3 - The Stakes are High

Aaron’s parents moved to Israel in 1948. His dad had been sixteen when he was brought to Auschwitz, and for some inexplicable reason he was chosen to be sent to the work camp instead of the gas chambers. 60 years later, Aaron picked us up at our hotel to be our driver and guide across Israel. Destinations: Mount Masada and the Dead Sea.

The Palmach Museum, which we visited yesterday, follows the story of one paramilitary brigade in the 1940’s as the Jews first fought to shepherd their kin out of the dangers of World War II, and then fought the Palestinians, British, Saudi Arabians, Syrians, Egyptians, Lebanese, etc. in the war for Israeli Independence. The museum contains no artifacts, original documents or relics, but instead seeks to immerse the visitor in the world of the members of the Palmach, so that we might feel the tensions, the stresses, and passions with which they risked their lives in this decade. The museum was moving and informative, but on its own cannot explain why the Zionist movement has sustained, and why the tensions in this region are equally strong and stubborn.

Aaron, leading us along the ridge at Masada, brought us 2,000 years back in time. With this temporal journey he helped us (Gentiles, at least) see the bigger picture that our Jewish friends and family feel every day. Mixing geological and topographical fact with written history and current events, Aaron, son of holocaust survivors, shared with us what Masada means to him: the physical symbol of the current Jewish necessary attitude, never again.

The story of Masada (or as Asher has now coined it “most hot-a”) is simple. In 77 a.d., the Romans quashed the Jewish rebellion, as they systematically defeated the three Jewish strongholds in Israel. The temple in Jerusalem fell, and the only critical mass of free Jews was the 1,000 member community that had fled Jerusalem two years earlier and settled at Masada. The mountain, next to and 1,300 feet above the Dead Sea, has a flat plateau, is completely isolated from the neighboring mountains, and was well equipped with water cisterns, food storage, and armory thanks to the embellished palace built by King Herod at the turn of the millennium (which he visited only five times before his death). In 77 a.d., 10,000 Roman soldiers surrounded the mountain in eight camps (the ruins of the camps are clearly visible (and quite impressive) from the top of the mountain), waited for the Jews to surrender for six months, and eventually began to wage an assault on the walls of the fortress. The Romans built a ramp (exploiting enslaved Jews as laborers), and used it to break down the wall. Inexplicably, they retreated for a night’s rest, with the intention of slaughtering the entire community in the morning, a task of which they would have been fully capable.

On the mountain plateau, Aaron showed us the restored walls, function of the aquaducts, and the beautiful Roman bathhouse build by King Herod. He explained to us the background of the Zealots and helped us understand the proximity to the closest, and one of the most ancient, Kibbutzim, En Gedi (10 miles), and also Jerusalem (a 2-3 day walk). We alternated between finding shady spots on the hot and unusually humid day (Washington weather seems to follow me), and seeking quieter spots away from the noticeably frenetic and loud group of Christian tourists (perhaps it was the synchronized shouting of “Hallelujah” at the edge of Herod’s personal palace, shouted to hear the admittedly impressive echo across the Dead Sea, that tipped us off).

Aaron also showed us the spot where archeologists found 10 stones with Hebrew names written on them, the lots casted at the end of the story of Masada, when the besieged Zealots decided to kill themselves rather than be enslaved by the Romans. Ten men were selected from the community of 1,000, and they drew lots to decide who would be the one to kill the ninth (after all of the others had been thrown off the plateau) and kill himself. Clearly, the decision to choose death over fighting the Romans cannot have been easy, but Aaron asked one of us to help us learn the Zealots motivation by reading the words of their leader, Ben-Yair. Asher read the following to us out loud:

Since we, long ago, my generous friends, resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God himself, who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice. And let us not at this time bring a reproach upon ourselves for self-contradiction, while we formerly would not undergo slavery, though it were then without danger, but must now, together with slavery, choose such punishments also as are intolerable; I mean this, upon the supposition that the Romans once reduces us under their power while we are alive. We were the very first that revolted from them, and we are the last that fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God hath granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom, which hath not been the case of others, who were conquered unexpectedly. It is very plain that we shall be taken within a day’s time, but it is still an eligible thing to die after a glorious manner, together with our dearest friends…

Let our wives die before they are abused, and our children before they have tasted slavery, and after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually and preserve ourselves in freedom as an excellent funeral monument for us. But first let us destroy our money and the fortress by fire; for I am well assured that this will be a bitter blow to the Romans, that they shall not be able to seize upon our bodies, and shall fail to our wealth also; and let us spare nothing but our provisions; for they will be a testimonial when we are dead that we are not subdued for want of necessaries; but that, according to our original resolution, we have proffered death before slavery.”

