From the Mishnah to Independence

Friday, November 7

Today we left Tiberias and headed back south again. The first timers made their first stop at Bet Shearim. This park contains the tombs of many of the rabbis, including Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Nasi, who wrote the Mishnah in the 2nd Century. The tombs are in huge caves which contain many rooms. The most fascinating thing about them is the synthesis of Roman and Jewish culture. The designs on many of the stone sarcophagi are purely Roman--eagles and other animals, wreaths, etc. Mike pointed out that this ability to take elements of the dominant culture and integrate them into Judaism without losing the core values of our religion could be seen as the "other side" of the phenomenon at Masada, where zealots committed suicide rather than succumb to anything related to the Romans. Rather than killing themselves, the rabbis of the Mishnah were even able to learn from the Romans while ensuring the future of Judaism.

The wonderful thing about being at Bet Shearim was that "the future of Judaism" was all around us--not in the writing of the Mishnah or the graves of the rabbis, but in the faces of the Israeli schoolchildren who were seen everywhere. Mike explained that in Israel, the children go on field trips quite often to sites such as Bet Shearim. As the little ones ran shrieking past us, the burial caves echoed with their voices, but it was a great juxtaposition of the past and the future.

While the first-timers were visiting Bet Shearim, the "repeaters" went to Moshav Nahalal in the Jezreel Valley. At a moshav, unlike at a kibbutz, individual families can own their own land. Nahalal is laid out as a circle, with the town in the center, and wedges of private land laid out like slices of pie. The view of the moshav from the Nahalal Cemetery is really extraordinary--we saw a photo of the view showing the whole layout of the area, as well as the surrounding valley.

We all drove south toward Tel Aviv at about the same time, stopping downtown by the Carmel Market and the Nachalat Binyamin pedestrian mall. The latter is similar to Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, and we were lucky to be there on Friday afternoon, when craftspeople and artists set up tables to sell their creations. Some of us went shopping in the market, which was packed with Israelis buying everything they might possibly want for Shabbat or for any other time. The booths had breads, spices, flowers, meat, fish, and glorious fresh vegetables, as well as linens, housewares, clothing, CDs and videos, health care products, and souvenirs. The craft market also had a lot of visitors, including those of us buying last minute gifts of jewelry, pottery, silk painted table runners, and all sorts of other fun things. We were supposed to eat lunch while we were there, but it was very hard to fit in more than a slice of pizza, with all the other distractions.

When we got together at our meeting place, it became clear that we could easily have spent all day there, just people-watching. Within feet of where the two Mikes and Rabbi Miller were waiting for us, we could see Chabadniks offering tefillin to tourists nearby, and a mime putting on an elaborate show while a circle of watchers stood around him. The streets were so full of people, and suddenly it was just amazing to recognize that here was a city full of Jews, all going about their business on a Friday afternoon, with Shabbat coming soon. There was such a variety of people, and the ambience was both exciting and special. It was lucky that none of us got lost in the crowds as we trekked back to our buses.

Our next stop was Independence Hall, and for some of us, this was one of the most special stops we made on our entire trip. The building is very undistinguished from the outside, but inside the echoes of David Ben Gurion's voice are still heard by every visitor. We were brought into the very room where the country's founders sat on May 14, 1948, and held a press conference at 4:00 pm, just before the start of Shabbat on the day before the British officially left the newly-partitioned country. The original old-fashioned microphones are still on the table, and the photos of Israel's founders hang on the walls.

Our museum guide described to us the tense situation in the months and final weeks before the British left. His presentation was fantastic--we all hung on every word as he described the indecision, the lack of money, and the expectation of immediate attack by the Arab armies which the Jews of the not-yet-declared state were facing.
Finally, a mere two days before the British left, Ben Gurion forced a vote among the undecided leaders, and by the narrowest of margins, they decided to announce the birth of the new state. Invitations to the press conference were sent out for the next day, and the room in which we sat--adequate for about 150 people, was packed with more than twice that many. Then we heard a recording of Ben Gurion's voice speaking the stirring words proclaiming that representatives of the Jews in Palestine and the Zionist movement "hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Israel to be known as the State of Israel." At the completion of the announcement, the sounds of "Hatikvah", played by an orchestra which at the time was located on the roof of the building, filled the room, and we all rose and sang along with the recording of those assembled in the room in 1948. Many of us were moved to tears by the experience, hearing the voices of the past as if we had been there on that very day.

After viewing a movie about the history of the building itself--it was the home of Meir Dizengoff, who later turned it over to the city of Tel Aviv to be used as an art museum--we stopped quickly outside and took a photo of our entire tour group. Then, we returned to our buses and were taken to our hotel. We had only a short time to relax, however, before it was time to go to Shabbat services at Congregation Beit Daniel, Tel Aviv's prominent Reform synagogue. We joined with the congregation in singing and prayer, after which we went to the synagogue's new cultural center in the southern part of the city to have dinner with Rabbi Azari of Beit Daniel, as well as some of his congregants. The center, which is only a year old, is the site of educational, cultural, spiritual, and community events. It also contains a guest house of 64 rooms, which is used by visiting groups crossing the entire spectrum of Jewish observance (an orthodox group was having dinner in the room with us, separated by room dividers.) Dinner was delicious, and just before we left, many of us went up to the roof to see the views of the city. It was a pleasure to see how the community of Progressive Judaism in Israel is thriving in Tel Aviv.