Eitan Update 4.6, "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'"

[Eitan Levy]

Eitan Update Volume 4, Number 6, “These Boots Were Made For Walkin’”

June 2007 / Tammuz 5767

 

GENERAL UPDATE:

            Yeshiva is out for a few weeks now before starting a three week long summer program next Thursday (June 22), so last week I took advantage of the time off to finally go on a long hike up North, more on which below.  Life is generally going pretty well.  I’ve been going on shidduchim (set-up dates) trying to find my other half, learning a lot of Torah, growing, moving and thinking in new and hopefully better ways.  The last few weeks of this Spring zman (semester), which just ended about ten days ago, I definitely had a breakthrough in my learning, in my comprehension, particularly in the ability to sit and go through a text, in Hebrew (and/or Aramaic) on my own.  A friend of mine here at the Yeshivah, Eliezer Zinn, just got married on Sunday to a lovely girl named Sarahrose (yes, that’s one word), and I am very happy for them both.  Generally speaking, I’m happy and healthy, and the sun is shining.  That’s really about it. 

 

The Hike, Part I, GETTING THERE:           

Neve Ativ is the highest Jewish village in the Hermon mountain range, well up in the mountains, above Nimrod’s Palace.  There is only one bus daily to Neve Ativ, which leaves from Qatzrin at 11:15.  On a Sunday morning I caught the first of two daily buses up to Qatzrin, in the Southern Golan.  Qatzrin is sort of the capital of the Golan.  It’s by far the largest town, with perhaps a few tens of thousands of residents, and a decent industrial zone.  Most of the area immediately outside the town is beautiful nature in all directions.  So, since I got there after the bus for Neve Ativ had left already, I headed South from the town to break in my boots and find a spot to camp for the night.

 

It’s funny, the muscles you use for different activities that you never notice you’re lacking until you need them.  There are a couple of little muscles in my lower back which I didn’t realize were weak until I started walking with a heavy pack.  By the second day they were sore, but I could already feel them getting stronger.

 

The Golan is primarily a high plateau, overlooking the Hula Valley and Northern Galil, with another mountain range on the other side.  The plateau itself is mostly rolling plains, dense with grass and brush, and a few stands of trees where there’s some water.  It looks a lot like West Texas.  And like Texas, it’s cattle country, perfect grazing grounds for Israel’s little beef industry.  After 40 minutes wandering around searching for the trail-head, I headed due south for a couple of hours, finding a nice spot under some trees to pitch my tent and have a bite to eat before the sun went down.  This being my first attempt to use my cheap Israeli camping ‘stove’ contraption, I messed up and sprayed gas all over.  Though I was sad not to have a hot cup of tea before going to bed, it was fun to feel how cold the canister got from the expanding gas!  (any physicists and/or chemists among you care to explain how that works?)  My sleep was accompanied by the mooing of distant cows, and the occasional snorting noises of wild boars, native to the area, who come out at night to scavenge and look for little morsels hidden in the dirt.  They’re about the size of a golden retriever, with little tusks, and really hairy and gross looking.  Luckily they are quite afraid of people, and harmless, but that doesn’t stop one from lying awake for a few minutes until you hear their grunting and snorting move off into the distance in the moonlight.

 

The next morning I hiked back into Qatzrin, had a good breakfast at the mall, where I also bought a new gas canister, and caught the bus to Neve Ativ, where I started the hike in earnest.

 

The Hike, Part II, STUPIDLY DANGEROUS, OR DANGEROUSLY STUPID?

 

I had trouble finding the trail head again, and after asking a few locals it seemed that the only trail anybody knew about was to go down the ‘river’ bed below Nimrod’s Palace, then cutting left onto the trail I was actually looking for.  So, I walked down from Neve Ativ to where the trail started, and, after passing some Arab pilgrimage site (apparently the grave of some ‘nabi’, which equals ‘navi’ in Hebrew, and means ‘prophet’ in English), quickly found myself in a beautiful—and very steep—valley.  It was amazing to realize that I was truly isolated, high in the mountains, surrounded by forest, and still in Israel.  These are not things one normally associates with this country, even for those of us who live here and know it exists, and it fulfilled the longing of a part of my soul which misses Colorado for just those features.  However, I definitely underestimated how difficult the trail would be.  There were several points, within the first ten minutes, where I had to toss my backpack down ahead, before carefully climbing down a steep crag or rock face myself.

