Lotan and the Arava

After making my way back into Israel through a completely painless border cross, I landed at Kibbutz Lotan. As I'm sure you know, a kibbutz is an agricultural commune where the property is owned jointly by all (read: by none). Now there are various sorts of kibbutzim: some are more Orthodox, most are secular, almost all left-wing, and they have a variety of ideologies behind their communal settlements. But within this strange group of micro-communists, there's the good folks at Kibbutz Lotan.

And by good folks, I mean creepy tree-hugging self-righteous hippies.

Naturally, I went just in order to see what they'd done with the place (note: the place = the desert).

For a good overview from their own mouths, watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yz6ggl03_0

Those domes you see aren't actually where the kibbutz members live, contrary to what the advertising video leads you to believe. Members live in semi-normal houses. The domes are where they stick people in the Green Apprenticeship Program for the duration of their stay while they learn to make mud bricks. Speaking of mud bricks, did anybody notice the use of children for construction labor in the video? They scoot right past it there, but they're a bit more vocal about their left-wing ideology of labor on one sign in the Creative Ecology Park:

"Under the Egyptians, Pharaoh made the Hebrew slaves gather their own straw and mud, but we'll gladly provide you with straw and mud here at the Creative Ecology Park!" It might as well continue: "But like under all forms of socialism, you're still slaves!" Fascinating.

At dinner the first evening I got a particularly enlightening peek into the culture of Lotan. One of the other people at the table began complaining about corn. "It's in everything!" she exclaims, and proceeds to detail the evils of corn by listing all the products in which corn is an ingredient. Finally someone asked "What's wrong with corn?" The response? "It's in everything!" Again, fascinating.

We were also told by the same girl that we needed to take eggs off the menu in order to restrict people's diet choices, since eggs are neither healthy nor vegan-friendly. Truly, the tendency of socialism to inevitably lead toward multiple avenues of total control is, yes, again, fascinating.

After escaping this hippie paradise I made a day trip through Timna Valley Park. Here are the world's oldest copper mines, dug by the Egyptians of the late New Kingdom in cooperation with the local Midianite population. The park was far larger than I'd thought, but fortunately I was driven around by a nice Russian-American family visiting relatives here in Israel for their son's Bar Mitzvah.

The park also contains a working replica of the wilderness tabernacle carried around by the Israelites that was eventually supplanted by Solomon's temple. It's a far, far better representation than the one done by Mennonites in Lancaster, PA. You just know there's quality work when various tools used in the incense offering and on the altar of burnt offerings are actually metal rather than plastic. Truly great.

Later I caught a bus to Masada. I spent the night in the wonderful hostel, followed by an early morning hike up the Snake Path in order to catch the dawn. Because of the Dead Sea, the sunrise here may just beat the dawn at Sinai. Maybe.

In any case, I also met a couple on vacation named Mark and Michelle. We went back on the same bus to Jerusalem and I ended up showing them how to find their hostel and got them oriented in the Old City. I swear, I might as well become a tour guide (too bad I'm not an Israeli citizen). And, of course, it was nice to come back to St. George's and find Ben still in the country and all the other faculty and staff happily preparing for the current course.

My apologies for the lack of pictures. The internet isn't cooperating tonight, but with a whole bunch of Easter activities beginning this week and updates to come on Palm Sunday, Bethany, and Wadi Qelt (hopefully), I figured I might as well get something up so that people know I'm well and alive. Inshallah, my pictures will be up on Facebook soon as well as the amazing videos from Sunday's mass procession.

Speaking of which: Happy Palm Sunday!

Return to St. Catherine's

Going back to St. Catherine's and Mount Sinai was great. It was very, very different from the last time I'd gone there with AIT. You've all heard me say quite a bit about the differences between going with a large commercial group and going alone as a pilgrim, so I'll spare you the obvious observations.

In any case, that wasn't even the biggest change. I purposefully set out to do things differently. First of all, I stayed in the monastery guesthouse, which competes with Fauzi Azar Inn in Nazareth as the best money spent on this trip. Something like $30 for a single room, with breakfast and dinner included, clean sheets and towels, (mostly) hot water- really great. I'd recommend staying there anytime. In addition to a few other brave travelers- a couple from Seattle, two French fellows- there was also a Romanian pilgrimage group there taking up a good number of beds. To hear them singing at dinner was a marvelous treat.

I thought about doing a dawn hike, but when my alarm rang at 4am, I decided that it just wasn't worth it. Instead, I did the smart thing, and set out for an afternoon hike to catch the dusk. The person running the cafe at the guesthouse even put me in touch with a reliable Bedouin guide. For this time, I wasn't taking the well-trod and easily-navigable camel path. No, I was going up the three thousand, seven hundred fifty Steps of Repentance.

What, you ask, are the 3750 Steps of Repentance? Well, it's a giant uneven staircase up the side of the mountain. The first 3000 are the Steps of Repentance proper; the next 750 are the ones everyone ascending to the summit has to climb once the camel path terminates. But it's not so-named simply because they're a form of penance, or because (more often) you repent of your decision to go them once you're about halfway. No, they're called the Steps of Repentance because those three thousand steps were laid and carved out by a single monk as a form of penance for some unknown sin. Talk about hardcore.

Pictured left: Boy and donkey descending the steps on our way up.

