Wandering Through The Desert

They were either the smartest or the stupidest people of their day. People in the 3rd century carved underground caves out of the chalky rock at Bet Guvrin creating elaborate homes, cisterns, bathing facilities and places of worship – all underground. Their handiwork is amazing. The brilliance of the better-than-air-conditioning coolness of their underground dwellings is remarkable and made us loathe leaving them only to return to the 113 degree desert heat.

And that’s exactly the issue. What the hell would make anyone want to live in a remote area in the middle of the desert?! And if they were advanced enough to chisel intricate rooms, cisterns and stairs out of sheer underground rock, why weren’t they able to figure out how to get themselves somewhere nice, coastal and attempt to build the first condos?

I can imagine that in cooler weather there was some nice fertile land and good sheep raising territory. More importantly, they had an underground supply of water. But still….really?!

And it didn’t start with them. Archaeologists found smaller caves with artifacts as old as the Hellenistic period. People were worshiping Aphrodite out there. What about that desert says love and desire?

However, thanks to their handiwork, we enjoyed crawling through their caves and it worked out to be a very cool (literally) experience. Emily had needed to crawl through caves and got her fix.

Just over an hour of driving later took us to a whole new level of desert – below sea level. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on Earth, but luckily was a high point of our trip. It’s not overly complex – pay, float, rub mud all over you, float, rinse, drink a lot of water, leave.

That’s at least the traveler’s version. The reasons for the existence of the Dead Sea – both scientific and biblical – the rich mineral value, the healing properties, the incredible value of it’s extracts and the view across to Jordan are all full topics in and of themselves.

Emily foolishly and despite posted warnings, took a taste of the water. It is beyond concentrated salt water. She claims to have tasted the minerals and of course burning. What was surprising to us was just how much of the famous Dead Sea mud was at the shore where we entered the water. We just reached in and scooped it off the bottom with our hands. I don’t recall walking through mud at all on my last trip – but we were on a different beach.

The best part of our Dead Sea experience – as we walked out of the water through the muddy patches, Emily’s right leg fell through the mud up to her thigh, as if into quicksand. About the same time, I slid in to another pocket up to my left knee. Some chaos ensued and we managed to free ourselves and each other – leaving us to flee the Dead Sea. Lessons: be careful on the mud banks and do not anger the Dead Sea.

We then zipped back to New Jerusalem to grab dinner where we found ourselves enjoying walking around the very busy, young and alive town center at Ben Yehuda Street – which is much like LA’s Third Street Promenade. And there, at the end of the street, in an open square were a group of Hassidic youth blasting fast paced techno-klezmer dance music and jumping around like it was a Hassidic rave.

As we left town after a nice meal and stroll – we saw the leaders of the Hassidic dance party rolling through town in a van that looked remarkably like Scooby Doo’s Mystery Machine blasting their special brand of Hassidic house music and yelling at crowds to celebrate. We think this had something to do with Rosh Hashanah coming, but are unsure.

“Follow them!” Emily said. But traffic and our route didn’t allow. They were the most party-centric Hassids I’d ever seen.

And then it went from happy Hassids to condescending ones. As we returned our rental car, a group of 19-20 year old Yeshiva students from England and Switzerland were at the counter getting a car. They studied at a large Yeshiva in Jerusalem, but were using the end of their summer holidays to travel around Israel – black caftans and all.

They asked us about the heat of the day and our car – since the one we returned was about to go to them. One said that it was so hot and it sucks to wear such heavy clothes in the heat. “It’s a lot of trouble, you don’t want to be Jewish.”

And every negative stereotype I have about Hassids was fulfilled in that moment.

“Well, we happen to be Jewish,” I responded quickly.

“I meant Jewish like us…” the guy said realizing he had offended us – but also looking at us like we couldn’t be real Jews if we were wearing shorts and t-shirts.

Israel stands in part because my grandfather – who was agnostic much of his life, but who died feeling Jewish – fought Nazis, gave money to Israel and personally traveled to Israel to help holocaust survivor cousins. Though his belief in religion wavered at different points of his life, he consistently gave of himself as a Jew. What right does anyone have to question? And who is good enough to own the monopoly on Judaism?

But it is a debate in Israel and it unfortunately affects Israeli politics and much of the discussion surrounding the West Bank and settlements. It is one of Israel’s great challenges.

For me, that comment was the most offensive thing anyone has said to me here – and in my view, undermines the very idea of Israel. After all, when you spend your life in a society where people often don’t know what a Jew is, have stereotypes about Jews and in which Jews struggle to be Jewish – what good is a country of and for Jews if you then have to defend your being Jewish enough?

Aside from that, we wandered the desert, had a great time, returned and were exhausted beyond belief. Why? How? We can’t figure it out. Everything takes longer than we expect. The desert heat must be draining despite the air conditioning in our car. The Dead Sea had its hottest day of the year at well about 115 degrees…. And the car rental people – who run the most disorganized office in the world – were draining.

My only real conclusion – only one day exhausted us. How could a group of Jews go wandering through that for 40 years?

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