 

Though I was being exceedingly careful, I started to get the feeling I was in over my head, and then I reached a point where I couldn’t figure out how to continue.  There was about a twenty foot sheer drop into a deep looking pool of water, and I had no idea how to get both myself, and pack over it in one piece (keeping the pack dry).  So I sat, and resolved to climb back up, even though the fifteen minute descent would be, I guessed, a two hour ascent.  But first, I made my first successful cup of coffee on the road, figuring out how to use the canister.  After all, one must enjoy the small victories…  But, after going up only a few meters I found that I had merely wandered off the trail, and there was a much more ‘reasonable’ way down.  So I continued.

 

The going was rough, but just when I was starting to freak out about being alone in the middle of nowhere without enough water, and started to ask G!d for a little help, I—completely by chance, but of course not at all by chance—found a parallel path which was much easier.  Making it down almost to Kibbutz Senir before dark.  I eventually got to the kibbutz and crashed in the Field School (essentially a hostel in a relatively remote location) for the night.

 

The Hike, Part III, SHVIL YISRAEL (THE ISRAEL TRAIL):

 

In the morning I had breakfast with a Birthright group from California, or more accurately, with their guards.  I showed a couple of them how to make Turkish coffee.  It was fun to feel like ‘the Israeli,’ the local, to these, the tourists from America.  It also reminded me of my first experience here on one of those trips.  For all their flaws, they are great at introducing people to the country, and seeing as much as possible in ten short days.

 

From there I made my way to Kibbutz Dan, where Shvil Yisrael (the Israel Trail) begins.  The Israel trail goes from Kibbutz Dan, which is less than a kilometer from the Lebanese border, in the North, across and down the Galil, down the coastal plain to Tel Aviv, up to Jerusalem, and then down through the Negev all the way to Eilat, from the Northern to the Southern ends of the country.  I ended up doing, in the next couple of days, just the Northern bit, mostly along the Lebanese border, from Kibbutz Dan to Qiryat Shmoneh, Israel’s Northern-most city (where incidentally, two Katyushah missiles landed two nights ago though, B”H, nobody was hurt).

 

Along the way I camped another night, where I found a spot along the trail.  My favorite part of this section of the trip was the tiyul mayim (hike partially in water) along Nachal Snir.  The trail winds in and out of the water, so I switched from my hiking boots to sandals, strapping the boots to my pack, and walked headlong through babbling brooks and by many groups of school kids, Jewish, Arab, religious and otherwise, all enjoying the shaded, well watered nature of Israel’s North.

 

When I made it to Qiryat shmonah, towards the end of a long day, I was exhausted, so I started searching for a comfortable place to camp.

 

The Hike, Part IV, LESSON #1:

 

My legs were starting to get wobbly so I caught a couple of trempim (hitchhikes) to places nearby which were purported to have pay-to-camp sites.  However, it turned out to be false advertising, and to top it off, one of my boots—which were again strapped to the outside of my pack—apparently got knocked off amongst all the tossing in and out of people’s cars.  So, exhausted and now with only my sandals (and one boot), I decided to catch a ride South and camp out in Meron for a day or two until Shabbat, essentially signaling the end of the hiking portion of this journey.  Lesson, write your name and phone number in your equipment.  I’m sure whoever had my boot would have been happy to do the mitzvah of returning a lost object.

 

MERON, PART I:

 

Meron is the gravesite of Rashbi (Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai), which is a pretty big complex on top of a mountain.  Rebbi Shimon was a Tanna in Mishnaic times, and tradition has it that he is the author of the Zohar, which was later revealed by the Ari (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria), and is considered the father of Kabbalah and the Jewish mystical tradition in general.  Every year on Lag B’omer, which is the Rashbi’s yartzheit (anniversary of his death), roughly half a million people make a pilgrimage to the gravesite, making it the largest gathering of Jews in the world.  The yeshivah went this year,chartering a bus a couple of months ago now, and it was quite an experience.  But, let’s just say, I wanted to go back again another time, when it wasn’t so crowded, and really be able to experience the place.

 

I got there in the evening shortly before sunset, so I quickly found a minyan (prayer quorum of 10 men) and davened minchah (prayed the afternoon prayers).  I ran into a fellow, Nachman, whom I had met on a flight back to Israel from New York a few months before.  He gave me a little attitude, I was polite, and then I headed down the hill and up the next mountain to find a secluded camping spot.  I found a perfect spot, perfectly flat, nestled between trees, got my tent pitched and had a cup of tea as I watched the sun set over Har (Mt.) Meron.  Then I crashed for the night.

