will exist tomorrow) and he indicated that the legacy of trauma alters the way a people react to this issue.

Ophir Yarden, the Director of Educational Initiatives at the Interfaith Coordinating Council of Israel, joined us on the bus to debrief some of what he heard from Ben David, and I found his layout of the political views in Israel extremely helpful.  Since Ben David had mentioned former Prime Minister Menachim Begin, the founder of the Likud (right-wing) party in Israel, Ophir explained his political reasoning.  For someone who supports the right wing, there are generally three reasons for the settlements:

Right-wing;

1. Historically, the West Bank is ‘ground zero’ in the conflict with Palestine
2. Religiously, the geography of the West Bank has religious significance, and is mentioned in scripture many times.  To do anything other than embrace that land is to spit in God’s face.
3. Strategically, if Israel doesn’t hold onto the highlands (Golan Heights), all of Israel is vulnerable to attack.

For the left-wing, the answers to these arguments look like this;

1. The West Bank has been ‘ground zero’ in the conflict, but we shouldn’t let history dictate the future
2.  Religiously, this argument falls on deaf ears because the left is not typically religious.
3.  There are equal number of military experts on the left testifying that Israel will not be vulnerable if it doesn’t hold the highlands.
4.  Lastly, the left asks, what about demography?  What about human rights?  What about the price of occupation on the Israeli people – both in mental health and blood spilled?

Ophir continued to provide some of his personal (opposite) feelings to the Settler’s opinions.  For instance, where Ben David says he doesn’t allow his children to say they ‘hate’ Arabs, Ophir enrolls his children in a joint Arab-Jewish school so that friendships can actually be made.  When Ben David says peace is unlikely, Ophir paints the potential for land swaps and compromises. Where Ben David has shut the door on his conscience, Ophir keeps opening a window for hope. 

We head to Yad Vashem, (which denotes, from scripture, to give one a place and a name) the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, but before heading in, Ophir provides a frame that alters my understanding of Israel going forward.  He asks us to pay attention to the messages of Jewish heroism and bravery throughout the museum.  We’ve walked along the path of the Righteous Among the Nations, where Carob trees are planted for each non-Jew who took action to save one from the Holocaust, and are standing in a courtyard that displays two statues – one depicting a march of broken, despairing people under military guard, the other a bust of 8 or 10 proud individuals in the midst of resistance and fighting.  The day Israel has designated for Holocaust remembrance is called “Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day”, placed in the middle of a religious month of celebration (rather than on days of mourning), with emphasis on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as much as the millions dead.  There were hundreds of instances of terror on Jewish populations in Europe long before the Nazi regime, particularly with the programs (or riots) in Russia against Jews starting as far back as 1821 in response to the assassination of the Tsar (rumours blamed a Jew for the assassination), but getting much more violent in 1881-1906.  Thousands of Jews were killed, often children, and rarely fought back.  Jews in Israel, on the other hand, were cultivating a militancy in their mindset – one necessary for their goal of an Jewish state.  Ophir talks about how State of Israel ceremonies and press conferences held in the square would always emphasize the statue of resistance, and that there was shame in the Israel mindset that Jews complied passively with Nazi regulations, like ‘sheep to the slaughter’.

Ophir says that Israel is a judgmental society, (or was in the 1950s), and Holocaust survivors, when they arrived in Israel, were often met with skepticism and suspicion, something I would never imagine.  They were asked questions like, “If it was so impossible to survive, how did you get out?  Did you steal someone else’s food?  Did you work for the Nazi’s to save yourself?” People who had fought the 1948 war, and suffered 6000 losses, felt that they, too, had been through hardship and were not receptive to airing the trauma of the Holocaust.  There was even slang to denote survivors, Hebrew for ‘bars of soap’ and referring to the Nazi’s use of bodies from the crematorium.  As a result, survivors were known to always wear long sleeves (to conceal the numbers on their arms) and for nearly 20 years, the Holocaust is not spoken of in Israeli society.  Not until 1961, when Adolf Eichman was apprehended by Israel’s Mossad intelligence force, and brought to Israel for the first public trial of the Nazi regime, were any stories of survival made public. And then, following the 90 Holocaust survivors who testified against Eichmann, who was the key figure in the deportation and ‘final solution’, the memory of the Holocaust was broke open in society and people began to talk about it.  

