If it’s October in Miami…
October 13th, 2008…What Month is it in Afula?
Yesterday, I happened to learn that the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has a 16-month 2009 calendar for sale. It features some very nice photos of Israel. You might enjoy one.
I keep finding out stuff about Israel. One of the Perry Stone videos I watched was about the Dead Sea. I got pretty familiar with it in ’84, when I spent the night on Masada. Evidently, it’s disappearing. I guess they’re diverting a lot of the water from the Jordan watershed these days. Stone says it now consists of two bodies of water.
He said there was a kibbutz nearby, where they were trying to grow shrimp on a government grant. He said the kibbutz had an “owner.” I’m not sure he’s totally familiar with the kibbutz concept. Wouldn’t a single owner make it a moshav? Anyway, they are trying to do aquaculture over there now. When I was there, my kibbutz (still think of it that way) grew odd-looking barbeled fish in ponds, and they fed them chicken manure. But that was freshwater.
I want to go back so badly. I just don’t know what I’d do. I wonder if Marv and Maynard would forgive me if I applied to do a month on the kibbutz. They used to accept older volunteers. Maybe they still do. A month in the grapefruit (or blood oranges, which was their new thing in ’84) would be great.
I used to giggle at the tours. Buses would unload, and tourists would pile out, all wearing identical hats, and they would mill around like geese. But maybe a tour isn’t so bad, when you really want to learn. Maybe I could put in a month on a kibbutz and join up with a tour later.
I suppose it’s different now, with all the land cessions and terrorism. Back then–we were told–terrorism inside the country wasn’t that bad. I wonder if there are places I can no longer visit. I think Jericho is in the West Bank, and I understand most of the Christians have abandoned Bethlehem. Which wasn’t much of a destination anyway.
More
Let me try something wild. I’m going to post the Google Earth coordinates for the building I lived in when I was on the kibbutz, and you can go see it for yourself.
32°34’6.37″N
35°22’17.82″E
October 13th, 2008 at 10:31 PM
Would love to win the lottery so I could afford to join you. I’ve got a daughter and a niece over there in Jerusalem at seminaries right now, but I doubt they’d allow you within 10′ of their dorms. I was last in Israel in 1996 and I miss it terribly. I get a vicarious thrill out of sending my kids, though.
Rain means so much to Israel. A string of wet years would be an incredible blessing. In fact, the word for rain (geshem) and materialism (gashmiut) are derived from the same root, gimel shin mem. Of course, the Torah (not “just” the other 28 books of the Jewish scripture) is pretty explicit about trying to keep the commandments and linkage to rain and prosperity.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:31 AM
..wish this worked.
..have read it does.
..and that it does not.
The Yerusalem Compass
http://www.jerusalemcompass.com/catalog/index.php
..if you like scholarship…
..Sunday was when pagans worshipped their Sun god.
Catholic priests will say they know Saturday is the Sabbath, and they changed it to Sunday, it’s recorded in their records.
This is common knowledge not a big deal of a secret.
The average Catholic Priest knows this.
..ask anyone you can find.
They think they have the authority to change it.
..which is wrong.
…of course some Protestants interpret scriptures to say it’s Sunday.
..don’t myself.
P.S. Noticed you listed Marvs name before Maynards.
As in Marv & Maynard.
Not Maynard & Marv.
Your duties come first.
October 15th, 2008 at 3:02 AM
Just FYI – The coordinates work for Google Maps as well.
October 15th, 2008 at 8:56 PM
Growing shrimp on a kibbutz? Do they raise pigs too?
I’m confused.
October 16th, 2008 at 3:08 AM
Hog, “basar lavan” (literally “white meat”, aka pork), was sold on the kibbutz where I worked (and eventually left to go to yeshiva). I don’t think many of the kibbutzniks ate it often but it was in the kibbutz store for the Gentile volunteers.
Kibbutz Lahav and Kibbutz Mizra raise pigs.