I have to say, though, they weren't nearly as bad as I'd expected. First of all, I made them my own personal devotional by doing the same as in the Negev between Succah in the Desert and Mitzpe Ramon: namely, praying the (Lutheran) rosary fourteen times before stopping to rest while reading through the Stations of the Cross. Let me tell you, fourteen breaks for prayer on the way up and down is a great way to catch your breath. Forget my own piety- I was looking forward to each and every one of those stops.

Second, the path is actually shorter since it's a fairly straight ascent. I was thoroughly surprised when the 3000 were over and I recognized the top of the camel path. What a great feeling.

And speaking of great feelings: third, I'm in far, far better shape than I was on my previous visit three months ago. Last time I took a camel up the wide and winding path and then only climbed the 750 stairs to the top, and let me tell you, I thought I was gonna die. This time, I went straight to the top and felt totally rested within minutes of reaching the summit. There has been no better confirmation that these months have whipped me into the shape that humans are supposed to be in.

Of course, I'd sent my heavy jacket back with my parents at the beginning of January, and I lost my raincoat somewhere in Galilee. Who knows. As a result, I had to buy some cheap replacements for the hike, but hey, I don't mind looking like a bum (or Kyle Reese from Terminator).

I might as well mention here that I saw no one else climbing up the steps, and that there were only about two dozen people at the top for dusk, as opposed to four hundred for sunrise.

Anyways, if you remember, there's a chapel and another building at the summit. First off, the other building is actually a mosque. My guide, Hussein, had it opened so that once we got up and had some time to kill before the sunset he could perform his afternoon prayers. As a result, I was invited to go inside and take a look- and a photo (left). Honestly, I found it to be one of the nicer mosques I've visited here.

More importantly, though, there's the chapel that they keep perpetually locked. I asked one of the Bedouins who sells tea and blankets whether the monks ever come up and open it. He replied that when there's a Greek Orthodox group staying at the monastery, they'll give them the key so they can hold a service.

As a result, everybody wonders what it looks like inside.

Well wonder no more!

No, I didn't get to go in. What I did do is climb around to the front of the church, where the windows of the sanctuary (behind the iconstasis) look over a fifty foot drop. However, there's just barely enough room to crawl out on a ledge, hang over the abyss, put one hand through the broken glass holding the camera, and snap a shot:
Of course, I can hear my mother's fury now. "You did what?!"

Naturally, I then found an easier way to get a photo. The keyholes are particularly large, so you can just look through some of them. For instance on Facebook, there's another picture of the iconostasis of a chapel near the intersection of the Camel Path and the Steps of Repentance. Well I looked in the main door at the rear of the church- this time facing the sanctuary and the iconostasis of which you can only see the rear in the above photo- and found that I could just barely get the picture:
From left to right, that's Theotokos and Child, Christos Pantocrator, and the Holy Trinity. What a perfect collection.

Oh, and, of course, here's a picture of the approaching dusk:
In due course, I also revisited the monastery itself and found something far more interesting: the monastery has Sacred Sacristy, which in layman's terms is a museum for displaying its treasures. And what treasures! Unfortunately, there's no photos allowed inside (though perhaps fortunately, given that people would inevitably- accidentally or not- use flash and destroy precious manuscripts and icons), but the items displayed are unparalleled in the world.

Because of its isolation in the Sinai desert, St. Catherine's monastery was spared the pillaging of the iconoclasts, who went around the Byzantine Empire destroying icons in the latter half of the first millennium. As a result, St. Catherine's has the very oldest Christian icons in existence, some dating to the fourth century.

Perhaps more importantly, the monastery contains a library of early manuscripts second only to the massive Vatican library. The monastery's Codex Siniaticus is one of the earliest and more reliable biblical texts in existence, and alongside the Codex Vaticanus (you may as well guess where that one is from) is foundational for the biblical text we all use today. So yes, I've now seen the Condex Siniaticus and the Aleppo Codex. Booya.

Well, after two nights I headed back to Taba, crossed the border into Eilat, and took the bus up to Kibbutz Lotan, from whence I write this post. What a strange and ridiculous place this is- but that's for the next post.

Days in the Negev

So, wow. If there's anywhere to go for Lent, it's the Negev.

As I mentioned, Succah in the Desert (Succah baMidbar) was simply amazing. I highly recommend it: under certain conditions. Alone, or with one's spouse, or with one's family including kids is the way to do it. The first night there I was the only guest, as a large German group had canceled. And yet, the hosts made me feel completely at home (to the left is a picture of the common succah where meals were served). The second night another six or eight people showed up, and it still felt very cozy.

Contrast this to Chan HaShayarot, the commercialized Bedouin camp where I stayed for the following two nights. There's no denying that the place was great; indeed, it was simply amazing. The food was incredible, including grilled chicken, ground beef kebab, delicious hummus, eggplant (yes, I'm making myself like it), and assorted other Middle Eastern dishes. Fantastic. Then there were the camels. Wonderful camels, who didn't spit and only fought with each other enough for our amusement. Very good with kids. Their lips seem to be prehensile, capable of grasping round things (namely, my fingers). The one to the right I call Joe. No, really, he was trying to get at the cigarettes in the trash bin, so I couldn't help the obvious joke!

However, Chan HaShayarot is not really the place to go alone. Go with a group of a half dozen or more. There were groups there up to a hundred people, and they got the full package. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy myself- I thoroughly did- but I had to hook up with bachelor party groups, families on holiday, and a caravan of law school students from Chicago to do so.

