Sataf: From Wandering to the Promised Land

As usual we started today by talking about a couple of current issues affecting Am Yisrael one way or another. The first is the change that has happened in Turkey over the past several years. Asia Minor is one of the areas in the Middle East that has traditionally been a major center of power (along with Mesopotamia and Egypt), and while the end of the Ottoman Empire after World War I decreased the area's importance, it would be shortsighted to assume it won't one day return to its traditional place of prominence. For many years Israel and Turkey cooperated quite closely, especially in military matters. Most of the Middle East is Sunni Muslim, and Israel has tended to have good relationships with any state that doesn't fit that description (e.g. Turkey and Iran, ironically enough). Since Erdogan, the current Prime Minister, came to power, however, Turkey has taken a sharp turn toward Islam (obviously his time as Prime Minister is not the only factor, but it's certainly a major one), and this has led to a less collegial relationship between us. Whether or not this is likely to be our future relationship with Turkey is an important question for Israel.
We also briefly mentioned this article in which a prominent Knesset member refers to Reform Judaism (the high school for whom I work is part of the Reform Movement) as "not Judaism" and "another religion." As you can imagine this is a major problem for those of who are associated with the Reform Movement. While this denigration of liberal Judaism isn't unusual in Israel (the joke in Israel is "the shul I don't go to is Orthodox"), this instance is particularly egregious since the Knesset member chairs a committee that deals with questions such as "Who is a Jew?". This is an issue we'll talk much more about when we talk about what it means to have a Jewish state.
After these less-than-optimistic current events we spent the rest of the day walking around the beautiful Sataf. Obviously we had to start the day with some pictures:

After current events the first thing we talk about when on tiyul is where we are. Today, as you may have surmised from the title, we were at Sataf. You can see mountains behind the students, but what you can't see is the nahal (dry river) below them. This nahal is called Nahal Sorek, and if you open your Tanakh you'll see that this is where Delilah (of Samson and Delilah fame) lived. To this day it blows my mind to be able to read about a site where I'm currently standing and see that it's the same place that's mentioned in the Tanakh. I'm pretty sure the students felt the same way. (I think this is especially true for Americans where "old" can mean a couple hundred years rather than a few thousand, the norm in Israel)
Jumping back into history we began our day by talking about one of the seminal events in Jewish History: Matan Torah (the giving of the Torah). As we mentioned in previous classes one of the most important parts of this episode is the fact that Hashem appears before all of Am Yisrael. This is in stark contrast to other religions, such as Islam and Christianity, in which God passes his message to one central figure (e.g. Mohammed or Jesus) who then passes it along to the masses. In my opinion this makes it much harder to simply deny the truth of the Tanakh by pointing out logical inconsistencies or scientific impossibilities (though I, myself, still certainly have lots of unanswered questions). It is also a tradition in Judaism that all Jews--living, dead, converts, everyone--were at Mt. Sinai. One of the other teachers here often tells the story of a shabbat dinner he went to with a family in Israel. He'd never met them before, but when he showed up at the door the man who answered told him that he looked familiar. Our teacher, trying to be polite, explained that he was really pretty sure that they'd never met, to which the man responded "I think I might have stood near you at Mt. Sinai". Whether you believe in the literal truth of this tradition or not I think it's a lovely idea that ALL of Am Yisrael received Torah from Sinai.
Having received the Torah we (Am Yisrael) headed for the promised land. Those of you familiar with the Tanakh are no doubt thinking to yourselves that I skipped a major part of the story. What about the 40 years of wandering? Actually, Am Yisrael went straight to Canaan. When we arrived we sent in 12 spies (one from each tribe) to check out the land. They sent back glowing reports of the land's fecundity. But, according to the spies, the land was inhabited by giants, and they were far too numerous to be defeated. Of the 12 only two were willing to trust Hashem and enter the land: Caleb and Joshua. While it's easy to judge people who specifically defy Hashem's will (though, seriously, how often do each of us really do what we think Hashem would want in our day-to-day lives?) we have to remember that this was an entire generation brought up as slaves. Not only were they slaves, but all of Am Yisrael had been nothing but slaves for generations. Perhaps this is why Moshe, who was never a slave, was able to lead Am Yisrael out of Mitzrayim (Egypt). At any rate Hashem realizes this generation isn't capable of conquering the land and so he sends them out to wander in the desert for 40 years until the entire generation dies off. The only member of the slave generation who's going to get to see the promised land? Joshua.
We do our time out in the desert (with more than a little bit of whining) and finally after 40 years we come back to Canaan and our ready to cross into the land. But there's still one person with us who's not allowed to enter the promised land: Moshe. Hashem doesn't allow him to enter Canaan and sends him off to die alone on a mountain. Tough deal for Moshe. The text explains that this is punishment for an incident in the desert in which Hashem told Moshe to ask a rock for water but instead Moshe hit the rock. Another explanation purports that this is Moshe's punishment for killing an Egyptian (which he does when he sees the Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave). In either case this seems like a pretty harsh punishment. Moshe has not only been a faithful servant for the majority of his life, but he did it while putting up with 40 years of kvetching Jews! In my opinion a more compelling reason is that Hashem didn't want our ancestors to become the people of Moshe. Moshe led us out of Egypt, received the Torah and brought us to the holy land. It's easy to imagine the people starting to revere him as more than human. To prevent that from happening Hashem has Moshe pass the leadership to Yehoshua (Joshua) before Am Yisrael enters the promised land. This also explains why the text specifically says that we don't know where Moshe is buried; Hashem/the authors didn't want Moshe's grave to turn into a shrine. (I also like to believe that after Am Yisrael had gone into the promised land Hashem let Moshe go in and check it out, too, but there's no evidence for that.)
In the Tanakh the next part of the story is fairly straightforward; Am Yisrael, led by Yehoshua, enter and conquer the land in Israel. Unfortunately, there's no archaeological evidence that corroborates this story (which could, of course, just mean that we haven't found in yet). Recently other scholars have proposed that it was more of a social revolution. The Hebrews were a semi-nomadic group living on the edges of civilization who, for whatever reason (perhaps a drought or some other calamity), slowly became part of the Canaanite cities. Perhaps, as the Hebrews became part of the cities the Canaanites gradually adopted their monotheistic ways.
Whatever your view one way or another Am Yisrael now goes through a drastic change. We are no longer wandering, but have a land of our own, and, on the whole, we settle down and become farmers. This entails massive changes throughout Israelite society. For example, an agricultural society will require different rules for social justice. In Leviticus 19:9 for example we learn that we're required to leave part of the harvest for the poor and the stranger (the corners of the field, for example). This is a mitzvah (commandment) that only makes sense within the context of an agricultural society. Now that we're working the fields, the Tanakh also tells us what sorts of crops we'll find in Israel, specifically mentioning the seven species (among others).
Having moved into an already-inhabited land, much of the fertile land in the valleys was already taken, and so much (if not most) of Am Yisrael's farming happens on the hillside. This requires terrace farming, which turns a hill into a series of steps, and was developed independently in several places throughout the world (like writing). Here's what it looks like at Sataf:

