Practice Korban Pesach 2015-something a bit different

It's been quite a long time. I've not been hiking, being completely absorbed in other projects, but hope to change that. In the meantime, here's something I saw today.

Arguably, the most important sacrifice in Judaism is the Pesach (Passover) sacrifice. Men, women, children and slaves are all obliged to partake. It commemorates our nation's birth from Egypt. Unfortunately, since the Romans destroyed the Temple, we can't bring sacrifices. But we can prepare for the time when the Temple will be rebuilt. Groups like the Temple Institute are working on this constantly. Rav Yehuda Glick is involved in this effort-he was shot by an Arab terrorist a few months ago but made a miraculous recovery.

One of the things they do is to have a practice Pesach sacrifice. This has been going on for several years. It's not an actual sacrifice-it's practice. But it is a significant step towards the rebuilding of the Temple. Notably, there were leftist protesters outside this year, but no Muslim ones.

There were some speeches before the event by Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, the Chief Rabbi of the holy city of Tzfat, the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, and Rav Glick. The actual slaughter took place behind a curtain. The Kohanim, who are on stage, passed the blood and poured it on the practice altar, then burned the helev, the fatty portions, after which the entire sheep was roasted.

I was quite interested in the faces of the people there. It was very inspiring to see Jews with their families, small children, teenagers, Ashkenazim, Sepharadim, Yemenites, Chassidim, Litvaks, Religious Zionists and secular Jews, all come together for this. Something about their expressions makes me think that in my lifetime, before I am old, I will have the merit to see hundreds of thousands of Jews in a rebuilt Temple, bringing real sacrifices.

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It's been a while, I know

Things have been hectic, and are going to be that way for a while. But I've got some pictures of a small settlement overlooking Nahal Kana, a dry river about 20 km west of Tel Aviv. Enjoy!

Hilltop playground

A DIY balcony

Old guard tower flying the Israeli flag

Ilan the carpenter. You can see his hillside garden on the right.

Wadi Kana. The olive trees belong to the Arab neighbors-even though it's a nature preserve, some animals are more equal than others. Some of the residents of Elmatan have started a reforestation project to re-seed the hillsides with almond (for shade, biomass and rock breakup) and carob (for nitrogen fixation) trees. We'll see how it goes.

Nati and his wife Roni, making a chair together

Short Hike From Mevaseret Zion Through The Judean Mountains

These pictures are from the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv corridor. It was the site of many battles during the 1948 war, as the Israelis fought to keep the Arabs from cutting off communications to Jerusalem, which was under siege and whose residents almost starved. There are a lot of  very interesting and inspiring stories, including the Burma Road, a bypass built in record time to keep supply convoys to Jerusalem running as they were being ambushed on the main road. Anyway, I hiked south of Highway 1, which links Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. After the war, the corridor, which is very mountainous, was planted with trees by the Jews. In the pictures from 1948, you can see barren hillsides covered with garrengue, the landscape you get after you chop down all the trees for wood and then herd goats and sheep over the land to such a degree that only spiny, thorny bushes can survive. Today, there are huge trees everywhere, pines, figs, even palms. It looks a bit like the low mountains of Bosnia or the Appalachians.

Olive grove

Jerusalem from the West

Hadassa Hospital and a church to the left

Judean Mountains

New pictures soon

I've been busy with school, no time for hiking, but will get some stuff up in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, next door it's Aliens vs. Predator: no matter who loses, we all win.

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Around Bat Ayin

I hiked the hills below Bat Ayin. There are several streams coming out of the mountain and running in parallel down draws. First, a little more Bat Ayin Bet:

Bat Ayin Aleph and Bet

The poppies are blooming on the mountains

Bat Ayin is a settlement in the Judean mountains 30 minutes south of Jerusalem at an elevation of about 700 meters. They are a bit hippyish, in a very right-wing Jewish way. They try to use Jewish labor exclusively (most settlements are built and maintained with Arab labor.) They've had a lot of trouble with harassment from the Shin Bet's Jewish section (the Yevsekciya, if that tells my readers anything) and the government in general. In a move close to my heart, they don't have a fence, on the proper understanding that putting yourself into a ghetto is not a wise or dignified move.

Bat Ayin started off on top of the mountain and grew downwards. The houses up top, in Bat Ayin Aleph, are more established and built up. As you move downhill, to Bat Ayin Bet, it looks a bit more like a trailer park-people build their home the best they can, then make improvements as their financial situation becomes more established. There is no code, so even the established houses look very individual. Everyone has lots of kids, and dogs run free.

Bat Ayin Aleph

Kiryat Arba and Hevron

Near the top of Kiryat Arba, looking north towards the neighborhood of Har Sina (the hilltop directly above the kids.)

The red roofed houses in the center are the neighborhood of Ashmoret Yitzhak. The white houses overlooking them are the Arab neighborhoods of Hevron. According to my friends who have lived in Hevron since the early 90's, at that time all this was bare hillside. The Arab custom is that when a son gets married, his wife goes to live with him in his family's house. His family just adds an extra floor to the house. So you have organic growth of buildings to four, five stories over the decades.

Collapsing Birthrates

Spandrell is wondering why middle and upper class people in civilized countries are refusing to breed.

I mentioned that the Torah Jews are an exception to this rule. The ensuing discussion got long-winded, and I didn't want to monopolize comments. Below are my thoughts.

Consumer Civil War: Marketing As SIGINT/Information Warfare

I will have some pictures from Hevron and Kiryat Arba up next week. In the meantime, I will be using this blog to talk about something interesting that just occurred to me today, involving online marketing, signals intelligence, information warfare and the future.

