What I'll Miss - First in a Series of Some Number of Articles

(By the way - you can click on any photo to make it bigger)

We are experiencing a peculiar time – still living here, taking our kids to school, doing our projects, cleaning the house and hanging out the laundry (which I love doing – it is sort of meditative and it is a small but tangible accomplishment), making commitments and even following through on them, and at the same time, turning our attention to going home in less than three (3!) weeks.

Here’s what I’ll miss – The Land

I experience a sense of distance - the bigness of the world - in Israel in a way I do not at home. Part of it is living on a mountain and part of it is the multitudinous landscapes in this tiny country. This is why Israel is holy to me . . .

The Haifa landscape – seeing the Sea from the City all the time, including as we walk our kids to school. If, perchance you are not turned toward the Sea, then you see the lush valleys and wadis of Haifa. Or, if you are at the bottom, you see the mountain itself. And everything is blooming – all the time.

Right now I am writing from a restaurant (one of many) right on the beach. Not only a restaurant – a restaurant with couches outside with the sun, shade breeze, salty smell . . .

The landscape in the rest of Israel –

From the Haifa to the Golan the landscape changes from green to golden. There are fewer trees, small mountains and rolling hills covered with grasses and bushes and flowers. After Pesach, when my parents were visiting, we went to Gamla, the Golan Heights site of an ancient synagogue, canyons, a huge waterfall, eagles and vultures.

Here's the shul:

You MUST have גלידה after a hike like that.

I couldn’t stop myself about the wild flowers and grasses all around:

From there we went to Tiveria, the largest city on Lake Kineret, for dinner. It gave us another view of the Golan.

Yes, the North is lush. But the second you go South of Jerusalem, I mean the second you come out of a short little tunnel, it is dessert. It goes from green to orange-yellow-tan immediately. (See Masada/Dead Sea pics from previous post).

Here's the Ramon Crater (machtesh) :

and the amazing place we stayed near there - our cabin at Sukkah in the Desert:

This is particularly astounding from the Arava, the desert – part of the Syrian-African Rift, don’t you know – in the Jordan Valley. After Masada, the four of us went to Kibbutz Lotan for a few days including Shabbat. This is the Kibbutz where Andy lived for a year after college and where he still has strong connections and friends.

It was absolutely a high point of the Sabbatical – for the girls a legend which became real. But with respect to the landscape, it is situated between the whitish yellow mountains of Israel and the red-orange-purple mountains of Jordan – breathtaking every time you walk out of your room.

Lotan is cool for lots of reasons: their eco-educational projects, the mud building, the cows, communal dining room, great interesting committed people, progressive Jewish/Reform affiliation and fun pool – need I go on? It is also still a completely cooperative kibbutz unlike most others.

Still to Come (unless I don't get around to it):
Food; Friends; Our House; T I M E . .. .