Olive trees growing on terraces at Sataf

Eitan and Shoshana on the "hanging stairs" used to save space for crops

Once we were settled in the land of Israel we were faced with new challenges, such as having to live among neighboring populations. This is problematic in at least two ways. First, it means we're now faced with other seductive religious and cultural ideas (a problem I imagine most modern-day Jews understand all too well). Second, the second you're established in an area that has natural resources (such as good farmland) you're likely to face neighbors who want to take it. We see both of these problems in the next stage of Jewish history, which is called the Judges cycle (The main heroes are judges and it takes place in the book of Judges. creative naming, huh?). Am Yisrael is seduced by foreign gods (avodah zarah), Hashem uses one of our neighbors to punish us (Hashem lets them conquer us/defeat us in battle), Hashem feels bad for our suffering and sends a judge to redeem us both physically and spiritually. We mentioned one specific judge, Devorah, whose story is representative of this cycle. Also, she obviously stands out because she's a female, unlike most of our heroes thus far (Debbie Friedman also wrote a song about her.)

Saving the best for last we went searching for the most critical thing at any Middle Eastern settlement: water. Eventually we found (ok I led us to it) the pool of water that the farmers used to irrigate the lower half of the hill. We imagined ourselves as ancient Hebrew who see a trickle of water emerging from the mountains and went searching for its source. In our case, rather than dig back into the mountain, we simply followed the thousands of years old tunnel back to the source of the spring, deep within the mountains. 

Rachel crawling out of a water channel

There, we turned our flashlights off and marveled at the utter silence. We also sang "hinei mah tov" together in the darkness, which I hope was as spiritual an experience for the students as it was for me. Knowing how excited the students were to get back to their general studies classes (ok, maybe not THAT excited) I led them down the mountain to the bus.

stairs leaving Sataf