An Amazing Visit to Amatzia

On Pesach, we're always looking for interesting, cheap, uncrowded tiyyulim. There's an organization called Iggud Hamidrashot, which is a loose conglomerate of dozens of tiny Midrashot which comprise small groups of young women doing national service by teaching about the Land of Israel. The Iggud put out a brochure before Pesach with a bunch of flyers advertising different programs over Chol Hamoed, and the first one, from Midreshet Hadarom, caught my eye.

The flyer invited you to see the new archaeological finds in Amatzia, which is the Lachish Region. It caught my eye because I knew that Lachish was relatively close to our house - about a half-hour drive on relatively unpopulated roads (and who wants to fight traffic on Chol Hamoed?). So we loaded up the car, ran to the grocery store for BBQ supplies (hey, it was Pesach), and took off south.

When the tour began, we walked through a fence outside the yishuv, and from there took a short walk up a gravel road. It was there that our tour guide explained that this area would in fact be the new home of Karmei Katif, which would house families that had been expelled from their homes almost 8 years ago. Yes, they're still living in caravans.

But when they went to clear the area to prepare it for houses, they made some amazing discoveries. They found an ancient house, including a bath, and perhaps a mikveh, that they believe existed in Roman times, some two thousand years ago.

You can see the intact floor tile from that period in the background - which we were all walking on. Our tour guide from the Midrasha (who recognized our daughter Leah from a tour she had given to the girls from school) told us that the site would probably not be preserved, as it was slated for future housing. Seemed to make sense to us. You can't preserve everything. Anywhere you dig in Israel you find an ancient site. But the view from that house was breathtaking. (click the picture to enlarge)

I couldn't help but think, standing on that hill and surveying the mountains in the distance, that someone stood on this very hill and enjoyed the same incredible view two millenia ago - and how appropriate it is that in a year or two a Jewish family will be enjoying the self-same view, returning this hill to its rightful owners.

We then progressed down a hill to another huge clearing, where along the side of the road we entered a small cave, which emptied into another cave, which emptied into an ancient oil factory. In fact, it was the largest ancient, underground oil press in the entire State of Israel. (This one they're preserving). When they found the caves, they were only open a small amount at the top - the rest had filled with dirt over time. But what they found was truly astounding.

It was quite easy to see how the oil presses were made - where they crushed the olives; how they then placed the mush in mesh bags where they were pressed into oil using heavy stones to weigh down a huge beam: It was really an amazing site.

With room...

After room...

After room.

In addition, there were smaller tunnels above connected to the caves themselves leading to other caves, which our tour guide suggested were used during the Bar Kochva rebellion. It was like finding a new piece of history that we never knew existed.
But it makes quite a bit of sense.
We've all been to the Bell Caves at Beit Guvrin, which house beautiful, numerous caves which represent an ancient civilization and great economic activity. But why would we imagine that there was only one set of caves? Notice just how close Amatzia is to Beit Guvrin:

It would make sense that there were many more caves and areas of economic activity in the region, which is filled with caves that are perfect to both live and work in, away from the blistering southern heat, and situated on an ancient streambed, which provided water necessary for survival. Our tour guide noted that she had hiked with friends to other hills in the region and had found other caves with sealed earthenware jars (!) - that they just left there (!!!). I guess she didn't want to touch them. When you stand on the site in Amatzia and look at the surrounding hills, you realize just how much Jewish History is left to be uncovered.

At the same time, I couldn't help but feel that this small hill represented something much larger: A people finally reclaiming its lost Land, and rediscovering the history we always knew we had.

An Unusual Tiyyul and Praying for Rain

Reading one of the weekly alonim (parshah sheets - but they're really more like booklets) in shul called Matzav Haruach, I noticed the pictured advertisement for an unusual (and fascinating tour) of a Matash - that's a Hebrew acronym for מפעל טיפול שמרים, which is a nice way of saying, "Sewage Treatment Plant." I often write (in another forum) about Israeli efforts involving ecology and the environment, so I'd heard about advances in this area. And if you look at the ad carefully, the price was right (read here: free). So, off we went.
That's right. Yesterday we took a fascinating tour of the Jerusalem municipality's sewage treatment plant. What exactly do they do with the sewage that you flush down the toilet? Well, after they clean it, they send it right back down the river. (Not to worry. You don't drink it.)
Did you know that 98 percent of raw sewage is water? I didn't (but do now). Well, up until not too long ago, that raw sewage just flowed out of the city and into Nachal Sorek, literally mucking up the environment. At some point, people came to their senses and realized just how disgusting and environmentally destructive that is, and they built the sewage treatment plants.
At the plant,

• The sewage is filtered about three times, first for solids, and then twice for sediment and fats
• The sediment is then biologically treated with enzymes and bacteria, which produces methane gas (see the big gold dome in the picture?) which is converted into electricity and sold back to the power grid. The sediment itself is then sold to farmers as fertilizer.



Water leaving the sewage plant

• The water, after being filtered a third time (and biologically cleaned with whatever enzymes they use), it's sent down the wadi into a system of man-made lakes that are then piped through the country for agricultural use. You might have noticed purple pipes in parks or near fields and a sign that says (Irrigation Water - do not drink!). That's essentially treated sewage water. This water source is critical for Israel's continued growth and prosperity. There's already a well-known water shortage in Israel. (My guide wasn't a big fan of the desalination plants either.) Imagine if the entire agriculture industry used tap water instead of treated sewage water...think of how low the Kineret would be then? (Think empty.) Without reusing our sewage, we would either not have crops, or not be able to shower, or possibly both.