Back to Succah baMidbar. I might as well mention the animals. At the site, the owners keep six very, very large dogs: two Rhodesian ridgebacks, three large white Russian dogs, and a Turkish sheepdog. The greatest animal, Dov, is a big, furry, white, and very playful young pup. Yes, pup- he's just two years old. I made sure to take a picture of him next to a person for scale. Look at him! He's huge! I loved it.

They also have two donkeys, two horses, and a ton of chickens for their eggs. They cook all vegetarian meals, and let me tell you, if all vegetarians cooked this way, I could totally do it. Then again, who'd want to?

I stayed there two nights, so on my full day I made the eight kilometer hike to Mitzpe Ramon. This is the town overlooking the Ramon Crater, a massive geological formation that pictures don't capture and words can't describe (here's a picture anyway). More importantly, though, the hike through the desert really gave me the chance to reconnect with the roots of Christian spirituality: ascetic meditation while on a desert march. Lent is all about preparing oneself to suffer alongside Christ as he walks the Via Dolorosa, and in order to prepare myself, I prayed through the rosary (Lutheran version) multiple times while using a book given to me during the St. George's Palestine of Jesus course that offers up Scripture readings for the stations of the cross. There's few better ways to get through a desert hike than ritual prayer and, especially, the Prayer of the Heart, a.k.a. the Jesus Prayer. I'll have to write a post on the Prayer of the Heart at some point, because it has been a source of strength and serenity- and sometimes necessary disturbance- for me.

Well, I got to Avdat, between Mitzpe Ramon and Sde Boker (the town near Chan Hashayarot) . Avdat was a city of the Nabateans, the ancient nomads-turned-settled townsmen who controlled the trade routes between Yemen and Gaza. This route was the path along which incense and other precious goods from southern Arabia traveled into the Roman Empire. The city is the best-preserved of the stations along the Incense Route, and includes ruins from the Nabatean period (third century BC to first century AD), the Roman period, and the Byzantine period.

The highlight for me was seeing a double baptismal font at the entrance to the earlier (fourth century) church. Here there is a cruciform adult immersion pool, but below and to the left there is a smaller immersion-sized infant pool. It is magnificently preserved to the point where it could almost be used today. More importantly, it serves as an object lesson in not only how the early church baptized infants, but in how equally incapable we are before the wisdom and power and law of almighty God. We are all of us infants, going into the waters of salvation.

It wasn't long before a bus picked me up from Avdat and got me to Chan Hashayarot. After a good night in the warm tent (yes, it's true, the desert gets freezing cold at night), I took my full day there to get up to Sde Boker.

Sde Boker is one of the most famous kibbutzim in Israel. This is where the founder of modern Israel, David Ben-Gurion, settled at the end of his political career. The 'old man' (as he was known) had a long-standing interest in taming and settling the Negev.

The house he lived in today stands exactly as he left it. It is a museum testifying to his humble lifestyle through to his final days. He has numerous statues and portraits of famous figures who offered him inspiration throughout his struggle to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine; included are Buddha, Plato, Abraham Lincoln, and Mahatma Gandhi. Of course, what could be more impressive for me than the centerpiece of the house, his five thousand-volume library?

From there I hitched to the nearby Ben-Gurion University. Here are the graves of David Ben-Gurion and his wife Paula. I don't know why- I've mentioned before that I wasn't sure exactly what to do at the graves of the ancient Jewish sages in Tiberias- but I was strangely moved by being here. Something about the struggle of the Jewish people for a homeland, and forging it in the immediate shadow of the Holocaust, and the trials of the nation of Israel since then, have left me embedded with a sense that this little country is a mirror for the marginalized peoples of the world, whatever its many faults.

Happily, just by the grave site is the entrance to Ein Avdat National Park. This park contains the Wilderness of Zin nature trail, which leads from the university to a mere kilometer from Chan Hashayarot. The hike was breathtaking, leading through a wadi teeming with life in the middle of the harsh Negev desert. There's not much to say, but check Facebook for pictures.

For those of you wondering if I'm alright, I'm now in Taba, Egypt. I hitchhiked from Chan HaShayarot to Eilat thanks to the benevolence of some black dude who didn't speak of word of English but happily gave me a ride in his pickup truck. Before crossing the border I spent two hours in Eilat's Underwater Observatory Marine Park. Baltimore has nothing on this; the observatory is 4.25 meters beneath the surface of the water and allows visitors a great view of the Gulf of Aqaba's coral reef in addition to a great aquarium on the surface. It was a great way to kill a few hours before heading into Egypt.

The Taba Hilton is definitely the magnificent facility it's made out to be. But after an aquarium and a beach resort, tomorrow it's back to the desert: returning to St. Catherine's Monastery and Mount Sinai. Hard to believe it's been three months since I was there. Quite certainly, I'm in better shape now.

Pray for these final days of Lent, that they may prepare me to confront Good Friday and accept Easter Sunday.

I'll leave you with this final picture of the desert sunrise from my succah:

Quick Update

Hey all. I'm at a pizza place by a gas station waiting for a bus to the ancient trading city of Avdat, but they have wireless so I thought I'd mention that all is well. Succah in the Desert was an amazing experience. I could have spent a week there rather than two days. Highly recommended, even if the owners are total hippies. They make great vegetarian chili, though. I'll fill you in on some of the details, with pictures, later.

By the way, for those who are aware of my predicament, I'd been scheduled and booked to spent Easter in a run down little place on the Mount of Olives. That is now no longer the case! I will be back at St. George's College, which has an open room available for me. So it's back to my old stomping grounds, and I'm quite glad for it. Thank God, truly.

