Kibbutz, Dan and Kabbalah

Erev tov, good evening,

Today was once again a long and eventful day, which culminated in still no luggage for me, but we will discuss that later.

This morning began with a 7:30 walking tour of the kibbutz (which I explained in the last post). We saw how the people actually live and where they farm. The kibbutz members live in very small houses, but at least they do have running water these days. Young adults who return to the kibbutz live in their own places, but they are not the same size that a family would live in. For young adults and for children they have organized programming. Children go to the "children's houses" before and after school for community building, activities, games, play...basically it is like a daycare. By high school, they go to school farther away and so this type of thing cannot happen as easily. In all cases however, they strive to create for the children, and all people, community. We saw the synagogue, well one of them. There we learned that tis kibbutz is one of the largest suppliers of synagogue furniture in the world, and they even supply to some churches. As you look around the synagogue, the men sit in the middle and the women sit on either side behind strings of beads that separate them. I did count the pillars in the main area to be sure that there were twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel, and there were. It was interesting to see how these people live in such simple conditions, but not to the extreme point of asceticism. They just have different priorities than owning things or watching tv or playing around too much on the computer. They are a socialist society, in that they share everything, which may not be the way for me, but it sure works for them.

Next, we visited Tel Dan, which is where the Dan spring stats, which is the start of the Jordan River. Yes, I got pictures. Later, we took pictures of the actual Jordan River, but I bet you anything that this was not where John did his baptizing. The water was a bit rough and fast. Nevertheless, it was neat to see this river that is discussed throughout the Bible (Jesus' baptism, Joshua crosses it, etc.) On the same hike, we visited the Biblical city of Dan, which was of the northern kingdom. It was more ruins, but it was different ruins than most that I see. For one, the rocks were not cut, just built up. Also, there was a place for sacrifice, an altar, which would have been built by the Israelites before it wasn't allowed. I was walking around in a truly Biblical city from during the monarchy, after the split of Israel and Judah, and it was pretty cool. Today, I walked where the northern kings walked.

Also, as we drove through this northern edge of Israel, we could see both Jordan and Syria, showing how thin the land of Israel was both now and some years ago. We also heard some shelling, but I won't worry you about that.

After lunch in a Kosher food court, we went to Tzfat, a Jewish city known for mysticism, Kabalah. We met a Kabalistic artist who showed us some of his work, which all has to do with Jewish mysticism, and explained very briefly some of Jewish mysticism. I actually bought one of his pieces, because it say "there is no other than God" in Hebrew. He explained that they read this passage and remember that everything that happens, God is there with you and he will bring good out of it. God is always with us. I liked that, and bought the piece to hang in my seminary apartment, in hopes that some day I can read it, and in the meantime know what it means.

When we returned from our travels, I went to the front desk to retrieve my luggage, and discovered that it still was not there. After many phone calls, my guide managed to get a hold of the airport who said that they tried to deliver the luggage. The hotel says that nobody tried to deliver luggage. So, tomorrow I will be wearing the garb of a kibbutz member, a skirt and loose shirt. It will be an interesting experience when I shall be on a boat on the sea of Galilee, but I am very grateful to the kibbutz. They have been extremely helpful in loaning me clothing and opening the store after it closed so we could get me everything I needed. I will leave this place with fond memories of the kibbutz and not so fond memories of the airlines.

So, after a long night of hunting down clothing, I bid you good night, laila tov.