Prophetic Vistas, Blue Fringes, Dates and Ancient Desert Outposts
We had another Schechter trip this past week designed to help us use the land of Israel itself as a commentary on our texts -- a healthy alternative to elucidating texts by using other texts, as is our norm.
Our first stop was Kefar Adumim, from which we gazed out into the Judean hills beyond (the first picture below), and at the wadi known as "Perat" cutting through the valley below us (the second picture). The wadi in question is the one to which the prophet Jeremiah is reported to have gone to in Jeremiah 13:1-7; it's situated right below his hometown of Anatot, which today is a Jewish settlement, the small cluster of buildings visible in the picture in the distant hills.
In Kefar Adumim, we paid a visit to the "Tekhelet Factory," where tzitzit (fringes for the corners of garments) are dyed with a shade of blue known as "Tekhelet." Tekhelet was one of the colors of royalty and priesthood in the ancient world; the Biblical demand for all Jews to don this color is understood by many scholars as part of a democratization process by which the whole people may be seen as a nation of priests. The color is also identified in Jewish literature with sapphire blue, which ancient midrash describes as being the prism through which God sees Israel's suffering as slaves in Egypt; when we look at the tekhelet fringes on our garments, we are reminded to see the world as God sees the world -- to see the world in such a way that we are attuned to suffering wherever it exists, striving to rid the world of its pain.
The production of this richly-symbolic color came under Roman imperial control in the early centuries of the common era; eventually, it was decreed that only royalty could wear garments made with the dye, and many scholars think that the production of tekhelet ended altogether with the Arab Conquest of the Land of Israel. With the help of lots of scientific research, the technique for producing the dye has been rediscovered in the past twenty years - and though some disagree that it is truly tekhelet, I think the evidence is actually pretty solid.
The factory that we went to is the primary place for the production of tekhelet today. Here's a picture of the hand-cranked machine to spin wool:
Dying wool in process:
Driving on towards the Dead Sea, we stopped by the huge date palm plantation on its shore, a plantation owned by three neighboring kibbutzes. Dates have been one of the most important products of the land of Israel since Biblical times - when the land of Israel is described as the "land of milk and honey," the honey mentioned there refers to date honey rather than bee honey. In addition to producing dates, date palms are described in Jewish literature as the trees that "have no waste" because every part of the tree is useful in some way - for roofing, for rope, for weaving, for fuel, for building materials, for making baskets and mats and other utensils, and for the holiday of Sukkot. According to Josephus, many of the date palms of the land of Israel were destroyed during the first century of the common era; some were eventually re-planted, but the deforestation that took place under Ottoman rule did away with these. Over the past century, date palms have been reintroduced to the areas where they once grew, particularly the area near the Dead Sea, which turns out to be a great area for growing delicious dates.
We spent most of our afternoon at Qumran. We had visisted Qumran with Katy's parents in December, but didn't spend long there: we wandered around the archaeological site for a few minutes and we saw the movie shown at the site which was particularly interested in the question of whether John the Baptist ever spent time at Qumran (catering to the thousands of Christian tourists who come to the site seeking to discover the origins of Christianity in Judaism). On this trip, we hiked up into the rocky hills beyond the archaeological site where one or two of the caves that held Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Here's a picture taken from the hills, looking down at the archaeological site that is, today, looking rather green (featuring a museum and large gift shop); cave number four, where pieces of 562 different documents were discovered, is visible on the side of the canyon below the site.
Our guide, Aryeh, urged us to imbibe the now-traditional story told about Qumran: that the archaeological remains there are the remains of the first monastery in the Western world, the community center of the sect of Jews known as the Essenes who lived in caves and huts surrounding these ruins and who hiked in every morning to immerse in the mikvah, to participate in public meals, to write scrolls, and to engage in some light industry. This was an all-male community that praised celibacy, that made poverty into a religious ideal, that considered itself the "sons of light" destined to defeat the sinful "sons of darkness" (everyone else in the world), and that planned to wait in the desert until Jerusalem would be re-purified (having been defiled by the Hasmoneans and then the Romans).
An Essene community with this worldview is described in the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is a question, though, as to whether the site called "Qumran" today was in fact a place that had any association with these Essenes. We spent some time considering the various possible theories. A number of scholars have proposed that there is no connection between the scrolls that were found in caves within a half-hour's walk of the site and the archaeological site itself. Some say Qumran was in fact a villa for a wealthy family; or that it was a Hasmonean and then Herodian fort; or that it was a manufacturing or commerical center; or that it was an Essene site, but that the Essenes who lived there were not impoverished monks but were prosperous Jews who lived a fairly comfortable life on the shore of the Dead Sea.
The debate over the identity of the site at Qumran turns out to be the most fierce debate in Israel archaeology today. It was interesting to get a taste of the various possibilities, and to see the ways in which the early archaeologists at the site may have created a myth based on certain expectations and religious ideals -- the excavators of Qumran were doubtlessly influenced by their expectation to see the site looking like a sort of medieval Christian monastery, and also by their desire to forge a link between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the ruins. On the other hand, the evidence to support the traditional theory regarding the site isn't bad, which is good news for the people who charge the admissions fees, run the gift shop, and play the film about John the Baptist and friends to thousands of visitors every year.