Well, I'm off to Avdat and two nights in the Bedouin tent of Chan Hashayarot.

Into the Desert

Well I don't have much time before I head out, but I wanted to let everyone know I was safe and alive.

I've been staying in Beersheva for the past two nights with friends of the Hewerdines, Matt and Robin Umbarger and their kids Hadassah, Matan, and Gabriel. I attended a Hebrew-language Catholic Mass with them upon arrival on Sunday, which was simply spectacular. After a year of hosting Friday night Shabbat dinners in my apartment at Messiah, you can really, really hear the continuity between the Jewish liturgy and the Mass.

Yesterday I went to Tel Beersheva, which is truly impressive. I also went to site of Abraham's Well and the Museum of Bedouin Culture. Cool stuff.

Today I'm off for my first week of the desert. I'll be two nights at Succah in the Desert in small tent-like cabins to experience desert life near the Ramon Crater; then two nights at Chan Hashayarot, a Bedouin complex where I'll sleep out in their large tents. After that, on Saturday night, I'll (hopefully) be in Taba, the border in Egypt on my way back to St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, where I'll (hopefully) have internet access.

So here begins my desert Lenten experience.

Maria's Whirlwind Tour of Israel

Well, this Saturday I dropped Maria off at Ben Gurion airport with a tearful goodbye after one of the best weeks imaginable. We managed to fit in everything we'd planned and more.

Our week began with me picking her up in Jaffa, the old Arab port city on the south of Tel Aviv. There we had the first of many marvelous dinners in which we indulged each night throughout the week, this one on the Mediterranean waterfront. We stayed at Beit Immanuel before heading out to Nazareth the following morning.

After the lengthy morning bus ride we made it to the city of Jesus' youth. We worked our way through the busy Nazareth souq- which is one of the nicest parts of the city and feels far more authentic than the busy central street running by the basilica and Mary's Well- until we got to Fauzi Azar Inn (admittedly, we had to ask three people how to get there until the signs started, but once you know it it's very easy).

Lonely Planet highly recommended Fauzi Azar as a top pick, and thought they steered me dead wrong on Squalid Walid's in Old Acre, they were absolutely right in this case. Fauzi Azar Inn is the best bang for your buck in the entire country; for $55 each we got two single rooms, endless tea and coffee on the porch overlooking the garden, a cake baked daily for the guests, and more information on the area and tour options than I've ever seen in any five star hotel lobby. This is the place to stay in Nazareth.

That afternoon we checked out Sepphoris, where I got to see the one big thing I missed on my previous visit: the late antique synagogue. Curiously, the mosaic floor of the synagogue contains a zodiac, with more distinctively Jewish symbols on the periphery.

Even better, however, we spent the evening with the Millers, so Maria got to meet Alex, Sharon, David, and Mia. That was an absolute delight; Sharon once again showed off her cooking skills by making a Lebanese fish and rice dish. We then spent a relaxing three hours talking about politics, religion, and our personal hopes and dreams. For me, it was a wonderful way to spend another night with the Millers before leaving Galilee for the last time (on this trip), and I loved getting the chance to introduce Maria to some of the great friends I've made here.

The next day we did the regular Nazareth sites: the Basilica of the Annunciation, the Orthodox Annunciation Church, Mary's Well, and Nazareth Village. We also found a bathhouse (advised by Fauzi Azar) in a nearby shop. The owners billed it as a first century Hellenistic or Roman bathhouse, which would really change our understandings of Nazareth in the time of Jesus; from touring the country and seeing many archaeological sites, I came instead to the conclusion that it was Byzantine neo-classical revival, by the time Nazareth was already a larger Christian pilgrimage site.

That afternoon we said goodbye to Fauzi Azar and Nazareth and headed off to Tiberias. Once again we had a nice dinner, but also got to Mass at St. Peter's so Maria could meet the Hewerdines; after dinner, we went up to their apartment for a few hours of conversation. Quite different from the Millers, of course, but equally wonderful. It didn't hurt that Mary cooked up some popcorn. How I've missed it!

Wednesday morning we took a bus from the central bus station to the sites on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee: the Mount of Beatitudes, Tabgha, and Capernaum. This was the beginning of the heat wave that has hit Israel and continues through to today (especially hot down here in Beersheva). Still, we made the walk up the hill from the Tabgha shore to the Franciscan monastery and Church of the Beatitudes, where an Eastern European group of some sort was singing some lovely songs. We hiked down the same path and wandered across a random grotto hewn in the rock (left) filled with candles and those unmistakable traces of the liturgy. We hiked then to Capernaum to see the spaceship church, and to Tabgha to see the far nicer Churches of the Primacy of St. Peter and of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes. It was hot, and it was well worth it.

A three hour bus ride to Jerusalem followed, and this was where Maria truly began to feel exhausted and ill. It was great to get back to St. George's, however. She got the nicer room; like my former room, it had a vaulted ceiling, but it also contained some well-varnished wood. After relaxing here for a bit we trotted over to the Armenian Quarter for dinner at the Armenian Tavern. There we had lamb shishlik, and boy was it good. We also tried a bottle of Domine de Latrun Pinot Noir, grown at the Latrun Monastery that I visited on my very first day in Israel, the same day as the infamous Mini Israel. We both agree, Latrun Pinot Noir is the very best wine we had throughout the trip, and possibly in our lives. Highly recommended.

