Biblical Text and Natural Context
3 July 2008, tour leader Barak Zemer
Submitted by Zack Colman
3 July 2008, tour leader Barak Zemer
Submitted by Zack Colman
Today’s tour was dedicated to exploring the natural surroundings in the Judean Hills to the west of Jerusalem, and included a visit to the Avshalom Cave (also called Soreq Cave) and the biblical landscape reserve known as Ne’ot Kedumim.
The Stalactite Cave Nature Reserve is a 500-square-meter cave on the western slopes of the Judean Hills outside the city of Beit Shemesh. What would a cave chock full of stalactites and stalagmites have to do with the history of Jerusalem? Aside from the fact this cave has existed long before the time period we’re covering, it has pretty much nothing to do with our course. But we enjoyed it, although I’d venture to say the on-site tour guide, who managed to turn every curve and peak into an important historical figure, had far more fun. It’s interesting to put the time period of the cave and that of Jerusalem into perspective, though. As our regular tour guide Barak has so often pointed out, “America was born yesterday compared to Jerusalem,” but Jerusalem was created just as I typed these last words in comparison to the cave. Jerusalem, a city with thousands of years of history, is just a drop in the bucket compared to a cave that claims formations more than a million years in age.
After the caves, we traveled back to the Land of the Bible when we arrived at Ne’ot Kedumim, the world’s only biblical landscape reserve. The idea here is to link biblical text with natural and agricultural reality. To quote from their website (http://www.n-k.org.il/public/english/what/what.htm): “By reuniting text and context, Ne’ot Kedumim opens up before the visitor Israel's nature as the idiom of the Bible. The symbols, prayers, and holidays of the Jewish and Christian heritage, observed and preserved for thousands of years, blossom in a new and colorful dimension.” Everything here was grown in biblical times, including the seven species that symbolize the fertility of the land promised to the Israelites (Deuteronomy 8:8): wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. We also sampled the fruit of the native sycamores (about the only thing ripe at this time) and the grapes (which, as we found out, were not so ripe… and had seeds). Led by our Israeli guide for the day, Galit (a PhD student in clinical psychology who has been working at the site for ten years), we collected herbs and plants that we were later able to incorporate in the biblical meal we prepared, including hyssop or za’tar) (which we ground up with a mortar and pestle), capers, grape leaves, After hiking about the landscape where we able to see an actual wine press, olive press, and cistern in operation 1700 years ago, we were set the task of preparing a meal over open flame and with minimal supplies. We learned what it was like to prepare a meal, which seemed an arduous process that could consume an entire day. Considering it took up to three hours to make flour, which was done by grinding wheat in between two large, stone circles, blood and sweat probably were significant ingredients to every meal.
Had we been making the meal in actual biblical time, though, it would have been more difficult for another reason. This year is the final year of the biblical seven-year agricultural cycle known as the shemitah (literally, “release”) year. Among the places in the Bible we find the procedures to be followed is Leviticus 25:1-7: "God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, telling him to speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land must be given a rest period, a sabbath to God. For six years you may plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and harvest your crops, but the seventh year is a sabbath of sabbaths for the land. It is God's sabbath during which you may not plant your fields, nor prune your vineyards. Do not harvest crops that grow on their own and do not gather the grapes on your unpruned vines, since it is a year of rest for the land. [What grows while] the land is resting may be eaten by you, by your male and female slaves, and by the employees and resident hands who live with you. All the crops shall be eaten by the domestic and wild animals that are in your land." Thus, in accordance with Jewish law, fields in the Land of Israel must lay fallow. This happens every seventh year, much like Jews rest every seventh day. Nevertheless, beginning in Talmudic times, the Rabbis created halakhic (religious-legal) devices that allowed farms to remain economically viable while still giving heed to the biblical injunction. (For a brief overview of this complicated legal reasoning, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmita). Luckily, contemporary religious authorities have also found ways to modify this policy because of the economic hardship it would cause the country, but not all farms are in full production. But we aren’t in biblical times, thankfully, because I think preparing a meal in biblical times is something many of us could hardly fathom doing–and then we did it. We didn’t quite make the wheat, grab the water from the cistern or smash the olives into olive oil, but we made everything from scratch and cooked it all over an open flame. It was definitely one of the big highlights of the trip thus far. Marc pointed such exercises are common in the Israeli context as a means of fostering group solidarity and leadership. After all was said and done, we had our biblical meal (all vegetarian, of course). We made everything from tehina to grape leaves to pita and bourekas from scratch. And Eric Mally cut a great watermelon.
It was truly a day to remember.