Tomb of Theodore Herzl

This is the development of Israel’s civil religion, Zionism – the right and safeguarding of a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel.  The theme of Jewish bravery and heroism continues central importance in Israel history.  Prior to WWII, Jews living in Israel were executing terror plots on the British authorities – partly due to the British limits on Jewish immigration (10,000 per year in spite of the rise of the Third Reich).  This rioting and conflict with native Palestinians caused Britain to turn the conflict over to the UN, which decided on the 1948 establishment of Israel (albeit with much different borders). In 1967, on the eve of the second war for Israel, Ophir says that Israelis are certain that they were on the brink of annihilation, but still marshaled themselves for a war they expected to lose – and yet are shocked by the fast victory.  The body of Theodore Herzl, founder of Zionism in 1891, is exhumed and brought to Mt. Herzl, adjacent to Yad Vashem.  He is interned in a box on a mountaintop – denoting the secular spiritual centrality of the (secular) Jewish people, in a striking parallel to King David.  Ophir calls this ‘secular messianism’ and credits Ben Gurion with the idea to make a secular shrine where the not-very-religious can make pilgrimage.  But in 1972, when the Israeli wrestling team is taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists in the Munich Olympics, the post-mortem analysis reveals that none of the hostages, premier athletes of Israel, fought their attackers before death.  The internal narrative of Israel’s civil religion continues to evolve regarding bravery, militancy and security – and we see it play out in the political debate concerning Palestine, the wall, and a two state solution.   

There are no words to adequately convey the experience of Yad Vashem.  Suffice to say, I thought I knew the holocaust.  But Yad Vashem will cause you to reconsider the concept of evil in the world.

 “I will surely bless you and make your descendents as numerous as stars in the sky”  

-Genesis 22:17

For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant;  Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.                  

-Isaiah 56:4-5;

    -Scripture that inspired the memorial for the 1.5 million children murdered by the Nazis.

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The view upon exiting Yad Vashem

Reflection: Betrayal

I left the Holy Land Trust confirmed in my deep belief that face-to-face human relationship is the harbinger of peace.  I was affirmed in my call to break down the barriers that divide people in order create a sense of community that recognizes each other’s humanity.  That is by knowing each other, respecting each other, having simple solidarity with our commonality, we each have the ability to create cohesion, mercy, and community health.  I left convinced in my calling to work towards beloved community, which values compassion, justice and mercy for all kinds of peoples.  I was even challenged to recognize where I abstractly ‘other’ people (as in label, define, and decry them as ‘the other’) by labeling their theology or politics as creating exclusion or division.  And then each of those certainties was broken.

At first, I was just betrayed by my own sense of comfort. As we pulled into the Settlement of Efrat, I recognized my own spirit relaxing ever so slightly at the wide, clean streets, pretty homes, and welcoming heat of our host home.  It was disturbing to recognize that it was a place I would be comfortable living, as opposed to the disorganized, chaotic and dirty disrepair of Bethlehem.  Testament to the quality of life I was accustomed to, I immediately felt like I had already betrayed my solidarity with the Palestinian people.  Our Settlement host, Rabbi Aryeh Ben David, wound his self-validating circular logic (Palestinians aren’t willing to sustain peace, and therefore Israel should continue with theft of the land, regardless of the fact that land theft is what caused retribution to begin with), and it twisted me all up in knots.  I started to realize that Israel’s Fox-News-like narrative about security isn’t just for the outside world, but probably more useful and deadly in persuading the minds of Israeli citizens.  I couldn’t believe how Ben David didn’t connect the hypocrisy of his own narrative – that the Jews were forced from the land, and therefore have the right to return, regardless of the fact that they were now the same as the Roman Empire, forcing out the less powerful.  Micah rang in my ears from the sermon I had just preached on December 23^rd…

They confiscate the fields they desire,
and seize the houses they want.
They defraud people of their homes,
and deprive people of the land they have inherited. (Micah 2:2)

You wrongly evict widows among my people from their cherished homes.
You defraud their children of their prized inheritance.
But you are the ones who will be forced to leave! (Micah 2:9)

I marveled at how Ben David had betrayed his own 1960’s idealistic roots to accept the systematic demeaning and theft of an entire race of people.  How from a betrayal of trust in the humanity of the Palestinian people, caused by one suicide bomber or the gruesome semantics of Arafat, this very decent man had not given up hope, but rather dismissed the necessity of dealing justly with an entire population of people.  How it betrayed the entire principles of a Jewish state run by the morality and principles of the Jewish faith that I have come to highly respect in America.  As he mentioned the Nazi-induced trauma inherent in the Jewish people’s worldview, I thought of the ripple effects of Hitler, creating a PTSD generation of Israelis, joining forces with 9/11 Islamaphobia to create a whole new set of hated scapegoats across the globe.  And then, before I knew it, and to my utter humiliation, I was just weeping while sitting on his couch…my façade betrayed by my emotions.

