A Journey Through Society

(I posted "A Journey Through Society" last year. It seems to me that now in the "Days of Awe" between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur that its message fits the season, fits what we have been studying and fits "Real Deep". My tenth graders below started 11th grade 2 weeks ago.)


My tenth graders set off on a journey last week. It's not the first time they've been in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, but this time they visited places and people that perhaps they had heard of, but could barely imagine. They traveled to the farthest corners of Israeli society; dark places most of us Middle Israelis never see.

And the first step was a question: If on one side is equality and on the other is 'survival of the fittest', where are we Israelis? Part of the answer is a rundown neighborhood in south Tel Aviv ironically named Shikunat Hatikvah ('Neighborhood of Hope'). Our guides did their best to to explain what it's like to live in an island of poverty in a party town like Tel Aviv, but they weren't nearly as convincing as the locals we met by chance. "It's not as bad as they say it is", they explained, but the subtitles read otherwise.
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A few streets over is a slum that doesn't appear on the map, but has a name – 'Crate Town' (my translation). Not recognized by the authorities and therefore free of building codes and municipal services, people build their homes out of odds and ends. Pitch dark at night, flooded in winter and ruled by criminals, the people living here probably would have been left to their own devices except that to their misfortune they are sitting on some of the most valuable real estate in the country. Rich contractors buy up the ground from under their feet turning them into squatters on land they have lived on since the nation was founded. The rich getting richer use a combination of goons and city ordinances to force the poor getting poorer out of their homes.

Our next stop was the 'slave market' near the Central Bus Station. The street is a kaleidoscope of human beings of all colors and races, foreign laborers living on a pittance and often just one step ahead of the law. Exploitation draws exploitation – a few blocks over is the red light district (We didn't go there of course.)

A 15 minute bus ride away is Kikar Hamedina. It's Tel Aviv's Central Park, a circle of watered parks surrounded by chic boutiques that only the very wealthy can afford to shop. Again it was the passersby that underlined the message, casually mentioning how much they invest in the manicured dogs they're walking – more than what an entire family lives on in the neighborhoods we had been only minutes ago.

Walking back to the buses, I asked Odedah what she made of what we had seen that day. She's 16 years old, so learning that she was shocked didn't surprise me. She thinks that social justice has to start with people with money.

"Because people follow people with money."
"Do you have money?"
"No."
"Neither do I."

Oh well………….

We spent the night in a hostel in Jerusalem. An overnight school trip where we don't sleep in tents in the desert and have showers and teachers too tired to know or care what they're up to all night (see 'The Lowest Place on Earth'). The kids were very excited.

The next morning we invaded an ultraorthodox stronghold called Mea Shearim. I use military terminology because that is how the people living there see us creatures of modern society – the enemy. They reject modern culture, modern kids and the modern state that spawned them. They say that only the Messiah can redeem the Jewish nation in the promised land. The state of Israel is an abomination. We were asked not politely to leave.

Something odd occurred to me. Our guides were obviously not religious. That's why they wanted us to see the nasty side of religious Jews. Yet, for two days they were preaching about equality and social injustice.

There are two explanations for everything in the world. The first is called evolution. By random chance and natural selection, things are what they are. Survival of the fittest. The other, less popular, notion is creation. God created stuff for a reason.

Now if you believe in evolution, then the strong survive. There's no way around it. And if you believe in equality, then it's because we are created beings. There is a God.

So I thought it was odd a bunch of people trying to show us that God is bunk, but talk equality – and a another bunch of people that think they are better than everyone not like them, but talk God. I know there's some rational explanation, but I just thought it was odd, that's all.

Nevertheless, after two days of seeing poverty and crime and exploitation, I was wondering if those snobs in Mea Shearim aren't right. Maybe Israel is an abomination.

The plan was for my tenth graders to finish the day on Mt. Herzl, where the dreamer who wrote the blueprint for modern Israel is buried. They are 16 or almost 16 now, and the idea was to give them their identity cards in a ceremony at a place symbolic of the society they will be joining before long.

But once again, something not on the program underlined why we need Israel, warts and all. Just before loading the buses taking us to the ceremony, one ambulance siren, then a second, then dozens. In Jerusalem, that can mean only one thing. Terror. Another Palestinian that hates Jews more than he loves his own life.

