L'Shanah Tovah! (long entry, be forewarned)
Happy New Year, everyone!
That's right, welcome to the year 5767 everyone! This past Shabbat was Rosh Hashanah, and there's a lot to tell from the past four days. Here goes:
Thursday, we packed up our rooms and left good old Kibbutz Tzuba and headed into the Old City of Jerusalem to see the Southern Wall excavations and to walk around in Jerusalem as it was in the times of the Second Beit Hamikdash, or Second Temple. This massive structure was built and reinforced by King Herod when Jerusalem came under Roman rule around 63 BCE and was the center of the world's Judaism for over a century. The parts of the walls still standing are massive, with each stone weighing at the least 15-20 tons, and some weighing in at an astounding 250 tons, but the architecture is still beautiful and makes anyone looking at it say, "Wow." Jews came from all over the world back then to make sacrifice in the Temple, and this Temple was even more important in the fact that there were no other places in which sacrificial offerings could be made according to Chalahic Law (the rabbinic law of the times).
The Romans, however, weren't such nice people to the Jews. Around 60 CE, the new Roman rulers began putting in place laws to subdue Jews and limit the practice of our faith. Caligula, a Procurator of Roman Jerusalem in that time, went as far as putting a statue of himself inside the Beit Hamikdash and making pig sacrifice in the holiest of our holy places. This, of course, didn't fly with the Jewish people, and instead of stand idle and let their faith be trodden on in the dust, they decided to revolt. In 66CE, the Great Revolt began. Riots ensued, Roman soldiers were killed, and for a while it appeared that the Jews could overthrow the Romans and regain rule of Jerusalem. This was not so, and in 70CE, the Romans put down the last of the revolting Jews. For them, that was not enough. On the 9th of Av, 70CE (by the Hebrew calendar), the Roman army shoved large pieces of wood into the cracks of the Temple stones and set them aflame, toppling and burning the Beit Hamikdash, sending all Jews that hadn't already fled or been killed into exile, and squashing the entire spirit of the Jewish people. This tragic story was what we witnessed the remains of that day, and is one of the most depressing and tragic events in our Jewish history. After seeing all the sights and gawking at the walls for a few hours, though, it was time to move on in our journey.
Our path was very different from the paths of most tourists, however. Josh and Reuven, our Jewish History teachers, have begun to refer to us as "pilgrims", rather than tourists. We don't just see the sights--we experience them and appreciate them for what they stand for and what these places mean to us as a people. For this reason, after leaving the Old City and the destruction of our Temple, we did what some of the Jews that fled the city did: escape the city and head to the desert. It was in this way that we arrived at Ein Gedi, a nature preserve on the shores of the Dead Sea, considered the most beautiful place in Israel by many.
This is the point at which my story breaks off from the story of the 29 other comrades I have with me on the trip, due to things beyond my control. In Ein Gedi, we were scheduled to take a hike through the desert valley Nachal Arugut, arriving at a waterfall in the middle of the Negev desert. About a mile into the hike, though, disaster struck. I was near the back of the group in order to get the shots I wanted for my film project, and as we hiked along a section of trail that was slippery from runoff and bordered on the left side by a ravine, the girl in front of me slipped and fell, sliding under the railing that was meant to keep people on the trail. I grabbed her and attempted to pull her back up, but she kept slipping, and one of the madrichim, Tom, managed to wedge himself between her and the rail so that she was somewhat stable. We pulled her back onto the trail, at which point she began screaming and sobbing that her ankle and foot hurt. After some deliberation, it was decided that the group was already too far ahead and she needed to get medical attention, so Tom, myself, one of the teachers and another girl from the group helped our fallen comrade back toward the trailhead. She couldn't put any weight on her right leg without excruciating pain, and between her injury, shock, and the harsh nature of this trail, it took us quite some time. Around two hours after her initial fall, we were met by some of the group with a stretcher, and at this point something amazing happened: Without a word, every grown man in this group of eight or so went into the same mode of thinking and acting. Having all been in the Israeli Armed Forces (IDF), they all had the same training, and this common bond kept us going up the trail. At one point, we were all very tired, sweating in the near-100 degree (Fahrenheit) heat, and trying to maneuver a stretcher safely, and a few men came walking down the trail and wordlessly took our places for a good amount of time. Nothing needed to be said, only things to keep our injured one laughing and as happy as circumstances could have it. Roughly four hours after the initial fall, we reached the bus, where she was sent to the hospital. It turns out she broke her ankle pretty severely and had to be sent back to the States to have surgery, and probably won't be coming back for the rest of the program. The bonds I made with the other "rescuers", though, will stay with me for a long, long time.
