swimming in the sea of talmud

we just finished our 4th talmud session with the masterful teacher and story-teller ari elon.

the article below from haaretz describes a typical learning encounter (and also gives a great background discussion on bina and the secular yeshiva in the rest of the article).

eleven bareheaded students (male and female) are sitting crowded around ari elon, drinking in his lecture. elon is 'the son of' and 'the brother of.' his father, menachem elon, was the vice president of the supreme court; his brothers are the prominent national religious rabbi motti elon and the head of the national union faction, mk benny elon. ari elon may have taken off his skullcap as a teenager, but the family charisma is still there.

"the whole preoccupation of israeli society with trivia, like what's the capital city of some country, is irrelevant," he explains to the students in his weekly gemara class. "the gemara is a totally different model. not a model of questions and answers, but of dilemmas and taking things apart. there's no 'phone friend' to ring for help, that's only on 'who wants to be a millionaire?' here there are kushiyot, difficult problems, as in the word mokesh ('mine'). you have to dismantle them. you can't just read the text, you have to wear yourself out."

in today's lesson, elon is teaching about an issue in tractate bava kama. his style is loose and associative, and he's brimming with all kinds of ideas. before long, he has moved from the text to the story of the life of rabbi yohanan: "rabbi yohanan's father died the moment rabbi yohanan was formed in his mother's womb. his mother died the moment she gave birth to him. in other words, both left this world the second they ceased being relevant to bringing him into the world. they concluded their role as far as he was concerned. he had 10 sons and they, too, all died during his lifetime. when the last son died, he took one of his bones and kept it with him. whenever anyone came to him to lament his troubles - my wages were cut, my tooth hurts - he showed them the bone and told them his story. rabbi yohanan is the job of the talmud. wherever he goes, there is death."

the students are mesmerized. elon goes on to talk about the encounter between rabbi yohanan and rabbi kahana, in which the former received a lesson in humility: "rabbi yohanan was condescending to others, and in the course of a very long process he learned that he is not always the teacher. the culmination of the story comes when he is able to call someone else rabbi and to call himself a student. this is the remedy for everything, his success in diminishing himself before someone else. we have to search for the rabbi yohanan in us."

the lesson ends, but the students remain in the classroom, continuing to discuss rabbi yohanan and how he connects with them. "there's something here that I can't quite explain," tal wolfson, a 23-year-old tel avivian, tells me. "i'm drawn to these texts. i feel like they belong to me and i belong to them more than to any greek mythology, for example. i took courses in judaism at university, too, but there the perspective was entirely academic and informative. here it's different."

israeli socialism - then and now

on sunday, we had a field trip.

we first went up to kibbutz yifat in the jezreel valley located in the lower galilee region, to visit the pioneer settlement museum, covering the period of the third alliya immigration (1919-1923).

the museum presentation was socialism meets zionism meets the wild-wild-west, with interesting displays of such things as

the dining hall



wagons



and tents (each having three people - even if two of them were part of a couple, taking that spirit of communitarianism to the next level...)



while the museum glossed over some of the thornier aspects of the settlement of the land (i.e., the relationship between the kibbutznik refugees from eastern europe, and the arab folks already living on the land, and whether this dynamic factored into the socialist experiment taking place), our learning was enhanced by a tour led by muki tzur, an very energetic and talkative kibbutz historian who lived through that time period.

we later visited with younger 20 and 30-something members of urban kibutzim, a growing israeli phenomenon since the 1980s. each "urban kibbutz", is made up of several smaller groups, known as kvutzot. we learned about one, kvutzat yovel in migdal emek, whose members pool all of their money into one bank account, figure out how to observe judaism on their own terms, celebrate their connections to israel, and work together as a non-profit, advocating for equal access to education for all citizens of israel.

after many interesting discussions, my open question right now is whether and to what degree this model for an "intentional jewish social justice community" needs to be connected to zionism and the modern state of israel, and the ways in which it can be equally successful in the diaspora.

kabbalat shabbat at the tel aviv port

last night, we joined the israeli prayer community beit tefilah israeli for kabbalat shabbat services at the tel aviv port.