Israel hasn't succeeded any more than the rest of the family of man in establishing a just society. But time and again, the world has turned on Jews, and providing a haven, not social justice, is why Israel has to exist.

On the way back home I remarked to Odedah that our journey reminded me of the Gospels. I mean, Jesus was on a journey in society. He rubbed shoulders with the poor, broke bread with the rich, was rejected by religious hypocrites.

"You know, like, not much has changed here in 2000 years."

"And it won't until He comes back", she replied.

I doubt if human beings will ever be able to create a just society. I know that Jesus didn't even try. He didn't come with a social agenda; He didn't come to change mankind. He came to save men.

So in a way, as much as I hate to admit it, they're right in Mea Shearim.
Redemption will come with Messiah.

Church Hopping

And now we finally come to the subject of Christianity. Yaki, our guide and instructor is Jewish and I suspect an atheist to boot, so his take on Jesus and the New Testament is a bit different than the one I recall. (To remind the reader, I did 19-20 years of hard time paying my debt to society in Sunday School.) Naturally, if Jesus is the subject de jour, a day in the field on the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee is mandatory. This was Jesus and his gang of disciples' stomping ground, where he spent most of his ministry and performed the majority of his miracles.

We started at an octagonal Roman Catholic church run by grumpy Italian nuns on the Mount of the Beatitudes. Yaki took us off to the side, hopefully out of the evil nuns' earshot, to explain at length about the Sermon on the Mount. Yaki thinks that even if Jesus existed, he never said or did the things 'they' say he did and in fact 'they' made it all up. He says that the Sermon on the Mount is a Christian invention meant to copy Moses giving the Torah on Mount Sinai. Yaki has a point; Jesus would have been a lot more original if he would have given the sermon in a bar. Jesus didn't really say anything new (Which is to be expected, him plagiarizing the Torah and all.); he just said that it's not enough to be good, but you have to really mean it. The nerve.

(In the meantime I'm on the lookout for angry nuns. Seeing how nasty they are to Catholic pilgrims, I can only imagine what they would do to a bunch of Jews bad mouthing Jesus.)

Despite my aversion to all things Catholic, I had to admit that the place is breathtaking. A short shower cleared the haze over the Sea of Galilee and freshened the gardens around the church. I decided to keep a safe distance from Yaki while he was Jesus-baiting and wandered in the grounds.

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It was a Sunday and groups from Brazil, Mexico, Germany and England had arrived in the meantime and finding quiet corners here and there, were celebrating mass. The Church has recently built a hostel for visitors, although this is misleading as from appearances it deserves at least four stars. As appealing as it looks, spending a night under the same roof with the cranky nuns isn't my idea of fun.

If I had the guts, I'd ask the nuns why they planted a big ol' church (with a big ol' plaque honoring the Pope that donated the funds to build it) smack on the spot where Jesus told his followers to (1) pray in private and (2) give alms in secret. As we were leaving, I wondered aloud if very many non-Catholics visit the place. I mean, the church and the bougainvilleas and the view are really swell, but they came all this way to see a hillside where Jesus spoke to the masses. You see lots of Catholicism, not much Jesus. Yaki is convinced that Evangelicals like the place, but my bet is that if they come at all, the first thing they do is cut through the garden and around the church, and head for the fence on the other side overlooking the lake.

Our next stop was at the bottom of the mount on the shore at the Church of the Primacy of Peter at Tabgha. This is where the Catholics say that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he rose from the dead. He asked Peter, who was apparently sitting on a rock at the time having lunch, to feed his sheep. The disciples, none of them being the sharpest tool in the shed and all of them being Roman Catholics, immediately set to work and built a church over the rock and made Peter the pope. In the meantime, a flock of sheep in Nazareth starved to death.

Yaki sat us down behind the church on the beach for yet more heresy, but coming in I noticed that the priest in charge of the place was being distracted by a couple of giggling (female) Filipinos that couldn't get enough of him, so I was pretty sure we were safe.

Next door to the Church of Peter's Primacy is the Church of the Multiplication. This is an odd name, as the Catholics are notoriously poor in mathematics. This is where the Church has decided that Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes, although anyone who has read the New Testament and is familiar with the local geography knows that the miracle could have taken place at any number of places around the lake except for Tabgha.

