Jordan River canyon

Today we took a drive on a gravel road that we'd never been on before. I knew from my map that it existed, but previous times the weather had recently been rainy, so I figured it would be too muddy to go on. But now the weather has been dry for some time, so it was a good time.

The road begins at the switchback on highway 91 just before it crosses the Jordan River and heads up to the Golan. So, instead of crossing the river, we followed it south on the west side. This is the area where the Jordan River flows from the broad, flat, fertile Hula Valley through a rather narrow canyon and on down to the Kinneret (the "Sea of Galilee"). This gravel road is quite high above the river all the way, but at at least one point there is a cross road (also gravel) that goes right down to the river, to a bridge across the river, known as גשר כפר הנשיא Gesher Kfar HaNasi. The name comes from Kfar HaNasi ("President Town"), which is where the same road goes in the other direction (I only know this from my map, and from Google Earth!). We can see Kfar HaNasi from our house. Here's a picture of the bridge:

However, in the above picture, you can't quite see the west end of the bridge. In the next picture, you can see why it's not possible to drive across this bridge:
The west approach has been washed out by the river. Nevertheless, it was easy for me to WALK onto the bridge. Here's the view from about the middle of the bridge, looking downstream (south):
And here's the view from the same spot, looking upstream (north):
Though it may now be so clear from these pictures, there's really quite a lot of water flowing in the river, especially for nearly the end of May.

This point on the Jordan is about the closest point to our house, but of course we can't see it because it's down in the narrow canyon.

Closure of the main access road to our neighborhood

As I've mentioned before, a lot of construction has been happening in our neighborhood in the last several years. Most of this has been generally positive, including the elimination of a couple of ugly, never-completed structures. However, a few weeks ago, the construction caused a serious problem.

The main access road to our part of the neighborhood was always too narrow, but one of the construction projects has now made it so dangerous that the city has closed it completely! On the satellite image below, I have shown the problem. The marker shows where our house is (although the picture was taken before it was built). I have drawn a yellow line to show our former route out of the neighborhood. Then I drew 2 short blue lines to indicate the ends of the road they closed (putting big rocks to be sure that no one can drive there!). The magenta line shows our new route, which is now the only paved road connecting us with the rest of the world!

Here are a couple of pictures on the ground. This first one shows the new wall that was built, and you can see part of the duplex that it's a wall for on the right side of the picture. The road used to go right where the car is parked! There is still room for a road between the wall and the other house's wall, but it does not line up with the lower part of the road, and the high wall creates the danger, especially for pedestrians, if the road remained open.
Here's the view from the opposite direction, looking down half of the closed segment:
Clearly, the problem is one of city planning. While this construction may have been technically legal, it certainly should never have been allowed. I don't know how the law works here, but I know that, in the U.S. (whose law is based on English common law, as is Israel's!), if an owner of a property allows the public to pass over a part of his property for a certain number of years, the passage becomes a public thoroughfare and cannot be closed to the public. This is the reason you see so many "No Trespassing" signs in the States -- it's not so much that the owner cares if you go there; he just doesn't want it to legally become a public road, and I'm pretty sure that he could use the presence of the signs to prove that he did NOT actually ALLOW the public to go there.

A couple of days ago, we received a letter in our mailbox from the city that had no addressee listed on it. I suspected that this meant that it was a general letter to all residents of the area, and, indeed, that's what it was. Here's the letter, which I scanned in:
I'm not sure if this will work, but you may be able to click on it to see an enlarged version, which should then be legible -- well, at least if you read Hebrew. Since most of you probably DON'T read that much Hebrew, here's my translation (with my sometimes snide comments enclosed in square brackets):

To All Residents of the Neve Oranim Neighborhood

In the course of the last year, a period of accelerated construction has begun throughout the neighborhood, and as a result many residents have exercised their property rights [Hmmmm... apparently including the right to cause the closure of our main access road!]. On 4 April we arranged a comprehensive working tour throughout the neighborhood with all the professional municipal staff in order to join you in solving the problems that have arisen as a result:

1. The road connecting parts of the neighborhood [Well, at least they know what the NUMBER ONE problem is!]

• Close to the connecting road [well actually ACROSS most of the road itself!], construction was carried out, in accordance with the law [notice how they made sure to mention this], as a result of which the road became very dangerous, and therefore a directive was received [from whom? obviously no one wants to take responsibility for this!] to close it immediately at both ends.