they're kind of like bj in nyc, with a service that combines carlebach melodies with israeli songs (including a beautiful hebrew version of "what a wonderful world"), along with some debbie friedman and craig taubman thrown into the mix. their spiritual leader, esteban gottfried, who is studying to be a rabbi, is originally from argentina, and his style (and accent), while in hebrew, was very similar to roly and marcelo, as was also beit tefilah's musical instrumentation.



the setting was beautiful, looking at the crash of the waves as we sang "eli eli", which was written about the exact same sand and the sea and rush of the waters. i had a similar reaction with psalm 29. it was intentionally non-halachic; we were facing west toward the sea, watching the sunset, and not east towards jerusalem. hence, it's more חילוני (secular) than דתי (religious), and trying to be a home-grown israeli creation rather than an american import.

movies!

i saw הנקוק (hancock) yesterday, in english with hebrew subtitles. e-וול (wall-e) is still on my list. i imagine that a movie without talking will be the same in either language.

"the poorer and more primitive socioeconomic levels"

a few days ago, i visited the jaffa visitors center at kikar kidumin in old jaffa. located underground, beneath the square, it's a bizarre mix of the ruins of a roman-era house (which currently is the site of a new archaeological dig, with college volunteers from ucla), disneyland-like roman centurian statues, a cheesy 1970s-era informational film running in a non-stop loop, old pottery in glass cases, and historical information along the walls.

in describing the history of the area, one of the displays written by the "old jaffa development corporation" explained that

in the battles for the liberation of jaffa, on the eve of israel's independence, many houses in the city were damaged, and some were totally destroyed. many arab inhabitants fled, and old jaffa became a huge area of ruins. with the coming of the massive waves of immigration during the 1950s, many new immigrant families, most of them from bulgaria, settled in that part of jaffa, just outside the old city, while within old jaffa, most of the new settlers belonged to the poorer and more primitive socioeconomic levels. because of the squalid conditions of their surroundings, and their problematic social fabric, old jaffa very quickly became a retrogressive high crime area, which earned the nickname "the big wasteland" and endorsement which brought it no great respect.

this paragraph, which i'm sure didn't seem controversial at all for its authors, says a lot about the ashkenazi-sephardi-mizrachi divide and class divisions within israeli society, and all the work that still needs to be done. obviously, this doesn't just mean yuppified disneyland-like gentrification.

one of my volunteer placements during my summer in tel aviv is the jaffa institute, a large non-profit social service agency that addresses hunger and poverty needs amongst the population of jaffa (part of the joint municipality of tel aviv-jaffa), south tel aviv, as well as in other areas throughout israel. their website indicates that in jaffa and south tel aviv, over 53% of the population lives below the poverty level.

so far, i've been helping out in the food distribution program, in a small wharehouse that makes westside campaign against hunger in nyc look huge in comparison.

according to their website, the food distribution program

provides severely impoverished families - referred to our staff by the city of tel aviv's department of welfare, and community and school social workers - with bi-monthly deliveries of nutritious food. Parcels arrive at the recipient's door in discreet packaging and contain basics such as oil, vinegar, flour, sugar, bottled water, pastas, rice, tomato sauce, nuts, canned vegetables, nutritious snack foods, soups, tuna, and more.

over the summer, the food packing operation seems to be a convenient hour-long volunteering option for birthright and other organized tours of the area. hopefully throughout the summer, i'll have the opportunity to learn more about the other aspects of the agency's work, and continue to improve my hebrew at the same time.

ברק אובמה

it seems have been a nice visit, but since he didn't make it to tel aviv, i'll have to catch him on his first official state visit after the first of the year...

4 zuzim = 1 sela = 2 goats?

chad gadya, chad gadya,
dizabin abah bitrei zuzei

חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא
דְּזַבִּין אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי

one little goat, one little goat
which my father bought for two zuzim

in the eretz israel museum, in the coin pavilion, you can see 4 actual zuzim, which once equaled 1 sela, with which, depending on inflation, you might be able to buy a couple goats...

phytoliths!

what happens after piles of grass or hay or wheat has been sitting in a pile for 3,000 years, and has decomposed, underneath 2,999 years of soil fill? you end up with phytoliths!

