- Nov 28, 2005
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In 1984 I was a Jewish 16-year-old, with 18 other such folk in one of the visits sponsored by the Israeli government and groups of U.S. synagogues. We stayed three weeks at a kibbutz, and spent the second three weeks traveling and seeing many different places from Caesaria Phillipi to Eilat.
One day we were sitting on the ground, under some trees, on one of the hilltops facing the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, waiting for the next thing to happen, occasionally listening to someone say something. We asked, and were told that there was no particular significance of the spot. While waiting, my hand encountered something sharp. I groaned, thinking I must have cut my hand on a Coke pull-tab (those were still in use there and then), and very quietly went to see how much my hand was bleeding, to see how much I was going to have to bother our minders. Wasn't bleeding, so I looked to see what I had felt. It was a worked stone tool, human-chipped flint. One of my parent's books had a long section which had explained, with many pictures, how to distinguish those. I was very shocked, because no one had ever mentioned such a possibility in or around my presence, and there had been photos of Jerusalem in every classroom in my Jewish private elementary school classes, and many hours of other discussion.
So I decided, well OK, might as well look for more, as the speaker continued. I found eight more on that hill and very easily, all I did was feel and look. That was probably four weeks into the visit, and by then we had all learned that our minders were very much aware of everything we did; I was quietly told not to worry about them at all, to feel free to take them. We had at least one US minder and one Israeli minder (the Israelis always had a rifle or assault weapon) at all times. I very very quietly verified this input with all of group's minders, and kept them. And then started noticing.
We walked in the Sinai, quite a few miles over four days. We walked just outside of the Old City a bit, and inside. And quite a few more places. And in a large number of places, I found more stone tools, just sitting there in plain sight. I started keeping my eyes glued to the ground by default. Shortly I had about 20 or so and started looking for quality, not quantity...and then had to laugh to myself, because that didn't solve anything, so I gathered only one or two more and exchanged rather than added, because I didn't want Customs to freak out on the way home. But I found them all over the place. I found them in city gutters by the side of the road outside of the Old City. I found them almost anywhere that bulldozers, lawn-planters, and others had not been thorough. In the desert, there were flint nodules all over the place, many of them with human strikes as if trying them for suitability for tool-making, sitting on top of the dirt. I have had cause to wonder if, long long ago, there were a lot more nodules which were more suitable, used for that purpose and now absent.
But to this day I am the only person I know who has witnessed this, and this is a cognitive dissonance for me. I wonder if you have. And I have wondered more. Perhaps the Holy One desired me to notice, that devoted inhabitation of that place, especially Jerusalem itself, long predates any Hebrews. Melchizedek, was not a Hebrew.
One day we were sitting on the ground, under some trees, on one of the hilltops facing the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, waiting for the next thing to happen, occasionally listening to someone say something. We asked, and were told that there was no particular significance of the spot. While waiting, my hand encountered something sharp. I groaned, thinking I must have cut my hand on a Coke pull-tab (those were still in use there and then), and very quietly went to see how much my hand was bleeding, to see how much I was going to have to bother our minders. Wasn't bleeding, so I looked to see what I had felt. It was a worked stone tool, human-chipped flint. One of my parent's books had a long section which had explained, with many pictures, how to distinguish those. I was very shocked, because no one had ever mentioned such a possibility in or around my presence, and there had been photos of Jerusalem in every classroom in my Jewish private elementary school classes, and many hours of other discussion.
So I decided, well OK, might as well look for more, as the speaker continued. I found eight more on that hill and very easily, all I did was feel and look. That was probably four weeks into the visit, and by then we had all learned that our minders were very much aware of everything we did; I was quietly told not to worry about them at all, to feel free to take them. We had at least one US minder and one Israeli minder (the Israelis always had a rifle or assault weapon) at all times. I very very quietly verified this input with all of group's minders, and kept them. And then started noticing.
We walked in the Sinai, quite a few miles over four days. We walked just outside of the Old City a bit, and inside. And quite a few more places. And in a large number of places, I found more stone tools, just sitting there in plain sight. I started keeping my eyes glued to the ground by default. Shortly I had about 20 or so and started looking for quality, not quantity...and then had to laugh to myself, because that didn't solve anything, so I gathered only one or two more and exchanged rather than added, because I didn't want Customs to freak out on the way home. But I found them all over the place. I found them in city gutters by the side of the road outside of the Old City. I found them almost anywhere that bulldozers, lawn-planters, and others had not been thorough. In the desert, there were flint nodules all over the place, many of them with human strikes as if trying them for suitability for tool-making, sitting on top of the dirt. I have had cause to wonder if, long long ago, there were a lot more nodules which were more suitable, used for that purpose and now absent.
But to this day I am the only person I know who has witnessed this, and this is a cognitive dissonance for me. I wonder if you have. And I have wondered more. Perhaps the Holy One desired me to notice, that devoted inhabitation of that place, especially Jerusalem itself, long predates any Hebrews. Melchizedek, was not a Hebrew.