Thankfully, after this traumatic experience, I was able to go float in the Dead Sea for a bit. Now, if you've never done this before, let me tell you--it's a trip. The saline content of the water is so high that even myself, with all that muscle on me (modest, I know), was able to float and read a newspaper without even trying. After a nice cleansing mudbath and soak in the salty bathtub that they call the Dead Sea, we all piled back into the bus and had a short trip to the Masada Youth Hostel, where we stayed for the night.
4:30 AM Friday morning.
We woke up.
It was not fun.
Then, we walked out of the hostel gate and began the ascent up the Snake Path to the top of Masada. For those of you who don't know, Masada is a big rock--okay, plateau--in the desert overlooking the Dead Sea, surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs and deep ravines. It was used by the Romans as a fortress, by Herod as a palace, and taken over by the zealots (a group of Jews that fled Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple) as their own fortress. The rock is a great natural fortress, with only the winding, exposed Snake Path on the East and the Roman ramp on the West to approach from. We began climbing the Snake Path before the sun even thought about waking up, and I made the ascent of 450m (1500ft) in just over 40 minutes, just in time to see the sun rise over the Jordanian Mountains and the Dead Sea. The beauty of the scene is beyond words, and oddly enough, as the sun peeked over the lip of the mountain range, all 30 teenagers became completely silent, overcome by the sight.
The story behind Masada is that the zealots were besieged by the Romans for a year, and when the Romans began building a massive earthen ramp to the top of the plateau and began burning the walls of the fortress, the zealots realized that they were in very dire straits. Faced with the choice of becoming enslaved and losing their Jewish identity altogether, the zealots chose not to fight the Romans. In the morning, when the Roman army breached the wall, they found only one woman alive in the entire settlement. The other 960 residents chose to commit mass suicide rather than fall into Roman hands. Looked upon for so long as a heroic act, my being at Masada and hearing the stories, watching everything unfold before my eyes completely changed my view on the zealots' decision to commit suicide. There are many pros, cons, and ways of justifying or criticizing their acts, but if I were put in their position, who knows what my decision would be.
Leaving Masada (after a yummy fresh-squeezed mango juice), we travelled far South to Kibbutz Lotan, situtated in a valley in the Arava Desert, less than 1/2 mile from the Jordanian border. Lotan was our home for the next few days, in which we learned all about agriculture and the environment while celebrating one of the biggest holidays for Jews--Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. The kibbutz only serves as a home to 24 families, making it a rather small kibbutz for the modern day, but it has a different feel to it than our home, Kibbutz Tzuba. Lotan and its neighbor, Yahel, are both very concentrated social groups in which everyone works for the common good and there is practically no personal or private property. Celebrating Rosh Hashanah in Israel was a completely different experience for me--no organ, no fancy synagogue, just a group of Jews getting together in the common lounge to celebrate the New Year. In a sense, I felt a tighter bond with these strangers merely by praying alongside them and living in their community for a few days, something I rarely feel in the States for Rosh Hashanah, or even on Tzuba. The aspect of a kehillah (community) is very much present and comforting, and is something I value as part of my Jewish identity.
After learning all about desert agriculture (oximoron, I know--it exists, though!) and learning how to build houses that are environmentally friendly, as well as all kinds of stuff about our relationship with the environment, I settled into a nice hammock and picked apart a nice sweet Rimon (pomegranate) and listened to the festivities going on around me; the laughing kids, dancing adults, old codgers shmoozing, all kinds of things. The highlight of our stay on Lotan, though, was Saturday night, when one of the kibbutzniks took us on a hike in the middle of the night to lay in the sand dunes and look up at the stars. This was when we had our Tashlich service, where one is supposed to cast off all the sins from the past year and try to be a better person. The tradition is to throw bread crumbs into a body of water to represent the sins, but seeing as we were in the middle of the desert, we settled with mentally casting off those sins into the dunes where no one would find them.
Sunday night we returned to Tzuba around midnight, moved back into the rooms, and got back into somewhat of a school routine...okay, that was a lie, we're all still pretty dead tired and trying to keep up with schoolwork, but it's coming along. Even my Hebrew seems to be improving...okay, well that was a small lie, too...I'm trying to improve in Hebrew and doing so, just very slowly.
My moment of Zen from the weekend:
As I was lying in the dunes, listening to the wind and lack of noise, I could have sworn that the sky was filled to bursting with stars. Never in my life have I seen so many stars. I even saw a shooting star, and got to make a wish to start the New Year fresh. It's kind of funny--every year at Yom Kippur, we say "Next year in Jerusalem, Next year in Israel." Well, looks like my wish finally came true--I'm in Israel, saying "Next year in Israel."
L'shanah Tovah & L'shanah Ahavah,
(May your new year be good and filled with love)
Aron
PS-I still love letters and e-mails. Look at the post before this one for my mailing address, my e-mail is aronaltmark@aol.com.