I found the tour both informative and fascinating. Some interesting facts emerged:

Down the River it flows. Clean...Sort of.

1. The reason that you can't drink the sewage water isn't because of biological agents. Biologically, the water is clean. But they don't get out either soap or salt, so don't drink it.
2. Most streams in Israel are either raw sewage (I wouldn't hike in a Wadi between Yerushalayim and Ein Gedi if I were you. You can thank the Palestinians for that, who'd rather allow untreated sewage to flow into the environment than allow Israel to build a modern plant) or treated water. Either way, don't drink it unless you know that it's natural rainwater flow (think way up north).
3. We think that heavy rains are great for the country. While this might be true in northern areas that flow into the Kinneret and other water aquifers, it's not true about rain over much of the country. Too much rain is never good for the system. Rainwater flows into the sewage system and literally overflows the machinery. All they can do is let the sewage flow through and hope that not too much gets downriver. This fact reminded me of the famous story (see Ta'anit 3:8) of Choni Hame'agel.

מעשה שאמרו לו לחוני המעגל, התפלל שיירדו גשמים.  אמר להם, צאו והכניסו תנורי פסחים, בשביל שלא יימוקו.  התפלל, ולא ירדו גשמים.  עג עוגה, ועמד בתוכה ואמר, רבונו של עולם, בניך שמו פניהם עליי, שאני כבן בית לפניך; נשבע אני בשמך הגדול שאיני זז מכאן, עד שתרחם על בניך.  התחילו הגשמים מנטפים; אמר, לא כך שאלתי, אלא גשמי בורות שיחין ומערות.  ירדו בזעף; אמר, לא כך שאלתי, אלא גשמי רצון, ברכה ונדבה.

Once they told Choni Hame'agel, "Pray that the rain should fall." He said to them, "Go and bring your Pesach ovens indoors, so that they don't get ruined [in the rain]. He prayed, yet no rain fell. He drew a circle, stood inside it and said, "Master of the World, your children turned to You, for I am like a member of Your household. I swear in Your great name that I will not move from this spot until You have compassion upon your children." It began to drizzle, and [Choni] said, "This is not what I requested - rather [I want] rains that will fill wells, cisterns and caves." The rains fell with wrath and he said, "This [too] is not what I requested. Rather, [I want] rains of blessing and benevolence."

Choni understood that when it rains too hard, that's also not a symbol of blessing. Great downpours overwhelm the fields and wash away into the ocean without sinking into the underground cisterns. And, they even overwhelm the sewage system, washing the sewage down the wadi without having a chance to treat the water.
So, when we pray for rain this week, we shouldn't just pray for a lot of rain. We do need the rain in great quantities. But we also need it in a smooth, steady stream, so that we can collect the water, treat it properly, and use it to generate life and blessing in the Holy Land.

A Summer Lesson about Mesirut Nefesh: A Visit to the Ayalon Institute

The Place: Pre-State Palestine
The Time: Mid 1940's
The Problem: With Arabs attacking Jews relentlessly and the British preventing Jews from procuring weapons, ammunition supplies presented a serious problem. Where would Jews get bullets to shoot to protect themselves from attack and fight the inevitable war?
The Solution: Build an underground factory right under the noses of the British authorities, in which dedicated people work in total secret to produce millions of bullets crucial for the initial stages of the War of Independence.

I'm on vacation for a couple of weeks, and today we visited the Ayalon Institute, a very small museum on the outskirts of Rechovot, which takes you into the underground factory that the Haganah built in order to produce bullets in total secrecy. For a full description you can see here, or just Google the Ayalon Institute.

First of all, it's powerful to experience history first-hand. They still have the original machinery (much of it still works), and you get a sense of the tight working conditions, and how hard they worked to keep the factory secret even from many of the people living above the factory in the working kibbutz. It's also a pretty short tour - about an hour and a half - that goes by really quickly. It's really something that an entire family can (and should) do.
Mostly though, I was taken by two aspects of the visit: Firstly, I'm in awe of the self-sacrifice of the young people who worked, day in and day out, in that factory. They lived under constant threat of discovery - and if so - execution at the hands of the British. And yet, they volunteered to work in the heat, noise and danger because they knew just how important their work was. We don't live in such desperate times, thank God, but we also seem to lack that same sense of self-sacrifice and dedication to the klal.

The visit also reminded me that as much as things change, they remain the same. The tour began with our excellent guide asking us, "Imagine that someone was punching you in the face, but the person charged with protecting you wouldn't let you fight back or defend yourself." That was the situation of the Jewish community in Pre-State Palestine, forcing them to work as they did in secret.
But it's also still true today. The world still deems it necessary to tell us how we're supposed to defend ourselves, and what is and is not legitimate to protect our citizens. We still hear about how Israel is guilty of "disproportionate response", as if we don't have the right to decide the best way to protect ourselves.
Thank God, today we've learned to listen less and do what we think is right. But it's always good to remember that not that long ago, the world not only told us how to behave, but took steps to prevent us from taking the necessary measures to defend ourselves. We made the bullets we needed, but we did it in secret, under their very noses. (Take the tour. It's fascinating).
We still act in secret, without the knowledge or assent of the powers that be when necessary. The people of Israel learned the hard way that the world wouldn't come to our defense and protection, and if we felt endangered, it would be up to us to take action. We did back then, and thankfully, when we have to we continue to do so to this very day.