 

MERON, PART II, LESSONS 2, 3, 4…:

 

The next day I got up early with sunrise, did shacharit (morning prayers) there on the mountain.  Then I set up a nice spot overlooking the valley and mountain, with the grave off to one side, and sat learning some Torah, snacking, and listening to the birds until I started to run out of water just after noon.  So, I headed to the area of the kever (grave), filled up my bottles with water, had lunch, and sat around inside the complex, alongside many groups, of all sorts of Jews, mostly praying, and learned for a few hours.  At some point a minyan formed for Minchah and I prayed.  After praying, I looked around for my sunglasses, which I had set on a nearby table.  They had been stolen.

 

I didn’t want to jump to the conclusion that someone stole them, so I looked around for a bit, figuring that perhaps I had set them somewhere else.  Nachman saw me looking around and asked what I was looking for.  When I told him what happened he immediately grabbed the sunglasses which were perched on his head, and handed them to me.  He said he had found them the day before in the forest where he was camped out.  I guess there was a reason he found them!

 

Like all good teachers, G!d likes to roll as many lessons as possible into one experience.  later that evening, sitting back on my mountain top, as the sun went down, these are the lessons I derived from the experience:

-‘Dan l’kaf zechut’ = ‘judge your fellow favorably’.  I thought he was a jerk after one superficial interaction, and he turned out to be a mensch.

-G!d provides everything you need.

-Since G!d gives you everything you need, don’t worry so much about your stuff!  Be careful with your things: yes.  Obsess about them: no.

-Always have faith in the individual, never in the crowd.

 

SHABBAT IN TZFAT:

 

Tzfat (Safed in Arabic) is the nearest city to Meron—aside from the tiny town of Meron itself, down the mountain from the grave—and is the mystical heart of the Jewish people.  Theres a certain feeling of lightness which pervades there, and a high proportion of the city’s residents are religious and spend their days learning Torah, with particular emphasis on the mystical (kabbalistic) aspects of the Torah, or in other holy pursuits.

 

I was set up with a young couple to stay with for Shabbat through friends at the Yeshivah.  They were very hospitable, allowing me to freeload in their extra bed for three nights (Thursday night when I got there, through Saturday night, after Shabbat), and when I ran into two friends on Fri. afternoon who needed meals for Shabbat, they opened their Shabbat table to them too as guests.  My host, Gidon, is a sofer (specialized writer of ritual Jewish writings such as mezuzahs and Torah scrolls) and I slept in his ‘office,’ surrounded by holy writings, enveloped in the smell of ink and a nice breeze coming in the window from the direction Har Meron.

 

TRAVELLING SOUTH:

 

Sunday morning I packed up my things and headed back home to Bat Ayin.  This turned out to be, as it happened, the hottest day of the Summer thus far, with the temperature spiking from where it had been resting, in perhaps the mid to upper 70s, to the upper 90s and reaching 100.  This made the bus ride fun, as we had to keep stopping by the side of the road and the A/C barely kept the temperature bearable.  On the final climb up the highway to Jerusalem there were multiple cars and buses broken down by the side of the road, causing a massive traffic jam, and our bus could barely go faster than 20MPH anyway.  In the end, the 3 -3.5 hour ride took about 5 hours, but then the ride from Jerusalem to Bat Ayin went just fine.

 

BEING HOME:

 

I’ve been finding ways to fill my time the last week.  Helping one friend move, another to get ready for his wedding, doing a bit of work for the yeshivah here and there, and of course sitting and learning when the mood strikes me.  The Summer zman (semester) starts on Thursday, and I am enjoying this bit of rest before getting back to business.  the grape vines are growing and getting green, though the grapes haven’t started to form yet, and the seasonal boom in feral puppies and kittens is making itself heard in all parts of Bat Ayin (but especially underneath the yeshivah caravans) by way of whining, barking, meowing, and general cuteness.

 

It seems quite a few Denver folk are making their way to Israel this Summer.  David Anderson is here now on Birthright, David Seligman will be coming by the same ticket soon, and Abby, my sister, will be coming in August to visit me and run around the country a bit.  If anyone else is planning on coming please let me know.  I’d love to see you!  And if you don’t get a chance to let me know ahead of time, you can call me once you’re here at 052-626-6389.  And, of course, I encourage everyone to please be in touch one way or another.  I hope everyone is living inspired.  Take care.

 

---

B’ahavah (w/love),

-Eitan