according to our good friends at wikipedia, phytoliths

...are very robust in nature, and are useful in archaeology, since they can be used to reconstruct the plants present at a site or an area within a site even though the rest of the plant parts have been burned up or dissolved. Because they are made of the inorganic substances silica or calcium oxalate, phytoliths don't decay when the rest of the plant decays over time and can survive in conditions that would destroy organic residues. Phytoliths can provide evidence of both economically important plants and those that are indicative of the environment at a particular time period.

if you take a look within our square



on one side of the newly-found mud brick wall (you can see it between the two pieces of white string)



you will find this white layer of material, that remided me of peat moss.



luckily, in the field, there was team of folks from the weizmann institute who could analyze it, and told us that it came from specific types of grasses. therefore our square is probably two rooms, one of which was probably an early iron i period granary. pretty cool, huh?

espresso bars, naked babies, motorcycles and ping pong on the beach

yes folks, i'm now in tel aviv,



about to begin my 6 week summer program with bina, otherwise known as avodah tel aviv. i think both programs acquired their mismatched furniture from the same place.

my tired feet and i spent the day wandering around the city, just soaking it in, and searching for stores open on shabbat to find an extension cord, power strip and other odds and ends. it turns out that israel imports amy's organic lasagna as well as dr praeger's spinach pancakes, each for around $10 at the current dollar to shekel exchange rate, and sells honey bunches of oats, but so far, no raisin bran. but i do like the shoko in a bag. and the kibbutz restaurant on the tayelet in tel aviv makes really good fruit juice smoothies.

but enough of that ... now back to a recap of the last few days of searching for goliath's last supper in the desert.

more digging

another day of digging, nothing new to report. the gold earing is sadly still without its mate. today we did find some more of the big wall, more pottery sherds, a fish vertebrae, a "hammer" stone, and a flint used to cut grass.

for other perspectives on the dig so far, visit the offical tell es-safi/gath weblog, and especially note the entry from from july 14th:

In Area P, Rona and her team discovered a gold earing from a LB/Iron I level! That brought about some excitement!

cue indiana jones music now.

a tight squeeze

i'm back from the caves at khirbat midras, which were created and used during the bar kochba revolt in 132-135 ce, against the romans. the rock is very chalk-like, so it was relatively easy for the jewish rebels to dig chambers and tunnels out of it, before the romans eventually smoked them out.





it was fun - but my hands and knees received a workout.

a spelunking we will go...

tomorrow's afternoon field trip is to the khirbet midras and burgin caves. should be fun.

i'm rich..... not

on friday, i was just minding my own business, digging in my square,



uncovering mud bricks



and philistine bichrome pottery sherds



when something shiny caught my eye



and i asked my area supervisor if it was anything special ... apparently i'm not familiar enough with gold jewelery to realize that ... i had just uncovered a 3,000 year old gold earing from the late bronze to early iron age.



if i find its missing pair, do you think i can keep it?

destruction layers are cool

archaeologists love destruction. it preserves things really well.

those of you who know your bible, would know, that according to 2 kings chapter 12, verse 18 (or 17 in some translations):

אָז יַעֲלֶה חֲזָאֵל מֶלֶךְ אֲרָם וַיִּלָּחֶם עַל-גַּת וַיִּלְכְּדָהּ
וַיָּשֶׂם חֲזָאֵל פָּנָיו לַעֲלוֹת עַל-יְרוּשָׁלִָם

then hazael king of aram went up, and fought against gath, and took it;
and then hazael set his face to go up to jerusalem.

this line from the bible might actually be true.

throughout the tell, there is an impressive layer of destruction that has been dated to the 8th-9th century bce, the time period of hazael (who has been confirmed as an actual king, according to other historical and archaelogical sources). in their initial surveys of the site, archaeologists also found evidence of an extensive siege system surrounding the tell from that time period.

take a look at the picture below (click for a larger view), taken from on top of the tell, looking down. notice the line of dirt where there's no trees. they excavated and found a huge trench dug during hazael's time period.



this destruction layer was re-discovered in more locations of the tell this week, yielding really cool results:



take a look at the jar, with the lid still on it, a couple pieces of pottery, and a "mortar and pestle" mill stone.



this is a broken bowl - it looks like all the broken pieces are there. just a little super glue, then it's museum-time for you...

