The Land of Milk and Honey

A couple days ago, traveling through the Galilee with Andy & Peggy, Fran and Gidon, we stopped for the night at Moshav Tzipori. It was our first night on the road. That morning we had driven north, and had stopped to see the mosaics at Tzipori. Tzipori became the center of Jewish culture after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin had been moved to Tzipori, and the Mishnah was edited there. Tzipori is unique in ways, on account of its accomodation with the Romans. For example, the shul (B'et K'nesset) housed mosaics depicting the Jewish zodiac (!), and many biblical scenes, including the Akeidah. Of course, seeing the tableau of Abraham, Isaac, and the ram gave me a chance to hold forth on the genius of Abraham, and the real story of the Akeidah, as expounded earlier on this very blog. How Abraham ended human sacrifice, and changed the world.

Once done with the mosaics, and after dining to excess in the tiny Arab village of K'Far Kana, we found our way to the bed & breakfast in Moshav Tzipori, just a stone's throw from the ancient ruins. The Moshav was the stillest place I could ever remember in all of Israel. In the Golan, even when we were all alone, and far from any civilization, the wind was blowing constantly; and I can't recall any particular noise in the Negev, but maybe because we were riding around in a jeep, or hiking over rocks, but I don't have any impression of stillness in the desert. Here in the Galilee, at this tiny inn on a Moshav nestled among several hills, the only sound was the birds and the frogs. From the inn we had a view down into a neighboring valley where another Arab village sat, but far enough away that we could barely hear the call to prayer.

The folks who ran our inn also made olive oil, honey, and red wine. At night we drank the wine, as we sat in the Galil with old friends, and tried our best to solve most of the world's problems. In the morning, we had the olive oil as part of our breakfast. We never actually tasted the honey.

In the late afternoon, before we drank the wine, Susan and I hiked up to the top of one of the surrounding hills. The hill wasn't really steep,and it flattened out on top, where we found a working dairy farm. Couple hundred cows all waiting to be milked. And then I realized, we were in the land of milk and honey. My mental picture of biblical Israel is always arid and stark - a desert dotted with oases - tents pitched close to some well where the only water could be found - and in the background, the Dead Sea. But here, in the Galil, Israel is nothing like that. Here the land is lush and green. And to be here in the spring, with everything so green, with all the wildflowers in bloom, with the fruit orchards blossoming, it really did seem like paradise. For me, it was more than another beautiful sight in the ancient land. It was one more epiphany. Finding myself in the land of milk and honey gave me a further chance to understand why this land has meant so much to my people, for so long a time.