I’ve seen so much of Israel these last few days, from the Golan Heights, to the River Jordan, to the Sea of Galilee, to the forests and mountains of Carmel, to the paradise waterfalls of Dan, to a post card perfect view of Haifa, to the majestic Jezreel Valley, where Deborah fought close to another valley called, Armageddon, a trumpet call for ancient prophets, heralding one final war to someday put a bookend on history.
Every diary entry is immediately followed by plans for an additional five or six. I can’t keep up. I have never been so excited to write and I have never been more excited to be alive! In two days I fly home and I can see that I will continue to journal about this experience for a long time. I’ll try not to lose the freshness. Even after returning to San Diego, I’ll draw upon the original feelings and reactions I had at the time I witnessed each unfolding layer of splendor. To accomplish such a task, I’ll consult my notes, if not the notes on a page, at least the notes that mark my mind with grooves as permanent as the ancient stones around me, offering history in three dimensions.
I was not prepared for Israel to be so beautiful. Naturally, I had seen pictures and yes, I already knew the Jews did a noteworthy job of cultivating the land after they returned. Still, I expected most of this country to be desert or perhaps swamps converted into an orchard or two. A good deal of it actually is desert and the vast Negev is the one major area of Israel I have not yet set foot upon. Nevertheless, there seems to be as much variety in Israel as we have in the United States, some of it indigenous, much of it a re-plant. When Mark Twain visited the Holy Land, he was astonished that any one would be interested in such a pest thole. He saw little more than swamps, desolation and flies. The countryside had not always looked that way. God, after all, promised a land flowing with milk and honey, a land people would be anxious to enter. But when a country is invaded, century after century, trees are cut down for fire wood or for weapons or for ramparts. Cities are laid waste and torched to the ground. New cities are built on top of old, an archaeologist’s dream but an environmentalist’s nightmare.
When Jews returned to their promised land after two-thousand years of exile, three incredible restorations happened. First, the land was restored as trees were planted, farms were built, and soil was rejuvenated.
Next, the ancient language of the Bible was restored. For centuries, Hebrew was spoken only by Rabbis and scholars, long since abandoned as a language for the common man. But today, Hebrew is the national language of Israel. It includes the words that were used in Scripture. But now, modern words are fashioned out of the eccentric lines, dots and dashes. There is a Hebrew word for computer and movie. I have even seen the words McDonalds and Coca Cola in Hebrew!
Of course, the third restoration is really the first: Although a handful of Jews did remain in the land since Roman times, most of them had been wiped out or scattered. Nearly two-thousand years later, after Hitler vowed to kill every Jew in Europe and nearly succeeded in doing so, after the Arab nations vowed to squeeze the life out of Israel hours after the United Nations reluctantly cut her umbilical cord, a miracle happened, one that reminds us of the Old Testament stories: Israel became a nation again! Never before in history has a country been destroyed and brought back to life. No other people can make this claim, yet with Israel, the rebirth happened, not once, but twice. There have been three nations of Israel, the first under David and Solomon, the second, following the Babylonian Exile, leading to the time of the Romans and of Christ, the third, in 1948. Such an incomprehensible phenomenon would be a miracle in its own rite, but as it happens, Isaiah 11 predicts that three Israels will exist! Israel actually verifies the Bible!
Restore the people. Restore the language. Restore the land. And that is where I began today, the land! That land of my ancestors, a land with a rich past, a promised future and a troubled present, but oh what a land it is: Valleys of flowers with colors sharper than an eye deserves to witness, mountains as majestic as the royal kings who once hiked them, falls spilling into rivers like the splash of wet paint on a canvas where artists dream, as we all dream: We dream of Brigadoon. We dream of Shangri-La. We dream of God, that the God of the universe would meet us as we are. We crave Him because without Him, there is an empty void crying like an abandoned child. He will find us and meet us just as He first met people in this Promised Land to give them only a taste of another land. a land called heaven.
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