The next day (Thursday), we got up bright and early for the 6:30am Latin High Mass in the Holy Sepulchre. By this point, I think three things had really hit her: we were smack dab in the Middle East, there's a reason I keep saying how much I want to live here, and there's a reason why if I lived here in Israel, I'd be hard-pressed to be anything but Catholic. I ought to mention that in Tiberias that Mass was said in unison, with no variation, in Italian, French, Chinese, and English, and then we got Thursday morning in Latin; in Beersheva, as I'll mention in my next post, I got to attend a Hebrew-language Catholic Mass. There's just something so... catholic about Catholicism.

But I digress.

After Mass at the Holy Sepulchre we stopped by the Garden Tomb so she could see a good example of an eighth century BC tomb and a Crusader-era water trough, and then it was off to Bethlehem. On the other side of the checkpoint we negotiated a deal whereby the cab driver would take us to the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Angels and Shepherd's Fields in Beit Sahour, with a tour of each, plus shopping, for a mere two hundred shekels total. The cab driver did that and more; he hooked us up with a Palestinian Ministry of Tourism guide who let us skip the line in the Church of the Nativity (as when I went with the Alternative Tourism Group) and took us to a wonderful shop where Maria bought a moderately-sized, tasteful olive wood nativity set. We literally knocked out Bethlehem in two and a half hours.

We were back in Jerusalem by 1pm, which turned out to be enough time to see the Citadel, the northern ramparts walk, and even see St. Anne's Church and the Pools of Bethesda (the sheep pools). That was all done by five in the afternoon, enough time to head for Ben Yehuda for dinner. By the time we were back at St. George's, we were able to sit down with Ben (the English course assistant during the Palestine of Jesus course) for a few hours and laugh at pictures of bad vestments on the eponymous blog (check it out sometime).

Friday was the big day in Jerusalem. We started the morning with a tour of excavations around the southwestern corner of the temple mount that I had blasted through with St. George's in the rain. It was wonderful to be able to spend a good deal of time there, even in the ever-increasing heat. We then proceeded outside the Old City walls to tour the City of David archaeological park and pass through Hezekiah's tunnel. Then we blasted over to the Israel Museum.

At 3pm we met up with the Franciscan procession that walks the Via Dolorosa each Friday. I'd say there were about two hundred people in the crowd following two dozen Franciscans. All the chanting and responsive speaking was in Latin, but each reading at the stations of the crosses were done in Latin, English, Italian, French, and Arabic. It was a monumental wave moving through the Old City.

We, however, only followed them up until they reached the Holy Sepulchre, as it was going to be another two hours inside the building.

Instead, we'd arranged with the Franciscans to be locked in to the Holy Sepulchre once the doors closed that evening. We'd made sure there was a Russian group being let in for services by the Greeks around midnight, since otherwise people are locked in until the doors officially open again around 4am. Still, it was about four hours of prayer with only five or so other people besides the monks cleaning the church. We were able to pray the full rosary at each of the last four stations of the cross (Christ nailed to the cross, Christ dies, Christ's body is prepared, and yes, within the holy tomb itself), as well as in the Armenian, Franciscan, Syriac chapels, at the edge of the Greek sanctuary, and in the minor chapels of Adam and St. Helena. Let me assure you: one does not 'do' the Holy Sepulchre in the midst of flashing cameras and hordes of tourists. This rugged old building, almost slapped together from pieces of architecture that vary widely between different periods and cultures, truly speaks to the mystery of God's crucifixion and resurrection in the worship of the Latin High Mass and the silence of the nighttime lock-in.

The next morning we hiked around the Mount of Olives to see the churches there- St. Stephen's Orthodox Church below the Lion's (St. Stephen's) Gate, Dominus Flevit, the exterior of the Orthodox Church of Mary Magdalene, and the Church of All Nations/Basilica of the Agony at the Garden of Gethsemane. Then we made our way to Mount Zion (the modern Christian Mount Zion, that is), to see St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Church and its more authentic Upper Room than the Crusader-era structure-turned mosque known as the Cennacle (which we also visited), as well as St. Peter in Gallicantu and Dormition Abbey.

After a bit of shopping for icons and souvenirs, we got back to St. George's and spent our last minutes just enjoying each other's company before I accompanied her in a taxi to Ben Gurion Airport.
And that was our marvelous and most wonderful week together.

Me and Maria

Yes, Maria is here, and we've had great fun blasting through the Holy Land. We've made it to Jaffa, Sepphoris, Nazareth, Capernaum, Tabgha, the Mount of Beatitudes, and now we're in Jerusalem.

She's under the weather, so pray that she gets better and I don't get sick.

That aside, we're having a marvelous time. It's amazing how much you can pack in when you make the effort.

Old Acre and Squalid Walid's

After leaving the Miller's I set off for Akko, known to the world as Acre, the Crusader city and one of the two great historic ports of Israel (the other being Jaffa, from which I now write).

The ride was fairly long, but I got there before the buses shut down for Shabbat on Friday at dusk. From the bus station I took a cab to Walied's Akko Gate Hostel, where I'd reserved a room. I think I sent the reservation in November by both phone and email, with a confirmation from the place by both media, and notified them again of my arrival by email a week and a half ago.

Unfortunately, I'd been warned. Ben, the English course assistant and student of Byzantine studies at St. George's, had warned me of 'Squalid Walid's' (it works if you rhyme it). He had said that it was simply the worst place he'd ever been, and he's stayed far afield. "There aren't bed bugs," he admitted, "just one big bed bug: that atrocious man Walied." Nonetheless, confident in my inexpensive choice and advance reservation, I headed toward Walied's.

