Day 5: Standing in Discomfort

My legs are so sore from my hike down the mountain of Masada yesterday. I can only imagine what the Jews and Romans must have felt like. Today, we started off by listening to a speaker share with us the importance of perspective when looking at museums. In this case in particular she was talking about the Holocaust museum. We spent the first half of the morning visiting Yad Vashem, which is the Holocaust Museum here in Israel. If you have ever been to the Museum of Tolerance in LA or the Holocaust Museum in DC, you might understand the challenge that perspective brings to viewing the Holocaust, especially the importance of Yad Vashem. What our speaker shared with us was how each of the American museums views the Holocaust from an American perspective. When you visit Yad Vashem, you see the Holocaust through the eyes of Israelis, through the Jewish community that sprung out after the Holocaust. It is never a comfortable thing to share in the experience of pain from the Holocaust, but it is important. Our job is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. If we ever find ourselves slipping into comfort, we may find ourselves forgetting the important things we have learned. It is a difficult place to sit in discomfort for that long, but it is what motivates us towards change, and to make sure things like the Holocaust do not continue to happen. My thoughts as I walked through the museum today were of pain and challenge for all of the genocides and mass killings that have happened post-Holocaust. The situations that are happening in Darfur and the Congo, in Sudan and in Iraq, are clear examples that we have grown comfortable, and are willing to turn our eyes from what might be painful to look at. These atrocities continue as long as people let them. A quote that stood out to me today while at the museum was, “A country is not what it does, it is what it tolerates” – Kurt Cholsky, German Essayist.

What evils do you allow to happen around you? What role do you play in stopping or perpetuating the issues of Genocide in our world?

On our way out of Jerusalem, we stopped by to learn a little about the Israeli Supreme Court. We then made our way up north towards Galilee, along the Jordan Rift Valley, driving through the West Bank, at times write along the walls that have been put up between Israel and Palestine. These walls were put up after the second Intifada to help prevent suicide bombers from entering Israeli communities. They have been left up ever since, and continue to be a very controversial issue here in the country. I cannot pretend that I know enough about them to tell you what I think, because after many of the speakers we have heard, I have learned that I know very little about the situation here, and I need to learn more before I pass judgment. What I can say is that looking at these walls remind me very much of the Peace Walls I experienced while in Northern Ireland that were put up between the Protestant and Catholic communities, to keep people from hurting one another. It also reminds me of the wall along the border of Mexico, which has worked at keeping immigration from Mexico into the US down. In the end walls are walls, and will keep us from one another, will keep us from seeing eye to eye, and unless we make a point to move beyond comfort we won’t be able to make progress on bringing those walls down.

We continued our way along the Jordan River, and made a stop at a Kibbutz. A kibbutz is a collective community that is established as an attempt at utopian society, where all is shared, and all receive the same, as much as one needs. It’s an amazing attempt at socialist living, but as we learned today, it has experienced its challenges with sustaining its way of life, from where it started in its precepts during the 1920’ until now. Kibbutzim (plural for Kibbutz) started as agriculturally based societies, where every aspect of life was taken care of by the community, food and clothing, hospitals and Education. This worked out for a while, but recently the impracticality of socialism has begun to set in, with the youth of the Kibbutz wanting to move out, not enjoying the lifestyle, because they want more. The Kibbutzim have begun making changes and taking steps away from their socialist ways, to now adopting capitalistic ways. The way the guy showing us around told explained it was as an evolution of the Kibbutz movement, because if it does not evolve it will perish. He also said that some Kibbutz communities have been able to maintain their socialist ways, but mostly because they have the money to support it. I wonder if it is possible to have your cake and eat it too. It is difficult to say what will become of the Kibbutz, but for now, we are staying at one, which has developed a very nice hotel. So, perhaps I can share more with you after spending more time at one.

Thank you for taking the time to read, I would love to hear what you think, so please if you can leave a comment I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts.

Day 1: Shehechiyanu & the Living Bible

We have arrived after a fourteen-hour plane ride to Tel Aviv. As we began to approach Israel and the Tel Aviv coast, it was interesting to me that the view looked similar to coasts of LA. If I weren’t paying attention I would have thought that I had arrived back at home. But as we got closer the unique architectural colors of the city make it stand out. One of the unique aspects of the Israeli architecture, especially in Jerusalem, is the use of a white, clean stone known as “Jerusalem Stone”. It is the same stone that was used to build the Getty museum. One of the members of our group said how she keeps on thinking that she is at the Getty looking around at all of the buildings. It’s amazing to see the many similarities in look and weather that this place has to Los Angeles.

One of the major differences though is the language. From the moment I walked into the airport at LAX, I was being spoken to in Hebrew. I am told that I look like I can be Middle Eastern, and perhaps that’s the reason why everyone greets me in Hebrew. I’m okay with blending in, but it really is a humbling experience for me. Typically, I am aware of the second language being spoken in LA, because more often than not it is Spanish. While I am out here, I will get the experience that all of the non-Spanish speakers of LA experience when they don’t understand what people are saying. I have learned a few words, which I am grateful to know, Shalom and Too da(sp?), which mean peace and thank you, respectively. I believe that when visiting a new place, these are two key words to know, they could possibly save my life!

We boarded a bus and then made our way across a valley that had been used to fight many battles, by Joshua (Joshua 10:1 – 27), Maccabees, the Philistines and many more. As I finish my first day here in Israel, I am going back through the bible and I am able to see the names and places that I have visited today. Suddenly the Bible is no longer a book of words, but real life that I am living and breathing. It is a challenge that I know I do not do daily when I am at home, even as a Religion teacher. If I take anything home from my time here, it will be a new challenge to live the Bible out, in the way that I am doing here. Finding the parallels to my daily life, and spending more time searching for the City of God in my midst.

What role do you find the Bible playing in your life today? How can you live out the Bible more daily?

As we entered into Jerusalem, we took a moment to pause on a hill over looking the walls of the Old City, the walls that were built by King David to surround the Temple Mount and protect the Holy of Holies. Now the Western Wall is all that remains of that original Temple. It is Jewish tradition to pause and pray the Shehechiyanu, a prayer said for many joyous occasions, like the beginning of Jewish holidays or the first time you taste a fruit in its season, but most especially for ones first visit to the Holy Land. The prayer goes as follows:

Baruch ata adonai eloheinu melech ha’olam, shehechiyanu, v’kiyamanu, v’higiyanu lazman hazeh

We give thanks to You O Lord our G-d, Ruler of the universe, for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach the moment of joy.

Are there any joyous moments in your life that you can recite the Shehechiyanu for?

One of the reflections that someone else in my group shared as we gathered together to pray was that this journey we take is not merely one that seeks the historical aspects of our Jewish and Christian traditions, but one that calls us to deepen our spirituality. They shared about the many thousands of people who have made pilgrimages to this holy place, and how we now continue in their footsteps, seeking a deeper spiritual relationship with the God who is present here in this place. I cannot help but feel that God too is present between you and I, in your following along and reading this. I am grateful and pray that these relationships between God and others may continue to be strengthened by my time here in the “City of Peace” as Jerusalem is also known.

There is still so much more to see and do here in Israel, and the next week and half will be filled with a lot more heart and eye opening experiences. I am grateful to have you walking this pilgrimage with me. You are in my prayers, thank you for yours.

Paz, Shalom, Salaam, Kinamwe, Peace