But you don’t really know what betrayal is until you’ve visited Yad Vashem – Israel’s Holocaust Museum.  I thought I knew the Holocaust.  We’ve studied it since 4^th grade – I can still vividly recall the video shown of naked, starved bodies being bulldozed into graves.  I know about the effort to demonize, then label, then quarantine, then exploit, and finally extinguish the Jewish race. I knew they were starved, shot, and gassed; that some suffocated on the train ride to the camps; and that many Jews were made to do the killing work inside the camps of their own people.  I know the details of Anne Frank’s hiding, and can recite Martin Niemoller’s quote, ‘first they came for…’ from the bathroom stall in my college dorm. 

But I didn’t know about the Ukraine.  I didn’t know that, when the killing first began, the Nazis would enter a town and announce that 20 Jews would be killed in the town center that evening – and people would go out to watch.  Maybe even to cheer.  The villages were encouraged, not only to turn in their neighbors, but to take action themselves – so many willingly assaulted, raped, and murdered their own neighbors.  Neighbors.  People they knew, people they did business with, people they sat next to on the bus.  My belief that human relationship defeats evil fails in the reality of the Holocaust. I didn’t know that, in ghettos, Jews were compelled to turn in any of their own family members who couldn’t work – infants and elders - sometimes carrying their own parents on their backs to turn over to the Nazis for murder.

To betray your own parents, to be forced to betray your responsibility to your child – your basic human instinct towards care and compassion bent and twisted and stripped is a wound I can’t imagine.  The betrayal of every relationship, everything you had come to expect as normality, would collapse anyone’s trust in humanity. And it would have ripple effects.  At this moment, for me, the core of Israel and our study tour changed, and just like that, I felt like I betrayed my commitment to fight for the underdog during this trip. 

Israel Day 4 - Thursday - Palestinian Bethlehem

We left the hotel early to travel to Bethlehem, which is very near to Jerusalem but in the ‘A zone’, which means it is under full authority of the Palestinians.  They have a municipal government here, and their own police force (albeit, one without guns). In order to get there, we had to pass through a checkpoint, which was like a toll booth but with armed guards.  Americans are welcome, but if an Israeli wants to enter Bethlehem, he or she needs a visa.  We learned that Palestinians also need a visa to get into Jerusalem.  Apparently this doesn’t happen easily or often, but our guide Iyad (ee-YAD), an Arab Palestinian Christian, was able to get a month-long pass over Christmas for religious reasons.

We head into the Aida (ay-EE-da) Refuge Camp first, which is next to the security wall in Bethlehem, and the first thing I notice is the graffiti art.  There are beautiful depictions of pain, resistance, anger, and sadness on the wall. Some are written in English, obviously hoping for a foreign audience.  They say a lot.

Iyad takes the opportunity to remind us about the reason for the existence of the refugee camps; during or as a result of the 1948-9 War, 800,000 Palestinian people were forcibly removed from their homes, often at gunpoint.  Some were promised that they could come back tomorrow, or in a few weeks.  Iyad says, “We were a simple people, a village people.  Then somebody tells us to leave.  Maybe they heard there was a massacre, heard that it might be dangerous, may have left to save themselves or their family.  But it certainly wasn’t voluntarily.”  The people in Aida have come from at least 8 different villages in Jerusalem, Haifa, and other areas.  They lived in tents until the bad winter of 1954.  At that point, the UN built units of concrete, 1 bedroom per family.  

There are 3 refugee camps holding 20,000 people at Bethlehem.  There are 56 refugee camps recognized by the UN, but more that are not recognized. Every refugee has a registration card from the UN, which designates that person eligible for what the future might bring – the right to return, or compensation for their displacement.  This is the stickiest issue in the Israel/Palestinian peace efforts.  In sticking with a 2-state solution, Israel will not be allowing Palestinians to return to Jewish areas of an Israeli state.  And, in my knowledge, compensation has not been discussed.  This issue has the power to halt negotiations and divide the will of the Palestinian Authority, caught in a tug of war between those people who want peace and the refugees still hoping and waiting for recognition of their loss. There has been no progress on this front for decades, and progress is not likely in the foreseeable future.  There are now (as these people have continued with new generations) 6 to 7 million Palestinian refugees from the war; 1.5 million of those people still live in the camps.  Iyad says, “my grandmother used to say – when an Ottoman (Turkish) soldier or a British soldier would walk down the street, those people were definitely scary.  People would run and hide. But the Turks and the Brits never came to replace them [Palestinians].  Now people are coming from all over the world, kicking them out, taking their homes, confiscating their land, taking everything.”  The unfairness is undeniable.
  