And that’s what they did. They chose noble death as followers of Jehovah over slavery under the Roman hand, a circumstance which would have made practicing their religion impossible.

Masada stands as a symbol of Jewish nationalism, of what the Jews hope never again to have to do in order to prevent enslavement by another tyrant, another culture, another religion. Today, boys and girls have their mitzvah ceremonies in one of the two oldest temples ruins in Israel, and new army classes swear their allegiance to the State, all on the plateau of Mount Masada. And just as the Palmach brigades climbed the snake path up the mountain to learn about their heritage as Jews, so Jews and Gentiles today climb up the mountain at dawn (or, as in our case, take the three minute cable car … hey, it was high noon and hot out!) to understand or to remember the ancient history that has led the State of Israel to the fragile place it is today.

Getting to Mount Masada from Tel Aviv (on Aaron’s “adventure ride,” as I affectionately coined it in attempt to avoid motion-sickness) has revolutionized my understanding of the stakes in Israel. No sooner had we left the sand filled sea region, and briefly crossed through the hills region, than we entered the mountain region and also crossed our first check-point.

The check point was simple enough. Israeli military guarded the road and, seeing our Israeli license plate and Jewish guide, waved us through immediately (I’m quite sure Aaron didn’t even slow down). Crossing the check-point was so simple, in fact, that it seemed like we were going through the FastLane or EasyPass lane at a toll-booth. We were surprised then, when Aaron informed us we were in the West Bank. What?!?!? The West Bank? But we are right next to Jerusalem? And the Israeli and Palestinian settlements can’t be more than half a mile from each other!

And yet, before the barbed wire and fences were constructed ten years ago, the suicide bombings were happening at an alarming rate. And even today, though the success rate of suicide bombers is low, the Israeli army still catches an inconceivable number of wanna-be-terrorists attempting to take their own lives, and the lives of others, on religious missions.

Back to the impact of Masada … taking ones own life in the face of danger does not strike me as a particularly Jewish value. Nor does racial profiling. And yet in the case of the Zealots at Mount Masada, where the stakes were so high (think Live Free or Die), the Jewish people in that place chose a most heroic ending to their own story. Our guide, Aaron, encouraged us to take home the message that the dead Zealots express on Masada: we can never again let the Jews be forced to answer the question, slavery or death. That lens on Israel helps put so many of the country’s policies and practices into place. While perhaps not excusing racial profiling, the stakes are so high in Israel that the policy almost seems to make sense … and indeed it is saving lives. Similarly, the Dead Sea is receding three feet every year, but Israel also needs to quench the thirst of a growing population and currently has not established a better alternative than diverting water from the Sea of Galilee.

At 9:00 this morning, Israel traded five imprisoned Lebanese (including at least one known terrorist) in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers. For two years, since they were captured at the Lebanese border, no Israeli knew for sure if they were dead or alive. Today we learned they were dead, and we know that at least one had been from the start of the conflict with Lebanon in 2006. In a country with a population of less than six million people, two individuals, two soldiers whose parents were promised they would be brought home dead or alive, today’s exchange is both controversial and progressive. It can be seen as extending an olive branch, as weakness, as standing by one’s word, or as a distraction from other scandals. One can speculate that it will ensue trust between the Jews and Arabs, and that the leaders of Hezbollah will use the story to their own political agenda. Regardless of the arguments for or against this exchange, it is undeniable that the stakes are high in Israel, and there is little room for error. After 26 years of being interested in and studying Jewish culture and the history of Israel, I feel I have only begun to understand what the stakes truly are for this nation and all of the people of this region.