Borders and boundries

Steven Lipton wrote:

Borders and boundries

Tuesday we started in Tiberius with a visit to the grave of the Rambam, other wise known as Moses Maimonides.  Then it was off to a few Christian sites on the north shores of the Sea of Galilee. First to the church over the spot Jesus made a miracle of feeding people, then to Capernaum where he lived for a while and performed a miracle or two. From there we made a stop along the river Jordan, then boarded the bus and headed for the Golan Heights.

 

Someone once told me that once you stand on the Golan Heights, you realize That Israel cannot ever give them back. As cynical I was of that statement, it was a very true assessment. From issues of water rights to strategic geography to give up the Golan Heights would be suicide. Yet that was only part of what I felt there. I realized how much of a waste this land is.

 

The Syrians made this a buffer zone between themselves and the Israel. In doing so they took lands that had been agriculturally productive for millennia and made it into a war zone. The signs for land mines are everywhere. The remains of Syrian bunkers are all over the landscape, mixed with ancient stone fences. This is a place where plowshares were beaten into swords. These swords bred more swords as the Israeli bunkers and military bases here attest. What a waste.

 

From there we went to a kibbutz in the Golan Heights, so green and different from the desolation around it. I really don’t know what to say about kibbutzim, I learned so much about them the way the American Jewish education system of the 1970’s wanted me to when I was younger. I can say it was not what I expected. But I can also say, I would never be interested in being part of one either.

 

Then we had a drive to Beit Shean. Beit Shean has a prominent part in the biblical text as the place the Philistines hung the body of a dead King Saul. As the story in I Samuel goes Saul committed suicide rather than fall into enemy hands. But after his death the Philistines cut off his head to parade around Philistine territory and nailed his body to the walls of Beit Shean. That city today is buried under a tel. In front of the tel is the Roman city of Beit Shean. The Talmud makes a few comments about this town, Resh Lakish, refers to it as the gate to paradise in Israel. This might be a sarcastic comment, as the previous discussion on that page was about the nature of hell, and Beit Shean was certainly a pagan town. R. Assi notes that priests from Beit Shean are prohibited from making the Priestly benediction since their accents are so bad the make two letters (ayin and aleph) sound the opposite.[Meg. 24b] In modern pronunciation of course both of these letters are silent.  The Tannaim uses Beit Shean as an example of a metropolitan area where shops are decorated, one cannot shop there [A.Z. 12b].  There are a lot of ruins here, much of it excavated. One of the most intact theaters is here, and a rather impressive city center.

 

After that, we began our journey to Jerusalem, but with a twist – Through the Israeli controlled areas of the West Bank.  The barb wire around settlements here stood out, as did a geologic feature of much of this area: caves and lots of them. This wasn’t where David hid in his day that was further south. But such caves littered the hills around us. Even thought I think everyone on the bus was also tired there was a strange silence about this part of the trip.

 

I realized how much a of a climb from the shore it is to Jersusalem. It truly is a going up, an alyiah.  Then after encountering a few Bedouin shanty towns on the sides of the road to Jerusalem, we entered the city and began to feel the energy of the place. That evening began Yom Ha Zikaron, the Memorial Day in Israel for the war dead. There was a minute of silence marked by the sound of a siren at 8:00. We watched the staff of our hotel go outside and listen silently to that sound.