Palestinian land is divided into three zones, A, B, and C.  Areas A denote Palestinian cities, and are completely under the Palestinian Authority, like Bethlehem.  Areas B encompass the villages surrounding Palestinian cities, and are governed half by Palestinians and half by Israelis.  The Palestinian Authority handles the bureaucratic administration, and Israel handles security.  Areas C are the countryside – wider, open spaces behind villages that aren’t fully populated. Often this land is farmland or olive groves.  They are completely under the occupation.  The land is still owned, and sometimes worked, by Palestinians, but they are not allowed to build or repair homes, dig wells, or create any major infrastructure.  People have lived in C areas since 1916 with no electricity, no building, and no water or wells.  The C areas account for 60% of the West Bank.  A and B zones comprise 40% of Palestinian Land.  12% of all of Israel is actually zoned as “C”.  

The C zones are where Jewish Settlers plant new housing developments in defiance of Palestinian ownership. (According to our guide Iyad, he's had conversations with Israelis who feel that Palestine can have their cities and villages, and the Jewish Settlers can just absorb all of Area C.  These people usually have no real comprehension of how much of the potential Palestinian state is Area C - 60%). And it would seem that the state of Israel is paving the way for that reality.  The 20-foot high security wall that we are standing next to has been placed, not on the border of Jewish neighborhoods, but kissing distance to the Aida refugee camp and the city of Bethlehem – dividing the territory that is Area C outside of Bethlehem from the actual city of Bethlehem, and making an obstacle for mobility, relationships, and livelihood for the Palestinians living or working there. Israel justifies the wall by pointing to the decrease in suicide bombings.  Iyad, however, says that suicide bombings have decrease because there is growing recognition that “every bombing hurts us; we may be in a good place and it sets us back”.  Rather, standing in front of the wall, Iyad says, “You may call this a security wall, or border wall, or apartheid. I call it an expansion and annexation wall”. 

We spend some time looking through the conditions of the camp – which are pretty flush with trash and run-down. People here are allowed to add 1 room, perhaps two, to the 1-unit concrete block shacks built by the UN.  He shows us the school, whose windows have now been blocked out because it sits too close to the security wall and during skirmishes with the Israeli Army, Israeli soldiers’ bullets were landing in the classrooms.  The teachers have not been paid in the refugee camp for one month.  Last summer the camp went 40 days without water.  Our guides allege this is to ‘pressure’ the Palestinian people.  Camp residents are aware that we are Westerners.  Some tourists drive through Aida on their way to the Church of the Nativity, which is why much of the graffiti is in English. 

We’re met by Marwan, who works with the community through nonviolent means for change.  He points us to a gate with a huge key which is the symbol for Palestinian refugees.  This denotes the key that many of them still hold to a home that no longer exists, one that they were forced to leave in 1948 and never compensated for.  This key has recently returned from a world exhibition in Europe, using art to raise awareness about the Palestinian plight.  Stamped in the middle of the key, it says “Not for Sale”.

Marwan also asks us to notice the clean up – men sweeping and clearing streets - happening from a skirmish the day before.  Apparently, 12 children were playing and threw a rock at the soldiers on guard at the security wall.  The soldiers returned with sound-bombs and teargas, sending the children running.  He says that this is not uncommon, and in fact the children’s games usually involve shooting, arresting and putting friends into concentration camps.  Marwan himself has been arrested and imprisoned 8 times, but in only one of those instances did he see a judge.  The others were called ‘administrative detention’.  One beautiful drawing filling the expanse of the wall depicts 12 Arab men who have been in jail for 20 years.  They were arrested during the first intifada, and although there was supposedly peace declared from the Oslo agreement in 1993, they still have not been released.

As a leader and rabblerouser in the Refugee camps, Marwan is on an Israel watch list.  He told us an anecdote about trying to get a visa to go into Jerusalem so his son could have surgery in a better health facility.  The usual channels had failed, so Marwan called up an old friend who worked security.  The old friend said, “I have pictures of you all over my computer”, indicating how much surveillance he had been under by Israel.  Eventually he was able to get a one-day pass for this surgery.  Marwan says that he works through nonviolent means because he has hope, in his heart, and freedom in his mind, which allows him to continue his work for his children’s sake. 

Over the stairs as we descend

We leave the Refugee camps headed for the Church of the Nativity.  180,000 people live in the District of Bethlehem.  20% of Bethlehem is Christian – Arab Christians that have been living in this land for centuries – and 80% is Muslim.  Bethlehem means, depending on the language, House of bread, flesh, or fertility.  The Church of the Nativity is the oldest church in all of Israel, built in 327 CE.  This because on their sweep across the land, the General in the Persian army was moved by depiction of the Magi in Persian costume in the church and ordered the church spared.  The Syrian, Armenian, Greek Orthodox, and Roman Catholic faiths share this holy space for worship.  Each faith has a service and monastery on the property, and they don’t dare leave it, lest they lose their rights to the holy space.  We descend a flight of stairs – actually struggle with other pilgrims to be allowed to descend the stairs – to find two small areas adorned with the Greek Orthodox abundance of silver and red glass and candlelight.  All of which results in my second biggest realization of the trip – Jesus was born in a cave!

