Bits & pieces: snapshots of a week in Israel

It's Friday evening in Jerusalem. I love Friday in Israel, as it’s the day of anticipation for Shabbat, which lasts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. The Jewish people traditionally usher in Shabbat with an evening meal, complete with the lighting of candles and blessings and song. At JUC, I'm delighted that we do the same. It's a beautiful and unifying tradition, and helps to put our minds in the right spirit for celebrating Shabbat. Abraham Joshua Heschel called Shabbat a "palace in time” – a dwelling place with God that surpasses the spatial realm, even though it certainly (and joyfully) includes it…

As an update from the past week or so, here are some snapshots of a few of my recent experiences in Israel…  

This is a Romanian Orthodox Monastery that my ‘History of the Church in the East’ class visited in Jericho – my instructor explained that it functions not only as a monastery but also as a hospital and visitor’s center, and some of it is soon to be designated as a study space. Their method of ministry is beauty, she told us – they don’t go out to find people; rather, people see beauty and life, and come in to find them…

This beautiful mosaic is situated on the ceiling at the threshold of the church at the monastery pictured above; the angels mark the territories on the corners as a visual reminder of one’s entrance into the presence of God.

Inside, the church’s walls are richly decorated with vibrant illustrations of saints and historical events of the faith. Even if you are in the church alone, then, you are reminded of the body of believers who walked before you, and it is still a place of community.

Above is an illustration of Jesus’ temptation in the desert by the devil, and he wields the Scriptures as his defense and answer. Near the monastery, in the chalky cliffs of the wilderness (you can see some of them on the left in the picture below), lies the traditional location of the temptation.

A Greek Orthodox monastery resides at that traditional location in the cliffs, and we hiked up to visit it. No photography was allowed, but I can still picture the small caves and cliff-side hallways that comprised much of the monastery. The priest there blessed each of us upon our departure, tapping us five times each at various places on the head and murmuring in Greek. Later, my professor explained that he’d blessed each of the five holes in the head – two eyes, two ears, the mouth – because those are the avenues out of which or into which can come blessing or curse. What a beautiful blessing.

As you can tell in the photo above, Jericho is indeed an oasis! I have now been twice to Jericho, and I can’t get over how lush and green it is. Plenty of palms, plenty of fields, plenty of greenhouses... Along with the fertile valleys along the Mediterranean coast, Israel has Jericho to thank for much of its fruit & vegetable produce!

The next day, my ‘Physical Settings of the Bible’ class visited a few locations from Jericho (just north of the Dead Sea) to Gezer (farther west near the coast). The photo below is part of the Judean wilderness in the morning. We were there on a gorgeous day, as the dark clouds and early sunlight cast shadows and patches of gold on the crests of the hills…

I am always deeply and strangely drawn to the wilderness. It has its own kind of desolate beauty, and from our lookout point, our professor reminded us of something interesting: when the Israelites left Egypt, they traveled around the east side of the Dead Sea, and then crossed west over Jordan River. But before they crossed, what was their view of the “promised land” across the Rift Valley? …Something very similar to THIS. Barren. Desolate. Seemingly lifeless. Umm… Moses? What’s going on? 

And he told them:

The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end. [Deut 11:10-12].

In other words, not like Egypt = not necessarily going to be easy -- but along with that, the message that somehow they'd have it better here, because of the Lord's care. Staring straight into the Judean wilderness, I can only imagine what some of them must have been feeling... And this is interesting to reconsider in light of the visions of the “promised land” (a phrase that my professor informed us never actually occurs in the Hebrew) that we paint in the modern Protestant Church. Yes, God did say milk and honey. Yes, he said mountains and hills that drink from the rain of heaven. But I suppose he didn’t say it wouldn’t be hard, or that it wouldn’t take a tremendous amount of faith to believe that the barren wilderness before the Israelites somehow led the way to more fertile, inhabitable land – which it did. One of the most amazing things about this land is its striking geological diversity; there is wilderness like this, but there are also lowlands and high hills and flat coastal plain and fertile valleys and extensive wadi systems and chalky cliffs… The list goes on. So what is the land that God promised? Whatever it is, it’s a land of trust, we concluded, as what is guaranteed is that it is a land that God cares for and it attentive to.  

And, as if to reassure us of that, here’s what was in the sky that morning! (look hard; it’s a little faint):

One more fun note about our time in the wilderness – we learned to never fool ourselves into thinking we were alone. In the most empty, seemingly uninhabited places, the Bedouin often know you’re there! Here’s one of our little visitors:

He and his father came to sell us necklaces at terribly unreasonable prices, and later, another Bedouin came along on his camel and offered $3 rides -- it seems there is always someone who wants to sell you something… My professor, Dr. Wright, let us in on his “code” language for those situations – if he tells us their prices are a “good deal,” then we know that they’re unnecessarily pricey (i.e. not worth our money), but if he tells us the price is a “really good deal,” then we know the price is somewhat reasonable. It works well because it allows him to be courteous to the sellers, but it gives us a clue as to whether they want to take complete advantage of us!

Later that day, as our bus ascended a particularly steep pass through the high hills in the rain, imagine how we felt when Dr. Wright assured us that our driver was a “good driver” – someone from the back of the bus immediately responded with, “You mean he’s not a really good driver?!” But we made it safely…

… To this! This is St George’s Greek Orthodox Monastery, located in the Wadi Qilt. We took a pleasant little hike down to it in the sprinkling rain. The further down you get into the canyon, the more the lush it becomes, because of the rainwater flowing through the bottom (but this only goes for the rainy season! In the dry season, it's essentially stripped of life and the heat can be pretty sweltering). When we arrived at the monastery doors, they ushered us in, and we found this waiting for us:

Delicious sweet coffee! Perfect for a rainy day and good company… We stayed a short time at the monastery, and then traveled west to the land of Benjamin until the terrain starting looking more like this…

And our last stop was even greener:

In ancient times, the area pictured above was Gezer, a major city on the coastal plain. While we were here, we saw some ruins of a gate built in Solomon’s time as well as a beautiful sunset in the west out toward the coast…

Those are some of the sites from last weekend, then – all-day field studies typically leave us pretty exhausted, and they are absolutely worth it! 

Here’s a fun look at life a little bit closer to home…

This is Dopey, one of our campus cats! There are TONS of cats in Jerusalem, and we just have a couple of campus. The day I took this picture was a lovely warm afternoon in the garden, and Dopey took full advantage of it by dozing in the sun…

I wanted to share this one just for the little flowers along the staircase – the stairs lead toward our campus entrance, and these bright patches of yellow are popping up all over the place in Jerusalem – in the JUC garden, along walkways, and in the Hinnom Valley, upon whose eastern side our campus buildings are nestled. Spring is well on its way!

And lastly…  

A precious view of Jerusalem from our campus roof as dusk sets in; the rooftop is one of my favorite places on campus, both in the daytime and at night. If you look closely, you can see the first couple stars of the night making their appearance in the sky; did I mention that I love being here? :]

Shabbat shalom!