That's right, welcome to the year 5767 everyone! This past Shabbat was Rosh Hashanah, and there's a lot to tell from the past four days. Here goes:
Thursday, we packed up our rooms and left good old Kibbutz Tzuba and headed into the Old City of Jerusalem to see the Southern Wall excavations and to walk around in Jerusalem as it was in the times of the Second Beit Hamikdash, or Second Temple. This massive structure was built and reinforced by King Herod when Jerusalem came under Roman rule around 63 BCE and was the center of the world's Judaism for over a century. The parts of the walls still standing are massive, with each stone weighing at the least 15-20 tons, and some weighing in at an astounding 250 tons, but the architecture is still beautiful and makes anyone looking at it say, "Wow." Jews came from all over the world back then to make sacrifice in the Temple, and this Temple was even more important in the fact that there were no other places in which sacrificial offerings could be made according to Chalahic Law (the rabbinic law of the times).
The Romans, however, weren't such nice people to the Jews. Around 60 CE, the new Roman rulers began putting in place laws to subdue Jews and limit the practice of our faith. Caligula, a Procurator of Roman Jerusalem in that time, went as far as putting a statue of himself inside the Beit Hamikdash and making pig sacrifice in the holiest of our holy places. This, of course, didn't fly with the Jewish people, and instead of stand idle and let their faith be trodden on in the dust, they decided to revolt. In 66CE, the Great Revolt began. Riots ensued, Roman soldiers were killed, and for a while it appeared that the Jews could overthrow the Romans and regain rule of Jerusalem. This was not so, and in 70CE, the Romans put down the last of the revolting Jews. For them, that was not enough. On the 9th of Av, 70CE (by the Hebrew calendar), the Roman army shoved large pieces of wood into the cracks of the Temple stones and set them aflame, toppling and burning the Beit Hamikdash, sending all Jews that hadn't already fled or been killed into exile, and squashing the entire spirit of the Jewish people. This tragic story was what we witnessed the remains of that day, and is one of the most depressing and tragic events in our Jewish history. After seeing all the sights and gawking at the walls for a few hours, though, it was time to move on in our journey.
Our path was very different from the paths of most tourists, however. Josh and Reuven, our Jewish History teachers, have begun to refer to us as "pilgrims", rather than tourists. We don't just see the sights--we experience them and appreciate them for what they stand for and what these places mean to us as a people. For this reason, after leaving the Old City and the destruction of our Temple, we did what some of the Jews that fled the city did: escape the city and head to the desert. It was in this way that we arrived at Ein Gedi, a nature preserve on the shores of the Dead Sea, considered the most beautiful place in Israel by many.
This is the point at which my story breaks off from the story of the 29 other comrades I have with me on the trip, due to things beyond my control. In Ein Gedi, we were scheduled to take a hike through the desert valley Nachal Arugut, arriving at a waterfall in the middle of the Negev desert. About a mile into the hike, though, disaster struck. I was near the back of the group in order to get the shots I wanted for my film project, and as we hiked along a section of trail that was slippery from runoff and bordered on the left side by a ravine, the girl in front of me slipped and fell, sliding under the railing that was meant to keep people on the trail. I grabbed her and attempted to pull her back up, but she kept slipping, and one of the madrichim, Tom, managed to wedge himself between her and the rail so that she was somewhat stable. We pulled her back onto the trail, at which point she began screaming and sobbing that her ankle and foot hurt. After some deliberation, it was decided that the group was already too far ahead and she needed to get medical attention, so Tom, myself, one of the teachers and another girl from the group helped our fallen comrade back toward the trailhead. She couldn't put any weight on her right leg without excruciating pain, and between her injury, shock, and the harsh nature of this trail, it took us quite some time. Around two hours after her initial fall, we were met by some of the group with a stretcher, and at this point something amazing happened: Without a word, every grown man in this group of eight or so went into the same mode of thinking and acting. Having all been in the Israeli Armed Forces (IDF), they all had the same training, and this common bond kept us going up the trail. At one point, we were all very tired, sweating in the near-100 degree (Fahrenheit) heat, and trying to maneuver a stretcher safely, and a few men came walking down the trail and wordlessly took our places for a good amount of time. Nothing needed to be said, only things to keep our injured one laughing and as happy as circumstances could have it. Roughly four hours after the initial fall, we reached the bus, where she was sent to the hospital. It turns out she broke her ankle pretty severely and had to be sent back to the States to have surgery, and probably won't be coming back for the rest of the program. The bonds I made with the other "rescuers", though, will stay with me for a long, long time.