Iyad explains that his family, historically, were shepherds, and they had no trouble understanding what was meant in the scripture when Jesus was “laid in a manger”.

Marking the spot of the Manger in the cave

“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no guest room for them.  In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:  to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah,^[a] the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”  Luke 2:7-12

When you are a shepherd in the desert, Iyad says, you keep your animals in caves at night.  There are scarce building materials for stables, but caves are plentiful and cool.  As this evolved, shepherd families came to build rooms outside the caves, where the animals would walk through the front door and directly into the cave, and the family would stay off the to side.  But these were often small rooms with 7, 10, or 12 people in the extended family.   So when a woman is pregnant, does she give birth in the middle of all that cloistered company?  No, she goes down into the cave for some privacy, and gives birth near the animals.  They understood what it meant to ‘lay him in a manger’ because all their women gave birth in caves.

We headed to the Bethlehem Fair Trade Artisans for some fair souvenir shopping before having one of our most meaningful stops of the trip with Sami at the Holy Land Trust.  This peace organization, so named because they aspire to build trust in the Holy Land - a concept sorely lacking in the conflict - and by doing so become better trustees of the land.  Sami, a Palestinian, has his own family tale of loss at the hands of the Israelis.  Instead of letting bitterness direct his life he has started an organization that aims for dialogue and understanding between the two peoples.  In beginning this work, Sami traveled to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen to see, firsthand, the trauma of the Jewish people, and it deeply affected his approach to his work.  This was the first time we began to talk about the effects of Trauma.  Sami pointed out that fear and trauma still strongly anchored in the Jewish culture, inherited generation after generation, anchors the need to protect Jewish community with strength and desire for exclusivity.  He questioned what is needed in Israeli society – what kind of healing – will allow them to move forward with peace, and how the Holocaust is manipulated to keep people rooted in the horrid memory and allow the past to dictate the decisions about the future.  Sami mentioned that the State of Israel pays for youth group trips to Auschwitz, and while he was there, he overheard the leaders telling the kids; “this is your past, but it is also your present and your future.  This has always happened to the Jews, and will always keep happening.  Safeguard Israel.”

Sami’s organization focuses on creating leadership on both sides that strives to understand the trauma and pain of the other side. The Holy Land Trust also plans demonstrations and has achieved a sort of love/hate relationship with the local Israeli police chief.  They’ve had meetings where the police chief confessed that he respects Sami’s work, even though the chief still shuts down his rallies, at times brutally.  Sami has finally been dropped from the Israeli black list and is able to get visas again.  The Holy Land Trust regularly sends Palestinians to see the concentration camps, and trains people for listening and taking action rather than making opinions.  He made the allegory to football fans – people in the stands are very emotional, very opinionated, and spend a lot of time shouting and yelling, but don’t play the game.  He said there are very different conversations happening on the field.  He challenges – are you in the stands or on the field?  If so, the conversation has to be different.  “If someone has an opinion, we suggest this test: go out and find an evening with no clouds.  Lie on your back, share your opinion, and if any of the stars move – you are right.”

So much of what we talked about the Sami was inspired, from the very heart of a very hot, raw and emotional conflict.  In the end, he said something about working for peace that I loved; “We cannot do everything, and there is liberation in that; because it enables us to do something, and to do it very, very well.”

…

Reflection: Heat

Heat.  It comes down to heat.  It’s a sad fact that Americans use more energy per person than anywhere else on the globe.  Confronted with that fact, most think immediately of oil and the ‘car culture’ of the US.  But the consumption also results from central heat.  We heat our entire buildings, our entire homes – from the basement to the upper floors, whether we are in the rooms or not – and even when we’re not home. It’s incredibly wasteful.  From living in China, I learned that central heating is not a universal practice throughout the world.  It’s a clear indication of quality of life.  But because it is our practice, we become accustomed to being heated from the outside in - even, in this age, making sure our car is preheated before we have to go out on a wintry morning - and have forgotten how to heat ourselves – for example, by wearing layers.