Unlike most churches which are closed all week and open only on Sundays, the Church of the Multiplication is open all week and closed on Sundays, so we didn't get to visit. Rats. Yaki says the place is worth a visit in our spare time if we get a chance. He explained that when the Church started building churches (After being legalized in 324 by Constantine the Great.), they built structures using the blueprints of pagan temples and simply translated the symbolism of idolatry to a Christian message. The Church of the Multiplication, built recently but on the guidelines of the ancient structures, is a standing example of what almost all churches looked like after Christianity came out of the closet.

Now, after Peter became the first pope they hadn't built Vatican City yet, so Peter had to live with his mother-in-law in Capernaum, which is just down the road from Tabgha. Not only was Peter the pope, but he was known for cracking great mother-in-law jokes from the pulpit. It wasn't long before they had to remodel the place to contain the ever growing congregation in Capernaum, and after Christianity was legalized they flattened the house and built an octagonal church instead. Unfortunately, in the meantime Peter had got fed up with living with his mother-in-law and had moved to Rome where he was crucified upside down.

Our visit to Capernaum was the first place in the day that smacked of authenticity and not Catholicism. A modern, round church has been built suspended over the ruins of the ancient one. Yaki fondly calls it "the flying saucer". The ruins which can be seen from under the church and from an opening inside are probably the first church built ever. They reflect the development of the Church from Jewish roots to an underground movement to an established state-recognized institution. An average home like any of the others on the site was renovated internally to allow large numbers of believers to congregate (but not externally lest it draw the attention of the authorities), and then in the fourth or fifth century was turned into a place of pilgrimage.

A fifth century synagogue a stones throw from the church, built of white limestone while the local stone is black basalt, was obviously imported. The Christian Byzantines prohibited the building of new synagogues, so it's possible that the local Jewish community purchased an existing building elsewhere, transported it here and reassembled it on its present site. Or perhaps the Church wanted a standing synagogue for pilgrims who wanted to see the synagogue where Jesus preached (John 6:59). Anyway you look at it, the white synagogue in Capernaum is a product of the Church.

While the Catholic church may have reinterpreted the pagan architecture, they didn't succeed in sterilizing the interior decorating of idolatry. It's hard to pick out Jesus among the host of images in a Catholic Church. I've been to quite a few churches over the last few months, and save for notable exceptions like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the nun's church on the Mount of the Beatitudes, all of them are dedicated to saints, not Jesus.

The little girl with the doll caught my eye in the Greek Orthodox church at Capernaum. She was fascinated by the Madonna and child, and repeated approached the icon and imitated Mary cradling her doll like baby Jesus.

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We ended the day at the baptismal site at Yardenit. Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, but probably quite a bit downriver at Kassar el Yahud near the Dead Sea. Today the water flowing in the Jordan is for the most part treated and untreated sewage, so this spot near the Sea of Galilee where the water is still fresh is favored by Christians that want to be baptized in the waters that Jesus was. This is a site oriented to the Protestant crowd, and we came just in time to witness the baptism of a physician from California by Pastor Bob. He told his friends and family gathered around about his life since he had come to faith as a young medical student, then joined Christ symbolically under the water as Pastor Bob dunked him.

For me this underlined the difference between the Evangelical experience and Catholic pilgrimage. The Evangelical comes here seeking a closer relationship with Jesus. They want to see where he grew up, trace his footsteps and follow his ministry unobstructed by changes in the scenery, including beautiful churches, over the last 2000 years. And they want to meet his people, the Jews that live here today.
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For Catholics, it's all about the Church. They want to see the "Church Triumphant", and are perfectly willing to accept the interpretations they are spoon-fed by their clergy regardless if it contradicts historical research or even common sense. As the Pope's last visit to Israel made clear, the Catholic attitude towards Israelis is that they are trespassers, in both definitions of the word, in the holy land.

During the day Yaki mentioned the three towns Jesus cursed – Korazim, Bethesda and Capernaum (Luke 10:13-15). The first two are deserted ruins, but before Christians get too smug with this knowledge, consider this. The same earthquake that flattened the cursed towns also destroyed Christian Hippos known for the number of churches out of all proportion to the number of inhabitants. And Jesus' prophesy hasn't been totally fulfilled. There's still a small community of Franciscans living in Capernaum.

Better watch out………