Temple Beth Zion/Westminster Presbyterian Church Travel'Blog'
Sunday, January 17th – Greetings from Sea of Galillee!
(Tel Aviv, Mount of Beatitudes, Jerusalem, Old City Jerusalem, Masada, Yad Vashem, Ben Gurion Airport)
The day began as we bid our beautiful hotel by the Mediterranean farewell and worshipped with a Norwegian Lutheran congregation in Joppa. The pastor – fresh out of seminary in Denmark welcomed us to the tiny stone church -- a gem of a little gothic structure 100 years old in Joppa not far from Simon the Tanner’s house. The hymns and prayers were very familiar and we heard a thoughtful sermon – fortunately in English (there was some speculation the language could be – Hebrew, Norwegian or English).
It was a full day stopping first at Caesarea-Maratima –Herod’s “weekend home” on the Mediterranean coast which included a shipping port (built with concrete that “dried” underwater); amphitheater; hippodrome and a palace that would rival the architectural wonders of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Falling Water.” Herod actually created a fresh water swimming pool “in” the Mediterranean (still visible) fed by an ingenious system piping water from a well just off the shoreline.
We stood in the middle of the hippodrome where chariot races took place and also hunting games beginning with the release of a rabbit in the oval shaped arena and growing in size of the animal to be hunted ending finally with a hungry lion. In each case political prisoners were the ones given the task of the hunt. You guessed it – the prisoners were predominantly Christians and so many of them were sacrificed in so many such theaters in the ancient world that the pagan population started wondering with admiration who these Christians were who would die for what they believed. In an ironic and paradoxical way these games actually helped spread the new faith.
Herod was a fascinating, conflicted and important figure for Jews and Christians as were his two heirs though neither had their father’s gift for playing the middle between the Roman occupation and Jewish population.
Next stop Haifa – Israel’s major seaport and home of the Israeli navy. Haifa is a modern city and populated by both Jews and Arabs who live together in peaceful coexistence. Their example gives hope to many in the Middle East who aspire to a more peaceful future. The highlight of the visit was the famous Persian gardens of the magnificent Bahai Temple. These formal gardens occupy the entire side of a mountain from the sea level entrance to their culmination at the summit overlooking the busy Haifa harbor.
On our way to the kibbutz where we are spending the next two nights we stopped at a remarkably well-preserved aqua-duct along the Mediterranean. The long structure with arches supporting a channel in which the water flowed from eight miles away to Herod’s seaside compound still stands (and probably works) after 2,000 years. The engineering genius of this period of history is stunning.
Tomorrow we rise early and visit many sites around the Sea of Galilee where we are spending the next couple of days staying at a retreat style Kibbutz. Two of tomorrow’s sites: Nazareth and the Sermon on the Mount, until we meet again…
Shalom, Tom
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