In World War Two, the US-led coalition won in very large part because of American and British SIGINT. The Allies had cracked the German and Japanese codes and were able to see exactly what the Axis was doing and where (with some exceptions like the German Wacht Am Rhein offensive in the winter of '44-'45, but that was prepared for in total radio silence, using inner lines.) Now the details of the program, ULTRA/MAGIC, are widely available. This was what created the modern digital computer. Without this program, none of the other American efforts would have been very successful: the Manhattan Project, for instance, would not have been able to deliver a nuclear weapon to the Japanese Islands without Allied domination of the Pacific, the air base in Saipan and so forth. Without ULTRA/MAGIC, the Americans would not have been able to win the Battle of Midway, which was the tipping point of the Pacific Theater, and would not have been able to achieve those pre-requisites.

Makhtesh Ramon: Last Day, Wadi Geves to Highway 40

The next morning, I hiked a couple of kilometers to the road and caught a ride out. In general, it is easiest to catch rides from the middle of the Makhtesh, since you are in the middle of nowhere and people assume no one will help you if they don't. It is a bit harder from Mitzpe Ramon, and hardest of all from Be'er Sheva, a big city in the north of the Negev. I wound up getting to Hevron in about four hours of hitching.

Wadi Nekarot to Geves Campground

After coming out of the horseshoe canyon, I hiked across the desert floor to the Geves (gypsum) Campground, a free campground. I tried to fill up at an old well on a riverbed, but it was dry as far down as it went (3-4 meters.) Geves Campground has no water source and is in absolutely disgusting condition, with trash and waste scattered everywhere.Since it was getting close to sundown and hiking at night in the desert is forbidden, I found the cleanest corner, set up my hooch, ate some dinner and crashed out until morning.

Wadi Nekarot

Wadi Nekarot runs along the southeastern part of the Makhtesh. Its horseshoe canyon has some caves and is in general very scenic; it actually had some water flowing through it this time.

Second Day: Be'erot Campground to Mount Ardon

I spent the night in Be'erot, which is a very nice campground. It is clean and has showers with boiling hot water, a food kiosk, big "Bedouin" tents that you can spread your sleeping bag in, and of course a place to top off water supplies. This is a major issue in the Makhtesh, where there is no running water and only a handful of hard-to-find springs. On the minus side, you have to pay to stay there: around 50 shekels for your own tent and 60 for a space in a big tent.

The guy watching the campground overnight was a young Azazma Bedu from the Zin Valley, a bit further north. He was writing a fiction book about the way the Bedouins used to live in the past. We chatted a bit; I asked him if he was familiar with my friend from Hevron, Eddie Dribben, a cowboy from Wyoming who used to herd horses across the Negev in the 50s and 60s, who had learned his Arabic from the Azazma, but he wasn't. Incidentally, I will launch another blog this summer, with G-d's help, consisting of extended interviews with Eddie about his life.

Mountain Goat

Coming out of the horseshoe canyon of Wadi Nekarot in the southeast of the Makthesh, I ran into this mountain goat. He was hanging out eating bushes and generally ignoring me.

Desert Trees

Here are some trees across the crater. In general, you find desert trees in low ground where they can get their roots down to water level. They take a long time to grow and live a very long time. Unlike a forest, where trees blend in, in the desert a tree is a major landmark, sometimes marked on maps, and a unique source of shade in the midday heat, when the sun is beating down from overhead. These trees have a lot of character-they're gnarly, leaning in crazy directions and sometimes leaking creosote tar randomly.

Top of Shen Ramon and Across To Be'erot Campground

The northern face of Shen Ramon is a short but steep climb up a draw, from which you can see the crater from the south. I ran into a group of kids from a boarding high school in Bet Shemesh. Their rabbi, Ariel, had led them up the mountain and they were heading back down to meet their bus. I walked with them for a bit on the way down, and learned a bit about them. Apparently, the kids come from troubled families and are involved in experience-based learning, going on hikes, building and selling outdoor furniture, that kind of stuff.  We passed an ammonite wall, where you can see ancient giant mollusc fossils (many chiseled out by enterprising Israelis and tourists, leaving craters in the wall) and parted ways. I then hiked up and over a saddle in the ridge overlooking Highway 40, walked down to it and crossed it, then walked down a riverbed and up the Oil Road to Be'erot Campground for a day total of about 25 kilometers.

Across the Crater To Shen Ramon

This was about a 7 kilometer hike across the crater floor to Shen Ramon, a small mountain sticking out of the southern side. I was a bit worried about flash floods the whole time, as the dry riverbeds can supposedly turn into raging rivers in seconds, but it didn't happen. I would really like to watch one, from a safe elevation.

Camel mountain-a rock shaped like a kneeling camel coming out of the crater wall, with an observation platform on top. You can see the whole crater from the platform.

Mitzpe Ramon Alpaca Farm

Some pictures of my friend Ilan's alpaca farm next to the small hippy town of Mitzpe Ramon, overlooking the crater.

Makhtesh Ramon

Makhtesh Ramon is a giant crater in the south of Israel, in the Negev desert. It was formed by progressive washing away of softer rock. Inside the crater and around it, there are mountains. You enter the crater by walking down the rim, or via Highway 40. I hiked it over two and a half days last week, walking down the trail from the Mitzpe Ramon alpaca farm, crossing to Shin Ramon (a minimountain in the center of the crater,) moving to the Be'erot Campground in the center where I spent the first night, then hiking around the Saharonim area in the southeast of the crater, spending the second night at a campground there and hiking out to Highway 40, from where I hitchiked home.

The weather was drizzly and cloudy the first day, cloudy the second day and clear on the last day.

Here are some views from the crater rim:

This blog is about hiking Israel's backcountry and anything else I want to throw up here.