• The city engineer, with approval from the Office of Transportation, is checking into the possibility of a temporary solution of making this a one-way street [NOT a good solution, and why would it be temporary, anyway?!?]. However, until a decision is received from the Office of Transportation, the street will remain closed in both directions for reasons of safety and mortal danger.

• The municipality of Tzfat has already been awarded 2.5 million shekels (about $660,000) from the Office of Transportation for planning and implementation of the main streets and sidewalks [it doesn't say WHAT they will be planning and implementing!] in the neighborhood, and we are working to proceed quickly ["quickly" is a relative term in Israel!].

2. Street lighting

• During 2010 we will be investing in the construction of a regional electrical center [this probably means a new substation, I assume], and at the appropriate time we will connect the northern part of the neighborhood to the electrical system [I think they mean only the street lights here -- all of us are ALREADY connected to the electrical system! But this is NOT good news! We really don't WANT our street lights anyway! We like seeing the stars at night. Besides, all this electrical work is probably going to cause power outrages, especially on days when I have lots of students -- this one could costs me big time!].

3. Street signage

• In the next few months, we will be preparing new signs [of course they're NEW -- we don't currently have ANY street signs at all!] with names of the streets in the neighborhood plus house numbering. [This, finally, is really GOOD news!]

4. Municipal supervision

• All contractors building throughout the neighborhood have received directions regarding cleanliness and order on building sites, and any damage to the infrastructure of the neighborhood will be repaired by the end of the work. Any contractor violating these directions will be fined in accordance with the law. [Hmmm... will this be more than a small fine that amounts to nothing but a gentle slap on the wrists?]

We in the Municipality of Tzfat understand the daily difficulties that residents of the neighborhood are currently experiencing, and we are working with maximum speed to finish the planning processes and solutions listed above.

In the near future, we will arrange a general meeting of the residents of the neighborhood in which we will give details and present the additional plans of the municipality for the neighborhood. Thank you for your patience, and we apologize for the disappointment.

With blessings,

Ilan Shochat

Mayor

So, there you have it. In exchange for really botching the planning of access to the neighborhood, they are going to make some as yet unspecified improvements and they're going to finally put up street signs. Why am I not impressed?

The Grand Canyon, in Haifa

Last Sunday, we had an appointment with David's doctor at Rambam Medical Center. Since we were already in Haifa, and we wanted to check out the new Apple Store, we decided to head up to the Grand Canyon -- no, not in Arizona and, in fact, not even a canyon, but a קניון kanyon ("mall"). As an interlinguistic play on words, this large mall in Haifa is actually called גרנד קניון Grand Canyon! I had been there once or twice before (in 2005), but this was David's first visit. The Apple Store there, however, is new. Anyway, we ate lunch there, ended up buying a couple of small items at the Apple Store, and then headed on home.

Another trip to Agamon HaHula

On Wednesday this past week, it just so happened that I had no classes scheduled. So we decided to take our friend, Cynthia, to Agamon HaHula, which we had promised her some time ago that we would. This is really not the season, since nearly all the migrating birds have long since headed further north. But it was still very beautiful. The sun was warm, but there was a perfect breeze to cool us without making us cold.

Here's a nice picture I took from there of Keren Naphtali ("Horn of Naphtali"):

The Grinding Machine

There has been a lot of construction going on in our neighborhood lately. The biggest project is the one across the street from us and down a little, where they are currently building 3 buildings which apparently will each have 4 apartments. They have also leveled 3 additional lots and have begun drilling foundations on them, as well. So, there will be 3 more buildings, although I don't know yet how many apartments each of them will contain.

Earlier this week, they unloaded this strange machine on a track vehicle. At first I didn't know what it was, but it wasn't long until we found out. It's a machine that grinds rocks into gravel. In this first picture, you can see the rim of the big bin that the rocks are dumped into:

In this 2nd picture, you can see the machine in action. The "monster" has just dumped a load of rocks into the bin. On the right side, you can see the belt where the grinding machine is dumping the gravel it has produced. Behind the grinding machine, you can see a big pile of white gravel that it produced earlier. Finally, on the far right side of the picture, you can see Har Khermon (Mt. Hermon), the highest point in Israel, in the distance.

Israel's 62nd Birthday and Us

Today (Tuesday) is יום העצמאות Yom Ha'Atzma'ut ("Independence Day") here in Israel. So we are celebrating Israel's 62nd birthday today. Most businesses (including Berlitz!) are closed today, except for some restaurants and, of course, gas stations.

