Stone Soup

The folk tale “Stone Soup” tells the story of a group of starving travelers who, having convinced the local villagers that they need no more than stones to create soup, manage to coax other ingredients from the villagers reluctant to share their own limited resources. I feel a metaphor coming on!

Israel. Stone, stone and more stone. Not the state but the landmass. This is essentially an inhospitable land of desert and rock whose value, historically, has been its location. So valuable has the trade routes and access to the Mediterranean been that other than olive trees its most abundant crop has been conflict. Time here is not marked by years and decades but by eras and epochs, each given its designation by the revolving door of conquerors and cultures, kings and emperors, knights filled with religious zeal and politicians filled with European hubris, visionary prophets and pioneers. The resulting mash up of cultures and agendas has transformed the stone of Israel into the rich, fertile state it is today. Easy enough (if not woefully simplistic)!

Israel is not that much older than me. Perhaps because we came into existence around the same time, this older sibling has been a part of my American consciousness for as long as I can remember. Landing in Tel Aviv, beginning with the name Ben Gurion, I realized I was more familiar with the names of the Jewish leaders than I should be. Golda Mier, Moshe Dyan, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin. These names are as much a part of my early awareness as John and Robert Kennedy Martin Luther King, Johnson and Nixon; all leaders whose names evoke a time and generation of world citizenry imprinted on my brain. Israel seemed inexplicably linked to my own country in a way that my younger sibling-self could not really comprehend.

I come to Israel as an American man not just with knowledge of current events but also with vague boyhood notions of this faraway sibling. I arrive with over-packed unexplored emotional luggage, weighed down because I could not discern what was important or needed. Ultimately not much of it suited to the delayed coming-of-age reality I would encounter. This is an American’s Bar Mitzvah.

A few days ago, Lisa and I stood atop the former Syrian outpost of El Fahr-Golani in the Golan Heights. This land acquired by Israel during the 1967 War remains a source of contention with Syria. Standing in the trenches of this key battle site, the peace and serenity of our surroundings belies its violent history and its uncertain future. This is the irony of the land: serene and peaceful but always on the precipice of violence. Lior, our guide in the Golan, raised in a nearby kibbutz, sadly described

“ When it is like this (peaceful) you begin to hope, start to believe that maybe it can be this way always. You are lulled into a state of hope only to be violently awakened from the dream by rocket attacks and the knowledge that your way of life, even your life itself is endangered.”

This is ultimately about violence. War is a political term that legitimizes violence and while the coexistence of peace in a hostile land is often the stuff of grand political theater it is, above all, played out in the daily reality of people looking to be lulled into lasting peace.

From atop Mount Bental, an Israeli outpost, violence seems as distant and as close, as the vague sighting of a UN outpost on the border with Syria. At that moment, it seemed more comical than usual that in America, we seem to invent conflict and hostility where there is none. Whether to feed the voracious 24 -hour news cycle or some innate human need for chaos, the violence we inflict on each other, verbal if not physical, seems pathetic. I don’t mean to trivialize our own problems. Our problems are real and stem from the same need for a peaceful and equitable sharing of resources. Again, woefully simplistic; but maybe it’s a case of “keeping it simple stupid! “ Without direct daily threat to our way of life we have the opportunity to do more than replay tired and irrelevant conflicts.

Despite the history of conflict and turmoil, ultimately Israel is a vibrant, culturally rich and diverse nation that serves as both metaphor and manifestation of what is best thought of as the human spirit. Here is the revelation for me: the real story of Israel is not how it struggles but rather how it thrives. Just as in the story “Stone Soup” it has coaxed ingredients and seasonings out of the hands of those who would deny them and created an amazing, flavorful concoction.

I am not here just as an American. If so, I would complain that there is way too much Hebrew, convinced that things would go better for this country if they just spoke English and didn’t charge so much for gas. Israel has not only been a part of my American consciousness, but religious as well. The two are best handled separately. Either one can be tough but the combination is quite unmanageable, as we have seen in our recent national discourse. Of course, ours is not the only nation confounding politics and religion but whether jihadist or tea –partyist the whole of a nation is not served by the fervor of the few. This is not a separation of church and state issue, although it can be played out on that level. It is about the separation of a common national identity and one’s personal spiritual identity (which can be shared within a chosen community of believers). Both identities are strong and have evolved from my youth and both are in play for me right but I’d have to say that my Christian heritage dominates this visit. (More to come)