peacocks and camels

are both noisy animals. just thought i'd share. pictures don't do them justice. but here's one anyways:

the dig - day one

i've posted small versions of my photos from day one online on picasa. i'm working in area p, which probably will yield late bronze age artifacts. maybe even a canaanite ashera...

internet access here at revadim is a bit spotty at times, and i don't have lots of time to post (probably a symptom of those 5am wakeups), so it may be a while before i show select photos with descriptions here on the blog.

highlights of today including clearing away lots and lots and lots of sandbags protecting the site from last year, finding about a bucket full of pottery shards, and then going on a field trip to beit shemesh and tell zoar, and seeing "samson's tomb".

we're off to tour the tell, the wonderful tell of gath...

for those of you who don't know, wikipedia explains that a tell is:

tell or tall (Arabic: تلّ‎, tall, and Hebrew: תֵּל‎, tel), meaning "hill" or "mound", is a type of archaeological site in the form of an earthen mound that results from the accumulation and subsequent erosion of material deposited by human occupation over long periods of time. A tell mostly consists of architectural building materials containing a high proportion of stone, mudbrick or loam as well as (to a minor extent) domestic refuse. The distribution of this phenomenon spans from the Indus valley in the east to Central Europe in the west. There are about 50,000 visible tells in the Middle East, a testament to the long settlement of the area.

one of these 50,000 is tell es-safi, where the philistine city of gath once stood. within the tell i'm hoping to find some coins, potshards, vases, and lots and lots of old dirt.



Above is a picture of 9th century BCE vessels found at the site in the past.

[cue the indiana jones music now...]

kibbutz revadim

so far, קיבוץ רבדים - kibbutz revadim is very relaxing, but needs better signage. i'm in a guest room (see the middle picture on this page) with an american college student. there's 3 beds in the room; it's unclear whether we're expecting anyone else. i also don't know if i'll have to eventually change rooms.

the kibbutz has a חדר אוכל (dining hall), where they serve breakfast - typical israeli style with fish, eggs, cheese, yogurt, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. i think today, on shabbat, we have leftovers for lunch and dinner. the official dig programming (and meals) starts up on sunday.

walking around the kibbutz, with signs in hebrew, eating at a חדר אוכל, and having israelis working in the kitchen, i feel like i'm at jewish summer camp in wisconsin. who knows, maybe that was by design :)

in case you want to follow along, there's an official dig blog, that will hopefully be updated regularly. each day, we get up at 5am, and dig til noon or so, followed by a series of optional afternoon field trips and lectures. There will supposedly be over 90 volunteers during the 4 weeks of the dig (i'm only here the first two weeks), but i haven't seen them yet.

on the plus side, i've gotten a chance to use my hebrew; the kibbutzniks don't speak a lot of english. i've gotten good at asking "i'm lost, where's the guest rooms?" or "i have no idea where i'm walking to, where's the dining room", and almost being able to understand their answers, such as "walk straight ahead and turn right," which aren't always the most helpful.

i arrived in tel aviv, but my cell phone didn't

on the plus side, i now have a brand new appreciation for free internet connections and skype.

israelphones, the company that i set up my israeli cell phone with, was supposed to have mailed my cell phone to my attention at the post office at the airport. i arrived, cleared customs, got my bags, figured out where the hell the post office was (it's on the 3rd floor near the bookstore, in case you're curious), but there was no cell phone waiting for me to pick up. i even called the israelphones company and confirmed everything yesterday. at least i was able to skype-call them, and have a skype call-back number.

[update - i should have it at the kibbutz by monday].

on a unrelated note, if you ever have any doubts about the truth behind the "pushy" israeli stereotype, you've never seen the boarding process for continental flight 84 between newark and tel aviv. with the pushing and the shoving to get on the plane, you would think that we were flying southwest or something.

now it's off to kibbutz revadim and the phillistine city of gath, in search of goliath's favorite soup bowl.

we're boarding....

the adventure begins.

what to bring?

you think it's hard packing for a week's vacation? how about a year's?

it's one thing if you have the feeling you left the oven on or forgot your toothbrush if you're just going down to the jersey shore; it's a whole different story if the shore is on the mediterranean ...