From the beginning of Day 4, the day we spent in Palestinian-governed Bethlehem, we were cold.  In the Aida Refugee Camp, the temperature inside the Community Center was actually colder than it was outside in the sunshine.  The quick baggage and toilet stop at the Holy Land Trust, and later our wonderful relaxing discussion and reflection in the meditation room were surprisingly chilly.  And the homestays, while extremely gracious, had most of us shivering in our beds.  The heated water was so tepid that it was not worth showering.   In contrast, the very first thing I noticed in the beautiful home of Rabbi Aryeh Ben David, in the spacious and clean settlement of Efrat, was the heat.  I sat right on the wall radiator and let my cold cocoon melt away.  As I said, it’s a clear indication of quality of life.  Haunted by our chilly homestay, I asked Ben David if he had contact with Palestinians, or had ever visited a Palestinian town – seeing as he was living in a home and settlement which were technically on Palestinian Land where Palestinians are not allowed.  No.  Ben David met Palestinians who work for him, but has never been in a Palestinian village – in fact, he’s probably not allowed, because Israelis can rarely get visas for Palestinian areas, just as Palestinians are rarely able to enter Israel except for work (and that entails a 2 hour wait at a checkpoint each way).  It’s effective at keeping each group blamelessly ignorant of the disparity in quality of life.

Heat.  Heat can also denote tension, as in ‘the argument got heated’.  Facing the disparities brings this type of heat – the heat of anger.  You cannot listen to Iyad (our Arab Christian Palestinian guide through Bethlehem) explain the refugee situation without heat showing up.  You cannot NOT be angry when you hear about the events of the prior afternoon, when kids threw a rock at Israeli soldiers on the wall, and in return, were tear-gassed and sound-bombed.  Heat is what the kids learn here.  Their children’s games play out the occupation – shooting, arresting, and imprisonment.  It’s no wonder they throw rocks.

Heat is what comes as we listen to Ben David call the removal of Palestinians from land their families lived on for centuries as ‘an historical glitch’, dismiss the Settlers breaking international law because of Arafat’s semantics, and put the responsibility for peace on the oppressed minority to ‘change their curriculum’ and live for 10 years in peace before Israel makes concessions.  This heat, for me, erupted in burning tears of frustration and outrage.

But Sami, Director of the Holy Land Trust, talked about a different way of approaching heat.  As a Palestinian, he discussed his trip to Auschwitz and Bergen, and his hope to really understand the Jewish people’s hurt, and heat - to shed light on their drive to live in the land of Palestine.  He uses the face to face encounters to bring heat out in the open and into dialogue.  In Yoga, yogis instruct you to breath to ‘bring heat into the system’ of your body, allowing your blood to heat up, circulate better, and improve flexibility and health.  That is how I think of Sami’s work - bringing heat into dialogue to try to put out the fire of Israel and Palestine.  Listening with open ears to another’s heat – their painful memories, anger, and sense of betrayal – is difficult and likely gets hot at times.  But bringing in another’s trauma allows us to share heat.  And shared heat, like shared grief in my opinion, dissipates the burn.  

Israel Day 3 – Wednesday – The Desert

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 changed the study of Jewish and Christian religion more than anything in 1000 years, and they were found in the West Bank, a mile inland from the Dead Sea, near the Qumran archeological site.  This was our first destination Wednesday.  In 1947, when a shepherd boy crept into a cave that held ceramic cylinders and, disappointed they only held paper, supposedly used one to patch a hole in his shoe – the world of archeology descended on the area to discover 11 caves surrounding the Qumran settlement holding 900 scrolls. Extensive digs since have discovered writings from an apocalyptic Jewish sect that lived around 134 BCE, possibly until 68 CE, and who wrote down almost everything – probably due to their belief that the end of the world was near. The scrolls hold the entire Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) and additional texts that were likely left out of the canon. (Everything survives in the desert).  The scrolls also teach us that they were an all-male community that engaged in ritual bathing prior to every meal.  

Even in the midst of this extremely wet winter for Israel/Palestine, standing in the middle of the Qumran archeological dig, all you see is rocky desert and the Dead Sea (which is undrinkable).  Which leads one to ask, how in the world did people live, let alone do ritual daily bathing in this place?  And here is where I become amazed at the human ability to survive. 

Looking up the slope from where the water flows

The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, 420 meters (almost 1400 feet) below sea level.  The Qumran site is about 100 miles inland from the Dead Sea, between the mountains and the lake.  (It’s not actually a Sea, nor is it Dead, as our guide Jared liked to say – it only has microscopic life).  During the rainy season in Israel/Palestine, water comes cascading over and through the limestone cliffs and mountains on its way to the lowest point on earth.  Knowing this, the Qumran realized they simply needed a way to collect and store enough water to get through the year.  So first they dug huge cisterns in the earth to hold the water.  Then, they built desert canals to channel the water directly from the mountain into their cisterns.  It’s a natural technological innovation that blows my mind.    

Cisterns at Qumran that caught the water

Water, their most precious resource, must have also become plentiful enough to bathe in regularly.  (Of course, this means wading into a ritual bath, rather than fill, drain and refill a bathtub as we would.)  It makes sense that it would take on a sacred, central role in their community, just as most cultures lift up that which is most scarce (Gold, anyone?).  The tourist video at Qumran tried to make a connection between the practices of this Jewish sect and the newfound practice introduced by John the Baptist.  However, of this, there is no proof.