Our first stop was Kefar Adumim, from which we gazed out into the Judean hills beyond (the first picture below), and at the wadi known as "Perat" cutting through the valley below us (the second picture). The wadi in question is the one to which the prophet Jeremiah is reported to have gone to in Jeremiah 13:1-7; it's situated right below his hometown of Anatot, which today is a Jewish settlement, the small cluster of buildings visible in the picture in the distant hills.
In Kefar Adumim, we paid a visit to the "Tekhelet Factory," where tzitzit (fringes for the corners of garments) are dyed with a shade of blue known as "Tekhelet." Tekhelet was one of the colors of royalty and priesthood in the ancient world; the Biblical demand for all Jews to don this color is understood by many scholars as part of a democratization process by which the whole people may be seen as a nation of priests. The color is also identified in Jewish literature with sapphire blue, which ancient midrash describes as being the prism through which God sees Israel's suffering as slaves in Egypt; when we look at the tekhelet fringes on our garments, we are reminded to see the world as God sees the world -- to see the world in such a way that we are attuned to suffering wherever it exists, striving to rid the world of its pain.
The production of this richly-symbolic color came under Roman imperial control in the early centuries of the common era; eventually, it was decreed that only royalty could wear garments made with the dye, and many scholars think that the production of tekhelet ended altogether with the Arab Conquest of the Land of Israel. With the help of lots of scientific research, the technique for producing the dye has been rediscovered in the past twenty years - and though some disagree that it is truly tekhelet, I think the evidence is actually pretty solid.
The factory that we went to is the primary place for the production of tekhelet today. Here's a picture of the hand-cranked machine to spin wool:
Dying wool in process:
Driving on towards the Dead Sea, we stopped by the huge date palm plantation on its shore, a plantation owned by three neighboring kibbutzes. Dates have been one of the most important products of the land of Israel since Biblical times - when the land of Israel is described as the "land of milk and honey," the honey mentioned there refers to date honey rather than bee honey. In addition to producing dates, date palms are described in Jewish literature as the trees that "have no waste" because every part of the tree is useful in some way - for roofing, for rope, for weaving, for fuel, for building materials, for making baskets and mats and other utensils, and for the holiday of Sukkot. According to Josephus, many of the date palms of the land of Israel were destroyed during the first century of the common era; some were eventually re-planted, but the deforestation that took place under Ottoman rule did away with these. Over the past century, date palms have been reintroduced to the areas where they once grew, particularly the area near the Dead Sea, which turns out to be a great area for growing delicious dates.
We spent most of our afternoon at Qumran. We had visisted Qumran with Katy's parents in December, but didn't spend long there: we wandered around the archaeological site for a few minutes and we saw the movie shown at the site which was particularly interested in the question of whether John the Baptist ever spent time at Qumran (catering to the thousands of Christian tourists who come to the site seeking to discover the origins of Christianity in Judaism). On this trip, we hiked up into the rocky hills beyond the archaeological site where one or two of the caves that held Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Here's a picture taken from the hills, looking down at the archaeological site that is, today, looking rather green (featuring a museum and large gift shop); cave number four, where pieces of 562 different documents were discovered, is visible on the side of the canyon below the site.
Our guide, Aryeh, urged us to imbibe the now-traditional story told about Qumran: that the archaeological remains there are the remains of the first monastery in the Western world, the community center of the sect of Jews known as the Essenes who lived in caves and huts surrounding these ruins and who hiked in every morning to immerse in the mikvah, to participate in public meals, to write scrolls, and to engage in some light industry. This was an all-male community that praised celibacy, that made poverty into a religious ideal, that considered itself the "sons of light" destined to defeat the sinful "sons of darkness" (everyone else in the world), and that planned to wait in the desert until Jerusalem would be re-purified (having been defiled by the Hasmoneans and then the Romans).
An Essene community with this worldview is described in the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is a question, though, as to whether the site called "Qumran" today was in fact a place that had any association with these Essenes. We spent some time considering the various possible theories. A number of scholars have proposed that there is no connection between the scrolls that were found in caves within a half-hour's walk of the site and the archaeological site itself. Some say Qumran was in fact a villa for a wealthy family; or that it was a Hasmonean and then Herodian fort; or that it was a manufacturing or commerical center; or that it was an Essene site, but that the Essenes who lived there were not impoverished monks but were prosperous Jews who lived a fairly comfortable life on the shore of the Dead Sea.
The debate over the identity of the site at Qumran turns out to be the most fierce debate in Israel archaeology today. It was interesting to get a taste of the various possibilities, and to see the ways in which the early archaeologists at the site may have created a myth based on certain expectations and religious ideals -- the excavators of Qumran were doubtlessly influenced by their expectation to see the site looking like a sort of medieval Christian monastery, and also by their desire to forge a link between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the ruins. On the other hand, the evidence to support the traditional theory regarding the site isn't bad, which is good news for the people who charge the admissions fees, run the gift shop, and play the film about John the Baptist and friends to thousands of visitors every year.
posted by Geoff at 7:31 PM
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