Thankfully, after this traumatic experience, I was able to go float in the Dead Sea for a bit. Now, if you've never done this before, let me tell you--it's a trip. The saline content of the water is so high that even myself, with all that muscle on me (modest, I know), was able to float and read a newspaper without even trying. After a nice cleansing mudbath and soak in the salty bathtub that they call the Dead Sea, we all piled back into the bus and had a short trip to the Masada Youth Hostel, where we stayed for the night.
4:30 AM Friday morning.
We woke up.
It was not fun.
Then, we walked out of the hostel gate and began the ascent up the Snake Path to the top of Masada. For those of you who don't know, Masada is a big rock--okay, plateau--in the desert overlooking the Dead Sea, surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs and deep ravines. It was used by the Romans as a fortress, by Herod as a palace, and taken over by the zealots (a group of Jews that fled Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple) as their own fortress. The rock is a great natural fortress, with only the winding, exposed Snake Path on the East and the Roman ramp on the West to approach from. We began climbing the Snake Path before the sun even thought about waking up, and I made the ascent of 450m (1500ft) in just over 40 minutes, just in time to see the sun rise over the Jordanian Mountains and the Dead Sea. The beauty of the scene is beyond words, and oddly enough, as the sun peeked over the lip of the mountain range, all 30 teenagers became completely silent, overcome by the sight.
The story behind Masada is that the zealots were besieged by the Romans for a year, and when the Romans began building a massive earthen ramp to the top of the plateau and began burning the walls of the fortress, the zealots realized that they were in very dire straits. Faced with the choice of becoming enslaved and losing their Jewish identity altogether, the zealots chose not to fight the Romans. In the morning, when the Roman army breached the wall, they found only one woman alive in the entire settlement. The other 960 residents chose to commit mass suicide rather than fall into Roman hands. Looked upon for so long as a heroic act, my being at Masada and hearing the stories, watching everything unfold before my eyes completely changed my view on the zealots' decision to commit suicide. There are many pros, cons, and ways of justifying or criticizing their acts, but if I were put in their position, who knows what my decision would be.
Leaving Masada (after a yummy fresh-squeezed mango juice), we travelled far South to Kibbutz Lotan, situtated in a valley in the Arava Desert, less than 1/2 mile from the Jordanian border. Lotan was our home for the next few days, in which we learned all about agriculture and the environment while celebrating one of the biggest holidays for Jews--Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. The kibbutz only serves as a home to 24 families, making it a rather small kibbutz for the modern day, but it has a different feel to it than our home, Kibbutz Tzuba. Lotan and its neighbor, Yahel, are both very concentrated social groups in which everyone works for the common good and there is practically no personal or private property. Celebrating Rosh Hashanah in Israel was a completely different experience for me--no organ, no fancy synagogue, just a group of Jews getting together in the common lounge to celebrate the New Year. In a sense, I felt a tighter bond with these strangers merely by praying alongside them and living in their community for a few days, something I rarely feel in the States for Rosh Hashanah, or even on Tzuba. The aspect of a kehillah (community) is very much present and comforting, and is something I value as part of my Jewish identity.
After learning all about desert agriculture (oximoron, I know--it exists, though!) and learning how to build houses that are environmentally friendly, as well as all kinds of stuff about our relationship with the environment, I settled into a nice hammock and picked apart a nice sweet Rimon (pomegranate) and listened to the festivities going on around me; the laughing kids, dancing adults, old codgers shmoozing, all kinds of things. The highlight of our stay on Lotan, though, was Saturday night, when one of the kibbutzniks took us on a hike in the middle of the night to lay in the sand dunes and look up at the stars. This was when we had our Tashlich service, where one is supposed to cast off all the sins from the past year and try to be a better person. The tradition is to throw bread crumbs into a body of water to represent the sins, but seeing as we were in the middle of the desert, we settled with mentally casting off those sins into the dunes where no one would find them.
Sunday night we returned to Tzuba around midnight, moved back into the rooms, and got back into somewhat of a school routine...okay, that was a lie, we're all still pretty dead tired and trying to keep up with schoolwork, but it's coming along. Even my Hebrew seems to be improving...okay, well that was a small lie, too...I'm trying to improve in Hebrew and doing so, just very slowly.
My moment of Zen from the weekend:
As I was lying in the dunes, listening to the wind and lack of noise, I could have sworn that the sky was filled to bursting with stars. Never in my life have I seen so many stars. I even saw a shooting star, and got to make a wish to start the New Year fresh. It's kind of funny--every year at Yom Kippur, we say "Next year in Jerusalem, Next year in Israel." Well, looks like my wish finally came true--I'm in Israel, saying "Next year in Israel."
L'shanah Tovah & L'shanah Ahavah,
(May your new year be good and filled with love)
Aron
PS-I still love letters and e-mails. Look at the post before this one for my mailing address, my e-mail is aronaltmark@aol.com.
posted by aron at 3:30 PM
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