Passover Seder

Tonight is the Seder dinner. I have been feeling irritated all week, tired of the cliques that have been forming in the center, tired of feeling like I am always trying to make friends and that it’s never the other way around. I called my mom last night and complained to her relentlessly. While I feel better today, I am a little stir crazy and decide to work out since I’ve done so probably only two other times this semester. My roommate and her beach-blonde friend talk to me for a minute, asking me which guy I think is the cutest in the program. It’s funny to be having this kind of conversation with them, like it’s a scene from a stereotypical and badly scripted Hollywood film. But I smile and enjoy talking to them before they leave for Arabic. My roommate said she knew I wasn’t feeling well last night and wonders if I’m okay. I’m surprised that she can sense my mood so well because while we are closest as far as roommates go, we never do things together outside of our room. I find that I like knowing there is someone looking out for me.

I run across the center’s grounds, skipping up the steps that wind through the garden, my feet light and crunching over the gravel. I have missed exercise and the kind of solitude and connection with the world that I feel when it is just me and the sun and the sky. I jog past the archways at the back of the building and around towards the front, circling the olive press and getting my fill of the springy floor in the kids’ playground. I hear the Arabic teacher as I run past their room. Luckily the shades are pulled down, so I don’t have to worry about being seen. After another round of running, I do the exercises on the grass that my sister has taught me, balancing on one leg and doing jumping jacks as I keep an eye on the Dome of the Rock. I love being out here on my own with a scene as stunning as this. It feels like a gift. Sometimes I forget as I am attending classes and doing homework and trying to make friends that I am here to know myself and my God better. It is good to remember to put myself in balance again.

I cut my stretching short and hurry to my room for a quick shower. Throwing on my clothes, I am paranoid that my shade shirt under my cardigan is too tight, but I am tired of wearing the same combination of clothes every day, so I take my roommate’s advice and decide to wear the outfit.

My seat in the Oasis is at the head table. I had volunteered to do a reading for the dinner, thinking I might as well get involved if given the opportunity. To my chagrin I realize I am assigned to sit right next to my Judaism professor. He is on my left while the two students on my right are unofficially dating and talk to each other whenever we are not instructed to sit silently.

As the dinner begins I remain very still, bringing my cup closer to my professor when he pours grape juice into my cup.

“L'Haim,” we say in unison. It reminds me of Cottonwood Height’s Fiddler on the Roof and makes me think of Tevye and miss Hailee all at once. The dinner is a slow process. First we dip a piece of celery green into salt water, representing bitterness and tears. My professor breaks a piece of mazza in front of the room and hands me my portion. We are allowed to make a tiny sandwich out of it with spreads of purple horseradish and sweet dates. Further into the dinner we recite the plagues of Egypt, releasing a drop of grape juice into our water after we say each one. I watch as the blood-like liquid dissipates into the clear liquid, and the sight strikes me as being slightly eerie.

I looked at my reading for a few minutes before I had worked out, though the words were confusing. Still, I wait for my turn to read, blocking out the meaning of those who speak before me in slightly nervous anticipation. I want my words to feel as though they have weight to them; I want the audience to feel like there is a kind of music to the letters, to the vowels and to the consonants. My voice is a little dry, but I like the way the words on the page warm up the room when I speak them, how I can hold a moment captive just by the sound of my own voice. I also take part in a song with a group of students. It is a children’s melody and I like singing in Hebrew, even though the words have my tongue all tangled up in knots when we sing the sixteenth notes.

My professor, Ophir Yarden, washes his hands using a bronze cup and dries them off on a towel. We do the same at the far end of the room when he gives us permission, though with the little water I used and the now well-used and limp towel drying my hands, the purpose of washing is full of irony.

Our dinner is in several courses, and it is my task to bring out each one for myself and for the girl next to me. We have salad, salmon, mashed potatoes shaped like a pear, cranberry chicken, and the first broccoli I’ve seen since I’ve been here. I get an extra half a piece of salmon from another girl nearby who doesn’t want her’s and it is a good conversation starter with my professor. I ask him about all kinds of things—how we both love salmon, what his children’s names are, if they have favorite treats his kids eat when they camp with the Scouts. Apparently smores haven’t made an appearance here in Israel, though they do roast marshmallows. The conversation is awkward, since Ophir talks to his six-year-old son sitting beside him now and then, and the rest of the time sits silent. His boy has shoulder length blonde curly hair and charmed the room the moment the students saw him. I try and talk to the girl who gave me her salmon. She plays the harp, and I ask Ophir if he plays an instrument.

He says he plays the CD player.

I ask him if he likes any particular kind of music.

He doesn’t.

I ask him if there’s any kind of live entertainment we should see while we’re here.

He says he doesn’t get out much.

By the end if it all, I know that his mother-in-law is a Viking, his children speak Swedish and English at home, and that he doesn’t seem to have a particular affinity for the United States even though he was born there. He has a smaller frame, is completely bald, and missed a hair above his lip when shaving. He told our class that he keeps his kipah on with double-stick tape, and there was a definite awkward moment when a piece of lettuce was on his chin and I didn’t know if I should tell him it was there. Luckily I think his son did the dirty work for me while I was still in the midst of a long internal debate about what to do. 

For dessert we have square apple pie and Ben and Jerry’s vanilla ice cream, which is my new one weakness. There are also little finger desserts that I can’t possibly eat, but I try a couple anyway.