Leaving Qumran and heading south in the desert, we were invited to climb a fortress into the sky.  (I’m still happy I wimped out and took the cable car.)  We were at Masada, a symbol for Jewish heroism and a frequent pilgrimage of Jewish youth groups from all across Israel.

A little history (aka let’s see if I can get this right): approximately 200 years before Christ, the Jews in Judea were living under rule one of the (oppressive) Hellenistic Empires.  In 167 BCE, the Maccabees revolted and won independence over Jerusalem, which lasted for about 25 years. During that time, the rulers (otherwise called the Hasmonean Dynasty) recognized the continued threat of the Hellenistic Empire and it’s enemies.  They needed a plan in case of a future attack.  Where would be the best place for a resourceful ruling family to escape to in order to safeguard their lineage?  To the desert, of course.  They looked for a location approximately one day’s journey from Jerusalem where they could hide and marshal themselves to return and regain their city.  They found Masada, which literally means ‘fortress’ - a lone mountain in the desert.  The Hasmoneans built a refuge and a path up the mountain, and stored enough wares there to supply them in time of need. Over 100 years later, as warring empires were collapsing to the Romans, Herod the Great (and he was a great political strategist) sold out the Hasmonean dynasty and managed to secure governorship over Judea as a client-state of Rome.  Knowing about the fortress, Herod had the same idea – only it had to be done in Herodian style.  He returned to Masada (doubtless with thousands of slaves) and built an entire city upon the mountain, complete with two palaces, agricultural space, Roman bath houses, and a system to manipulate and collect water.  And this is the best part; just like the Qumran, Herod recognized the flow of water off the other mountains, and built a canal directing the water flow into hollowed out cisterns half way up Masada.  This way, should he ever be attacked, no one living on Masada would have to leave the mountain to get water.  It was virtually impenetrable.  (The construction of at least one of the palaces is thought to be for intimidation, as it literally hung off the cliff of the mountain facing Jerusalem and would denote the majestic power of it’s inhabitants.  But there’s no explanation for why Herod needed a second palace, or a bathhouse for that matter.  But that’s the Herodian style – grand excess).

Model of Herod's Palace that faced Jerusalem

The visible squares are actually remains of the rock walls of the Roman siege

By mid-first century (60ish CE), unrest was growing for the Jews in Jerusalem.  They would soon revolt against the Roman Empire, the Romans would burn the temple to the ground, and many Jewish sects decided to leave Jerusalem while they still could.  One sect took up residence at the top of Masada, and lived there until 73 CE when the Roman army was intent on stamping out all the Jewish people of the land.  The Roman army arrived at Masada, probably with 5000 slaves and soldiers, and set up a ring and several encampments at the base of the mountain, which can still be seen today.  (Like I said, everything survives in the desert!)  After probably months of waiting, the Romans realized that those on top of Masada were not coming down, but they couldn’t fight a battle upwards.  So they set about building a ramp and a huge battering ram that would bust the entrance of Masada.  After weeks of preparation, they pushed a huge structure up a huge hill and succeeded in breeching the door in the middle of the night, but Masada’s inhabitants had set fire and the Roman army fled their wooden contraption to safety, content that they would enter the premises in the morning and take the population as slaves.  When they charged in the morning, however, according to Josephus Flavius in his account of The Jewish Wars, all they found were the remains of mass suicide.  Legend has it that Masada’s community leaders gave a speech asking if the men of the community would rather have their women and children dead, or abused as slaves to the Romans.  The decision must have been unanimous – men left the circle to give their families a fatal last hug, and then returned to complete the mission by killing eachother.  The last man had to fall on his own sword.

The Roman-built ramp up the side of Masada

There is discrepancy between the account given by Josephus Flavius and archeological finds; there were in fact scrolls and evidence of Jewish life found on Masada.  There weren’t, however, enough skeletons found either on Masada or at the foot of the mountain (if the Romans would have thrown them over the wall as was their custom) to validate the tale of Josephus.

The legend of Masada has, however, taken on a life of it’s own, as a tribute to Jewish bravery and resistance as has become important in the modern age (more on this later).  In addition to youth trips, for decades the Israeli army held their graduation ceremonies atop Masada.  The small number of bodily remains that were found at Masada were exhumed and carried into Jerusalem for burial in a military-style parade.  This practice has stopped in recent years, perhaps as Israeli society begins to look more critically at the nobility of self-sacrifice as bravery.  But it has provided a beacon of Jewish history for the newborn state.