Every year, Yom Ha'Atzma'ut is preceded immediately by יום הזכרון Yom HaZikaron ("Memory Day"), when we remember all the many people, soldiers and civilians, who died in Israel's wars and terror attacks. It's a very solemn day, since nearly every family here has at least one loved one whom they are remembering. The only programs on TV are those showing grieving

families and telling about their loss. Men are at least as likely to be seen openly crying as women -- army buddies comfort each other with warm hugs.

At the end of the day, to mark the transition from "Memorial Day" to "Independence Day", every year there is a huge nationally televised ceremony held on הר הרצל Har Herzl ("Mt. Herzl") in Jerusalem. The proceedings start solemnly, with bugles heralding the entrance of important dignitaries. The Speaker of the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) gave a speech. With much pomp and circumstance, the ceremony continues. Each year, Israeli citizens from diverse backgrounds are chosen to light 12 torches, symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel. Each person gives a short speech, always ending with ולתפארת מדינת ישראל ultiferet m'dinat Yisrael "and to the glory of the State of Israel") just before lighting the torch.

The ceremony then progresses to a joyous celebration of "Independence Day", with live music and elaborate professional dances. The theme this year was the 150th birthday of Theodor Herzl, the real founder of the State of Israel, even though he died more than 40 years before it was actually achieved. At one point, people carrying flags formed a picture of Herzl's profile on the large open area!

Today, David and I decided to take a drive to the Lower Galil (the more southern parts of Galilee), trying out a couple of roads that we had never driven on before. After traveling through the part of עמק יזרעאל Emek Yizre'el ("The Jezreel Valley"), we passed through Afula and took the highway from there to נצרת Natzeret ("Nazareth"). We had never been on this beautiful 4-lane highway before, and part of it is apparently quite new, since it's only shown as dotted lines on my relatively recent map. The new part is very dramatic, too! It rises on a bridge across the face of a canyon and then enters a tunnel (actually TWO tunnels, one for traffic in each direction), after which it follows another narrow valley up to Natzeret. Here's a picture of the bridge:

My 2nd Drasha in Hebrew

Last night, I delivered my 2nd drasha (sermon) in Hebrew at our Reform congregation, Emet vShalom, in Nahariya. Rabbi Israel Horowitz had asked me a couple of weeks ago to do it. If you'd like to read it in the Hebrew original, I posted it on my Hebrew blog at this address (I don't think it will be a clickable link here -- you'll probably have to copy and paste it):

http://harpatkaot-beretz-haniflaot.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post.html

Here's my English translation of it:

Shabbat Shalom!

This week's Torah portion is Shmini. In this portion we read about many sacrifices and about the precise procedures that the priests followed in order to offer all these offerings in the tabernacle in the wilderness. We also read about the strange death of Nadav and Avihu, sons of Aaron who offered "foreign fire" before Adonai. After that, it is written: "And fire went out from before Adonai and consumed them and they died before Adonai"! Perhaps even worse than this, Aaron was not allowed to mourn for these sons of his! It's very hard to understand stories like this!

In the haftara, there is a similar story. This happened after King David had established his capital in Jerusalem. He decided to bring the Ark of God to Jerusalem, to a place in the capital of the kingdom. King David arranged a big party, with all kinds of music and dancing, and all the people went up in great happiness. But, apparently, the road was a little rough, and the Ark almost fell from the new cart on which it was riding. A man named Uzzah touched the Ark to prevent it from falling. We might think that he would be thanked for this. But the exact opposite occurred! God killed him immediately, right on the spot!

When we read things like this in the Tanakh, we today may feel that we live in a completely different world from that of the Tanakh. But, as I thought more about this, I realized even now things happen that we can't explain or understand. Perhaps our world is NOT so different.

There is also a story of hope in this haftara. King David wanted to build a house for Adonai. Nevertheless, God wouldn't let him build the Temple. But King David did receive a very good promise. Adonai promised him that his kingdom would be forever and that his son would build the Temple of Adonai in Jerusalem. And until this very day, whenever we celebrate a simcha, we sing "Siman tov umazel tov umazel tov usiman tov ... David, King of Israel, lives on!" And, at the end of every Havdalah ceremony, we sing, "with mashiach, son of David."

Shabbat Shalom!