Our intrepid guide and faithful friend Ezra had us walking in Israel from the moment we hit the ground.
"You learn to love this land with your legs," he said, echoing a Jewish mystical view of the legs as carriers of the soul on its spiritual journey.
On every walk, Ezra sampled what the land offered: dates, almonds, olives, capers, figs, mulberries; he would snap off small samples of hyssop, rosemary, yarrow, lemongrass, lemon verbena in various states of maturity, roll them between his palms and say, "smell." The smell was more than a smell, each time: it was surround-smell: a totally absorbing experience, a kind of high, knocking reality on its ass for just a moment. Reality would spring back on its feet, and you would wonder if you'd just imagined the potency of that odor, or if it had imagined you.
On each walk, Ezra would gather small samples of grasses and herbs and leave them in the car to dry. Then, he would place them in bags, and later, there would be tea: a golden color, with a small helping of sugar, a tea that gave new meaning to the drink.
On one of our walks, Ezra noted that the caper plant is likened in the Talmud to the whole of the Jewish people: the plant survives in tough conditions by shooting its roots deep into rocky crevices. It then produces a delicate bud (which is the caper). "We sweat for everything here," he said. "Even our plants work hard." He thought that was a good thing.
The richness of the land is everywhere evident, but not immediately clear to the Western eye. From rocky soil, impossible riches emerge. From narrow culverts, small streams and desperate irrigation schemes, entire farms blossom.
And at the edge of the Dead Sea, the water that runs down from Ein Gedi nourishes a shock of green in anotherwise lunar landscape.
This is what I carry with me, more than anything: how Nature has expressed itself in Israel, and how Israel has seen God in that expression: not revealed, but immanent; not a given, but a miracle for which we strive to be worthy; bountiful and still unforgiving; available to the patient, the persistent, the observant and the skilled.
I'm done talking about Israel for now; I'm back in my life. I'll leave political commentary to others; the land lives inside me, proffering its bounty wrapped in desert harshness: unapologetic, unambiguous, tragically real.
--T.A.
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