From desert to water, we went north to the Ein Gedi Nature Preserve.  Biblical scholars believe here is where David hid from King Saul’s hunt for him. (1 Samuel 24). But as God would have it, (so says scripture), King Saul stepped into the cave where David was hiding with his men to relieve himself.  David, unnoticed, cut off some of his robe, but declined to let his men attack.  As Saul left the cave, David proved to Saul that he could have taken his life, but that he did not because he is loyal.  And with this, King Saul ceased his hunt for David. 

The Ein Gedi is a beautiful, bouldered cliffside made of limestone.  Here, too, water runs through and down the rock, but it is a constant flow.  We hiked into the park, toward the source of the waterfall, learning about the Acacia tree, specifically adapted with low branches and tiny leaves for desert weather, it’s predator the hyrax (resembling a cross between a ferret and a opossum, but apparently closest related genealogically to the elephant) and the amazing mountain goat called Ibex. 

Our final destination was to test the salt in the Dead Sea.  The Dead Sea marks the border between Jordan and Israel, but it is actually shrinking year by year. (The media campaign slogan is, “Is the Dead Sea dying?”)  The mining industry, interested in the wealth of minerals below the sea, drains portions to speed evaporation.  This industry utilized by both Israel and Jordan. (In fact, Israel’s treaty with Jordan included an agreement to share technology to allow Jordan to start an industry).  Jared suggested that we would find wounds on our bodies that we didn’t know were there once submerged in the salty water, and had even advised us against shaving (anything) 24 hours beforehand.  The buoyancy of the Dead Sea is somewhat astounding – it takes an act of will to push your feet into the water and stay in an upright position. But you best keep your mouth, eyes and ears closed – the salt is no joke.  As we emerged from the water, salt that had splashed onto our faces dried in white splotches across our cheeks, and clothing that soaked up the salt became crusty and stiff.

…

Reflection: Water

Jerusalem sits on a ridge at the crux of two valleys.  Although I’ve learned this in my CTS classes on Hebrew bible, I doubt it ever stuck by looking at a map.  It is situated on a mountain ridge – a very defensible position with a clear view of any approaching enemy from the east, south or west.  And – one last crucial determinant – it sits near a natural spring.

Water in the desert.  The determining factor in all human affairs; do we have access to water?  Can we rely on it, manipulate it, grow from it?  Can we protect it? (And these days, can we preserve it?) Will we be attacked for it – or will it be used against us in a siege?  In our first days in Jerusalem, the role of water became clear.  Jerusalem was likely founded because of it.  The Ancient Hebrew King Hezekiah spent years crafting a tunnel to protect access to it.  The people at Qumran bathed in it for ritual cleansing before every meal – and devised ways to catch and store it in the desert.  King Herod manipulated that technology to divert it to his mountain fortress, capturing it before it became useless in the Dead Sea.

Water means life.  Water gives life and supports life. Is it any surprise it became integrated with primal importance into our religions?  Water can also take away life.  Water absolves, and water dissolves.  Water leeches the material of whatever it collects.  In the Dead Sea, at the bottom of a desert valley 400 meters below sea level – the lowest place on earth the heavy rains come cascading down and through the limestone mountains and eventually rest on a huge mineral deposit.  From this location, there is nowhere for the water to go.  So it leeches and becomes saturated with the salt that all but prevents life, except that of tiny microorganisms. 

Today I heard about water that was at the beginning – a story from Samuel about King Saul, in his hunt to kill the future King David, coming to the Ein Gedi Oasis (water in a desert) and stumbling upon David and his men in a cave. As we hiked up the Ein Gedi boulders and ridges, and watched the fresh water bleed out of limestone rocks and cascade down cliffs, I know why David was hiding in these caves.  And as I submerged half my body in a basin to touch the source of the waterfall in the Gedi – the beginning – I thought about how this water would be corralled, diverted, collected and manipulated to support so many of the Jewish ancestors and desert peoples.  Knowing this water, just like that which flowed in King Hezekiah’s tunnel dug under the old city of Jerusalem to sustain the people in wartime, and that which flowed into the Masada Mountain Fortress for King Herod – was flowing in exactly the same way it did 3000 years ago gave me the connection that transcended space and time. 

Water from the beginning of my religious history.  Water at the end. Later, while floating buoyantly in the Dead Sea with most of my classmates, I thought about how this body of water marks the end of water’s journey in the Judean desert. The Desert peoples had to seize the water before it became useless – and salty – by joining the Dead Sea.  On humans, salt burns, and salt heals.  But it signifies the end of sustaining human life. Stranded in the desert, this body of water might seem like the answer, but in fact would be a curse.  Water at the end of its journey.  In the same day, we had journeyed from the place where water gave life to our people, to the place where it could take it away.