Upon arrival, I was told that they could not find my reservation. Well, after looking at their computer screen for all of ten seconds I found my reservation and my confirmation notice, not marked 'new' or 'unopened' in any way. But!, says Walied, "Is so late, is so late." It was 5:30 pm. After attempting the polite route I took the computer monitor and shook it, saying "Here's my reservation! It's right here! I made it in November and confirmed it two weeks ago!" To no avail: there was a large group of young Israelis coming in for Shabbat, and they had all the single rooms.

Instead, "because I want to help you" says the wretched man, he takes me to one of the dorm rooms. 'Room' is perhaps too strong a word, though, as it only had three walls. It was more of a large balcony, covered in tin roofing and lacking a fourth wall. The wall-less opening looks out to the street and a rubbish reap filled with rusty old chairs. It was truly the worst place imaginable.

However, I took it, the bed being a mere twelve dollars.

Pictured: My room (second floor), with rusty chairs and rubbish heap

The night was wretched, albeit in a hilarious way. My dorm mates were European continentals on holiday, smoking their way across Israel, and they opened the festivities by (sarcastically) complaining that the room, lacking an exterior wall, didn't have any windows. I have to admit, they set me in a good mood as I dozed off, tucked in my sleeping bag for fear of Squalid Walid's sheets.

At two in the morning, the street livened up with drunk teenagers. Eventually I got back to sleep by four, just in time for the 5:30 am call of the muzzein from the neighboring mosque. By that point, I was simply laughing.

Now, this ends well, I must admit, because Old Acre- which I took the following day to explore- is simply amazing. I've said Safed is like a cleaned up Old City Jerusalem. Old Acre is too, but moreso; it's an authentic mix of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Baha'i, and Druze (in other words, all the religions in the Israeli rainbow), but it's less touristy, less tacky, totally cleaned up, and right by the seashore. In other words, I highly recommend it for a honeymoon.

It's hard to decide whether the highlight is the Crusader fortress, known as the Knight's Hall, or the port itself.

The Knight's Hall was the headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller following the defeat of the Crusaders at the Horns of Hattin by Saladin in 1187 and their subsequent withdrawal from Jerusalem. Here they ran a hospice for pilgrims, who were given medical treatment following their long journey and, of course, the Eucharist. For me, personally, it was meaningful to be here since it connected me with the long line of pilgrims who have trod this path before me.

The port is the other great feature of Old Acre, with its numerous restaurants and seaside walk. The old city sticks out on a promontory surrounded on three sides by water, which is what made it a strategic location throughout its three thousand year history. The fourth side is protected by the monumental Land Wall, which has a nice walk along its rampart. The Sea Wall, however, is a far more romantic walk, as the Land Wall appears to be under perpetual construction.

After a late lunch at the Abu Christo restaurant where I had some delicious 'sea fish,' I trekked back over to the bus station and caught the first bus to Tel Aviv-Jaffa.

For the record, Maria got here safely. We had a wonderful waterfront dinner in Old Jaffa. She's leaning on my shoulder as I finish typing. Wish us a good week running where Jesus walked.

Sepphoris

Lets see if I can squeeze in another post.

Before leaving Libi's, I contacted the Millers- the family I had been with in Nazareth- to see if I could stay at their place on Thursday night. My hope was that by doing so I'd be able to get to one of the places I didn't reach while I was sick and off the trail: Sepphoris.

Sepphoris was an old city at the time when Herod the Great died and his son Herod Antipas inherited the Galilee, in 4 BC. However, it had recently been destroyed during the civil wars and Roman interventions that racked Israel in the second half of the first century BC. Thus after being established as the ruler of Galilee (and Perea across the Jordan opposite Samaria), Antipas began a renovation program in this city to make it his capital. Eventually he abandoned his landlocked city for the more luxurious Tiberias, which he began building between AD 17 and 20 on the Sea of Galilee and named after the then-ruling Roman emperor. Sepphoris, however, remained a centrally fortified location at the crossroads of the Galilee. It was here that Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi compiled oral traditions of Judaism known as the Mishnah.

So with my pack on my back, I hoped on the bus in Kiryat Shmona and made my way down to the bus station at the modern town of Tzippori. From there it was a two mile walk to the site, but lets face it: Sepphoris is important.

Today, the site is most known for its beautiful mosaics. Pictured below- and I highly recommend maximizing it- is a mosaic floor in a Roman-style villa that pictures scenes from the life of the god Dionysus.


The central image is particularly hilarious. It depicts a drinking contest between Heracles, on the left, and Dionysus, on the right. Dionysus has won and holds up his empty jug upside down above the onlookers. Heracles, on the other hand, is still drinking, and has even dropped his famous club due to the intoxication. Yes, this was the decoration on the dining room floor in Roman Sepphoris.
The other great mosaic at Sepphoris is in the lower city. This great mosaic depicts a Nile-related festival. The Nilometer, which measures the height of the water in the river, is marked at 17; 16 was an exceptionally good year, which means this is a fantastic year. The more water, the higher the agricultural output, and thus the higher the tax revenues. Throughout the rest of the mosaic, the celebrations ensue.
Sepphoris also boasted a remarkable water system and has a nicely preserved cardo. You can see pictures of both on Facebook.

From there I hiked back to the road and waited at the bus stop, where the bus flew by me despite my frantic waving. So I hitched a ride (again) and made my way to the Miller's, where I had a wonderful evening. I also finally got a picture of David (with Mia), so now all the Millers are photographically documented.