As the meal closes we open the door in the Oasis for the coming of Elijah, and I wonder how so many people cannot know the truth of it all, how they are unaware that the prophet has already come. And as interesting as it is to see the silver platter full of objects of symbolism like the egg and the chicken wing and the bitter greens, as much as I loved the food and the words and the song, I know there is something missing here. And I wonder if the Jews have ever felt that.

And did they ever have the courage to look for it? Would they have searched through the holes in their stories and found that there was something wanting?

Would I even bother searching, if I were in their shoes?

On the Road to Jericho

It's too soon for another field trip. After a week in Turkey and not enough sleep, my body feels like it is trapped inside a constant yawn. But I would choose a field trip over class any day, and today we are off to the wilderness and Jericho. We are quiet as we leave, keeping an eye out for goats and shepherds on the side of the road. The city fades to the background and the desert mountains swallow us up. We are descending 740 feet below sea level. 

The Bedouin people greet us when we step off the bus. Their arms are outstretched and laden with beaded necklaces or scarves, and they try to hand us fruit juice and Coke for a price. We were instructed not to buy anything, though, so we climb to the peak of a hill and look down onto a road that winds between two cliff faces. Above it is a monastery from the sixth century clinging to the rocks like a beetle that is afraid of the coming sun. We read from the book of Matthew and a couple of us move from our current positions and into the shade, because even though it's just past nine in the morning, the heat is already baking our backs.

Our professor rattles off a few of the important events that have happened here. This is where Elijah stopped when fleeing Jezebel, or this is where Mary's parents were married. But these details are small and in some ways meaningless to me. It is when we turn to the New Testament and read Luke 10 that I become more alert. This is the parable of the Good Samaritan, when the lawyer asks Christ the famous question:

"What shall I do to inherit eternal life?"

I had been reading this parable frequently before I came to Jerusalem, trying to understand the significance of the Samaritan who stopped to help the man on the road when the priest and Levite just passed by. While I am yet come to a satisfactory conclusion, I have always judged the priest and Levite rather harshly. But today it is mentioned to our class that perhaps the priest is going home to his family. Maybe he's just had a long day and he needs to make it home as soon as he can. I feel a kind of connection with that. How many times have I had the opportunity to serve in the moment but gave up that opportunity for another goal that was already on my mind? Our professor tells us that most often when we have an opportunity to reach out, it's inconvenient. At the same time, it is our responsibility to find a reason to stop. 

A disciple of Christ will find that reason.

We crest the top of a hill and overlook the valley around us. Some people are reminded of Utah up here, but I feel that this wilderness is dustier, drier, more barren. The sky is clear by Israeli standards what with the morning mist evaporated and we can see the Dead Sea from here. We talk about Christ's temptations. Our guide, Professor Chadwick, holds up a rock. It is flat and tan and he says it reminds him of a pita. He is one of my favorite professors here, a weather-beaten archaeologist obsessed with the land and all things ancient. He tells us that he brought home a rock from this wilderness so he could show others what it is like and also what kind of food Satan may have tempted Christ with. He encourages us to take something from the land every now and then, so I find my own pita-rock that is dusty and sun soaked and put it in my backpack. I want to remember what it was like to stand on that mountaintop and feel the spirit of the land. I want to remember what it is like to feel a little of what Christ has been through.

Luke 19 is the next scripture that comes up on our list, so we stop by a tree and talk about Zacchaeus who climbed into the branches of a sycamore so that he might better see Christ as he passed by. I'm not familiar with the story and think it's quirky that we have stopped just for this tree. But at the same time, it's almost two weeks later and I can picture that tree protected by the iron-wrought fence and know what it looked like. And I can imagine myself in it, waiting for Christ to walk by me.

We finally arrive at Jericho. It is an oasis in this nutmeg brown land, dotted with a few palm trees whose leaves are the only green to be seen. Professor Chadwick despairs of this place but I think it's the most fascinating of the old ruins we have seen. I like that archaeologists have made mistakes here in their attempt to prove whether or not the bible is true. To me, it doesn't matter so much if the wall we are looking at is the one that came crumbling down during Joshua's time. Instead, I like the unknown, and I love that it is my faith that proves the truthfulness of the bible to me more than this place.

Right across the street is Elisha's Well. Arabic pop music is playing at the local cafes we walk past and floaty toys are being sold at the shops. This part of the land is controlled entirely by the Palestinians, and to see how the two worlds (the ancient and the contemporary) merge together makes me smile. Israel is a place full of personality, and I find that it is always surprising me.

I think of my dad the moment we pass through the gates and look at the water. It starts in a kind of watershed, and if I remember right, is actually a spring. Some of the students ask if it would be okay to drink the water, and I can't help but mutter to myself that if it comes straight from a rock, then it is. We actually drink from a pump here and talk about how important water is in a place like this, how it is the source of life. I understand more than ever that it must have been enticing for the woman at the well to never thirst again. We focus on Elijah, though, and I still struggle finding a connection with my life to the Old Testament. The bible is distant and strange to me in ways that other scripture is not, and I find that to be frustrating. 

Our last destination is a winter palace of Herod the Great. I wish the building was still intact, that I wasn't just looking at stubs of columns and the remains of a swimming pool where he killed a brother-in-law for being a threat to his throne. But it is interesting to see the sphere of Herod's influence, to know the kind of power he had and yet all that is left of him here on earth are crusty bits of plaster and diamond shaped stones. I feel a kind of pity for him. He did not live in a way that would bring him the greatest reward of eternal life. His inheritance will not be a grand one. 

Herod missed the road to Jericho, the opportunity to do something in the moment that was greater than what he may have immediately wanted. And that, I think, is a shame. For what greater reward is there than eternal life?