Banias and Nimrud

So the next morning I woke up again bright and early to be dropped off at the same junction. Banias is a bit farther down the road from Dan and, since I'd now had a couple good experiences with hitch hiking, I just stuck my finger out (you point to the road in Israel rather than raise your thumb) and waited for a ride. Some guys were nice enough to pick me up after a couple exasperating minutes, and I was on my way to Banias.

Now, to understand how my day went, you'll have to understand the topography. The drop-off junction and Dan sit on the northern end of the Hula Valley, and then to the east the ground begins to rise up toward the slopes of Mount Hermon and the Golan Heights. At the lowest point are the Banias Falls, a magnificent waterfall along the Banias Stream that runs south from the springs and into the Jordan River. Farther up are the springs themselves, at the site of Banias (the shrine of the god Pan) and first century Caesarea Philippi. Then the foothills of Mount Hermon really begin to rise until you get up to the first peak, upon which towers Nimrud Fortress. So my day was all uphill- as you can see in the picture, taken from near the beginning at the falls with Nimrud on the high peak above. Yeah, I hiked that.

So at the ticket office to the park, they told me there was a trail from Banias Falls to the Banias Spring, and from there way up to Nimrud. So I just entered the park from there and set out. This turned out to be true, but only after a very long period of thinking it quite false. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As I said, if Dan was Narnia, this was Middle Earth. Look at that waterfall! At the site I actually met two Israelis who I chatted with for a bit on the trail, and they took my picture at the viewing platform. The water was high and fast due to the great winter rains we've had here, a true blessing for this parched country. When it rains, you hold a party- water is just that important (and expensive) here.

So I headed up the trail to the springs, which was even more pleasant and wonder-filled than the paths around Dan. There was another flour mill, a Druze fellow selling 'Druze pita' nearby, and a Roman bridge. Now I've already been to Banias on this trip way back with my parents at AIT, but we missed what I think is one of the more interesting things at the site: the palace of Agrippa II.

While the site of the springs had long been a sacred place for the local people and associated with the satyr god Pan, the place only came to real prominence when Herod Philip inherited it in 4 BC upon the death of his father, Herod the Great. As Herod had built Caesarea Maritima as a luxurious palace and port city for himself, so his soon built a Caesarea- named Philippi after himself- as his capital for his northern territories (Herod Antipas, who executed John the Baptist and presided at Jesus' trial, would build his own cities, Sepphoris and Tiberias, the former of which I'll get to in another post). Thus the site became Caesarea Philippi, and this was the place where Peter made his great confession: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

After Herod Philip died in AD 34, the city was incorporated first into the territories of his nephew Marcus Julius Agrippa I (the Herod Agrippa I of the first half of Acts), and then into the Roman territories. His son, Agrippa II (of the second half of Acts), supported Rome during the Great Jewish Revolt. As a result, the city was gifted to him as a personal fiefdom. Pictured here are the ruins of his palace complex, discovered in the mid-90s and still under excavation.

So I passed pretty quickly past the site of the shrine, although I stopped to take a couple more pictures, and headed up the trail toward the lookout. At the lookout you can see down to the whole city, both the Banias Shrine and the palaces of Caesarea Philippi. In fact, you can see straight across to the waterfall.

The Banias Lookout is also the beginning of the trail that goes up the mountain from the springs to Nimrud. And indeed, there was a sign, 'To Nimrud,' and you could see the fortress towering in the distance. Unfortunately, there was no visible trail; rather, there was a lengthy field of ugly, jagged rocks which were nearly impossible to walk over. To make things worse, the sign pointed away from Nimrud, down the south side of the ridge, while the ridge line actually leading up to Nimrud was simply covered with more rocks. So I stuck a middle path between the two and headed out anyway.

This was probably a dumb idea, because after an hour I found myself near the bottom of the ridge near a large sheep pen. Dogs guarding the sheep noticed me and began barking and growling wildly, so I huffed and puffed my way back up toward the ridge, following very thin goat paths through the rocks. Then there were sticker bushes that I've since discovered gave me a bunch of tiny cuts on my hands, but I was far too tired at the time to notice.

I also came across some cows. I asked them directions, but they were not forthcoming.

Eventually, however, working my way back up to the top of the ridge, I found the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen: a white streak of paint with two red streaks paralleling it on either side. A trail marker! You can't imagine my relief.

After another hour of following this strangely well-marked trail, Nimrud loomed before me.
Nimrud, by the way, is not a genuine Crusader castle. That is not to say it didn't play a role in the Crusades, but rather that it was built and primarily used by the Muslims, not the Crusaders. Nonetheless it was quite impressive, spanning the length of the upper ridge at the peak of the mountain. There isn't too much to say about it, but it was a great reward after that grueling and doubt-filled hike.
So how did I get back? That wonderfully Middle Eastern combination of Providence and hospitality, of course.

Lo and behold, here at Nimrud, I ran into the same people I'd met down at the Banias Falls earlier in the day. Seeing that I was pretty tired, they said they'd give me a ride wherever I needed to go if I could just help them figure out a couple things about the fortress. Naturally, I had my Kindle on me with Jerome Murphy-O'Conner's Oxford Archaeological Guide to the Holy Land, and we found it in short order. After giving me a couple minutes to check out the fortress (which involved me virtually sprinting across the ridgeline to get from the fortress gate to the central keep), they drove me straight down the mountain and dropped me off at the junction where I was due to meet Libi.

All the doubt and worry came to nothing. It was an unbelievable day. I once again got to see everything I wanted to see, and experienced so much more.

I also got the chance to spend a nice relaxing evening at Libi's kibbutz, Lahavot Ha-Bashan. They had a falafel truck that comes in on Wednesdays, which was the perfect snack after the hike, and a bunch of dogs playing in the park with her daughter, Yarden (above).

There was this small dog, Bobo, who seemed like he needed a pet. So I bent down to scratch him, and he went after my hat! Much to Maria's dismay, the hat still functions, and as long as it can actually stay on my head, I'm going to wear it.

Kibbutz and Tel Dan

I'm finally in a place where I can upload pictures! Since there's no way I can get them all on here, I highly, highly recommend going to my Facebook albums and checking out the pictures of the Tel Dan and Banias nature reserves. They're some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, no kidding.

This will be quite a bit of posting since I've been busier this past week than almost any time on my pilgrimage. But enjoy, because I certainly have.

As I said, after going through Safed I made my way to Qiryat Shmona, a town in the far north of Israel on the Lebanese border. There I was picked up by Libi, whom I contacted through the networking site Couch Surfing. She turned out to be ideally located and a warmly hospitable host (Libi, if you're reading this, remind me to give you a good recommendation on CS).

So after dinner I sacked out on the couch. The following morning she drove me to a junction on her way to work where it was a fairly easy walk to Kibbutz Dan (pictured: "a fairly easy walk"). On the way I passed by the Helicopter Memorial, dedicated to 73 IDF soldiers who died in a collision between two helicopters during military actions against Hezbollah in 1997. It's one of the more tasteful and moving memorials I've seen.

Navigating Kibbutz Dan was fairly easy, since it's all built along a central road that runs from the gated entrance to the northern rear end of the settlement. There sits the Ussishkin Museum, or Beit Ussishkin. The museum serves to orient the visitor on their way to the Tel Dan Nature Reserve, containing exhibits both on the natural history and environment of the Upper Galilee as well as the archaeology of the tel. I think it took me an hour to get through its two rooms. For anyone going on their own to Tel Dan, I highly recommend a visit here first.

Then I got to Tel Dan, which turned out to be one of the unexpected highlights. If Gamla- and Banias and Nimrud- were like stepping in to Middle East, this was stepping into Narnia. The place is like something out of a fairy tale. Numerous springs bubble up throughout the reserve, which feed the Dan River which meets up with the Banias Stream to form the Jordan River. Walking around, one finds centuries-old buildings scattered about the reserve, like the flour mill to the left.

I think I ended up spending about three hours on the reserve exploring the trails and walking past some of the most random and heartwarming oddities, like the Winnie the Pooh Tree (right).

The reason I'd gone, of course, was to see the sites of the Israelite and Canaanite cities that existed here three thousand years ago. The Canaanite city variously called Lashem or Laish was inhabited by the mid-second millennium. It is mentioned in contemporary texts as a trading center, a sort of gateway to the land of Canaan.

Central to the life of any Middle-to-Late Bronze or Early Iron Age city was the city gate. This was the place where people congregated, bought and sold wears, and lifted up their grievances to the chief magistrates. The Canaanite city gate is extraordinarily important as an archaeological artifact. After falling into disuse it was filled in with earth, preserving its greatest treasure for posterity: an arched gateway, a thousand years before the Romans popularized the archway as an engineering staple.

You can see in the picture above the archway that is the same color as the adjacent towers. It is filled in with darker earth, into which archaeologists have carved out a doorway to allow them to explore and excavate the inner gate's courtyard.

After Joshua carved out a place for the Hebrew refugees in the land of Canaan, the Danites settled along the shores between Jaffa and Gaza. They were deeply unsatisfied with this, however, and decided to move north and strike against the unsuspecting inhabitants of Canaanite Leshem. They took the city and rebuilt it as their own.

The Israelite city gate and its plazas have been preserved and restored by archaeologists, although there's a lack of signs which make it difficult to make out everything. One interesting ruin of note, however, is the throne of the king (or magistrate), who would sit at the gate to hear pleas from his city's inhabitants.

However, I thought the other Israelite center was a bit more interesting than the gate. This was the sacred precinct. When Rehoboam succeeded his father Solomon and raised the taxes across the United Monarchy, the populist Jeroboam led a rebellion in which the ten tribes of the north broke off from Judah and the Davidic leaders of the south. However, because Judah controlled Jerusalem, people continued to travel into the southern kingdom on pilgrimage. In order to prevent his people from being propagandized when journeying through the Kingdom of Judah, he set up alternative centers of worship at Dan and Bethel- the far north and south of his kingdom.

Here the sacrificial altar and altar of burnt offerings have been preserved. As you can see in the photo, the site administrators have put up a metal frame to represent the original size of the altar of burning. The steps on the right lead up to the sacrificial plaza.

So after all this, I walked back toward the place where Libi was due to pick me up. Fortunately I called her, and found out that she'd try to call me earlier and tell me that she'd be stuck at the college where she works for another two hours. So I hitched a ride to Kiryat Shmona (hitch hiking is very popular in the Upper Galilee and the Golan, and people almost always stop to pick you up eventually) where I found the college. There she was sitting in on a book club where a yogi was teaching students about the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred epic of Hinduism. So I got to sit in on that before heading back with her to get to sleep.

P.S. If you ever want to hear me rant Hinduism and why it's not philosophically viable, let me know and I'll be sure to do so.

And that was my very full day exploring the Tel Dan Nature Reserve.