June 12 The Sea Of Galilee

---

Before we tour this morning, a little story about taking a shower in Israel. If you open your day with the thought, "We are not in Kansas anymore," that will help! Many hotels in Europe do not have a washcloth. If you are desperate to use one, pack your own. You may need it 50% of the time. In Isreal the Dan Panorama had them, but the Kibbutz Lavi does not. Also, there are no shower curtains,

If you are lucky there will be a 1/2 to a 1/4 glass wall on the side closest to the shower head that MAY prevent you from completely flooding the floor. Another fun thing is the shower head or lack thereof. You see, in most European bathrooms, showering is not like we do at home: the big shower head, the hot water, and the luxuriation under the stream. Here not so much. Instead of a shower head, they have a handheld water wand. The other problem is that the wand is not above your head but is about belly button height, so turning it on gets you wet from the tummy down.

With the potential of floods, and only being able to get wet from the middle down, it takes some engineering to take a shower here in Israel! I will leave it to your ingenuity and imagination as to how to do that, but suffice it to say there is most likely a flooded bathroom floor in your future!

Now on to the good stuff.

Today we started with an early departure for The Sea Of Galilee. This is the very same spot where Jesus found Simon Peter, his most important disciple. We also have the miracle of walking on water, calming the storm, and the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. A lot happened here for sure. The Sea of Galilee is also known as Lake Tiberias. It is also the lowest freshwater lake on earth! Only the Dead Sea is lower but that is a saltwater lake. We arrived at the low water line at 705 feet below sea level to find a most amazing vista before us. It was still a bit early so it was very quiet. The sea was calm, the sun was barely over the mountain, and it was just plain beautiful.

Evan had a special treat for us; we were to have a sail on the Sea of Galilee. We all boarded the Faith and set sail. Our tour was the only one on the boat and that made it even more special. Now Evan has a bit of entertainer in him and so things got a little out of hand! After some very serious guiding, telling us about this and that, pointing out the hills and the valleys, and telling us the stories of what happened on the lake, he broke into song! Yep, he started belting out "I'm On the Top of the World" by Karen Carpenter! More amazing people started singing along! If that wasn't enough this rendition was followed by song after song. If it wasn't only 9 AM, I think others passing by would have thought we were a bunch of drunken sailors! It was great fun with a great crowd of people and one of the most amazing experiences for me personally. This is a place I have only read about and now I am here on the same water that Jesus once sailed.

We also visited a very special exhibit. During a particularly hard drought, two fishermen were looking for artifacts in the newly exposed mud. They prayed that their find would be something special, and their prayers were answered. They discovered a nearly intact Second Temple period fishing boat of the kind spoken about during Jesus' time. Not saying this boat once carried Jesus, but.....

From here we headed back on the bus for the relatively short drive up to the Mount of Beatitudes. This is a hill in northern Israel on the Korazim Plateau and is the site of another major Biblical event, the Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus proclaimed to the assembled his moral teachings by proclaiming a collection of short sayings. He was teaching from a morality position expressing the importance of compassion and justice in a community. He called out to us to live right and to have compassion for our fellow man.

The site has a small church commemorating the event and marking the spot high above the valley from which Jesus preached. The Mount is a natural basin and functions much like a stadium with natural acoustics. Someone speaking from this place could be heard all around, so it was a perfect place to address the masses. The site is beautiful and the vista is breathtaking.

We visited a synagogue in Safed, another small but ancient city. Here we learned all bout the synagogue, and the meaning of the various attributes of the temple, and were given the opportunity to get a special blessing from the local Rabbi. During a brief respite, I walked outside for some air and noticed a very old cleric moving very slowly toward me. He was bent with age, moved with painful slowness aided by two walking sticks. I saw in his path there were some stairs heading down to a lower level of the street. As he moved closer to the steps I offered him my arm to help him down. He graciously took my arm and asked me where I was from. I replied "Ohio." He replied, "God sent you all the way from Ohio to help me today. Thank you." I felt a little humbled by this.

Our next stop was lunch. Now this was indeed special. The Sea of Galilee is known for its fish. Of the several fish caught here one is called the Musht a member of the Talapia family. This is purported to be the fish that fishermen like St. Peter caught during the time of Jesus and thus the fish earned the name "St. Peter's Fish."

Cathy and I decided to try this specialty of Galille and we were not disappointed. Our waiter delivered two whole fish, and by this I mean the entire fish, head, tail fins, and everything in between! It was a bit of a challenge to eat without getting a mouthful of bones, but it was delicious in the end. Of course, we took a picture of the before but not the after!

After lunch, we headed off to Capernaum, a city known to have existed at the time of Jesus. In fact, this was the home of Peter, who would later become Jesus' right hand. Here in Capernaum Jesus was a frequent visitor and may have worshipped in the old synagogue across the street from the home of St. Peter.

The followers of St. Francis of Assisi have built a church over the very spot where Peter lived. After the crucifixion, the home of Peter became a church and the Brothers of St Francis built a church over the ruins of Peter's home to protect it. We were truly walking the path that Jesus and Peter walked. Our eyes and hands saw and touched the very same buildings that these men did. One could say we were in the presence of Jesus for I believe everywhere we go we leave some of ourselves.

We were running a little early so Evan offered one more treat. He took us to the Jordan River and the spot where baptisms have been performed since the time of John the Baptist! Now historians do not know the exact spot where John performed his baptisms, but for sure it was this river and it was said to have been near the house of Peter so this is as close a spot as we could have found. The location is the site of baptisms to this very day.

Now we were getting a little tired and there was one final stop, the Diamond Merchant. Israel is home to some of the most significant diamond cutters in the world. Most of the diamonds from all over the world end up here to be graded, marked, cut, polished, and sold through fine jewelry stores all over the world. They also had a retail store on the premises... Of course, they did.

Most of us were a little too hot and tired to be serious buyers, but some jewelry was acquired and we soon headed back to the kibbutz for another amazing buffet dinner, some live music, and bed. Some of our group attended a lecture by an older gentleman from the kibbutz to hear about the history of this particular one. He was very gracious and answered our questions. Tomorrow we leave here for our visit to Acre, Haifa, and Caesarea. Our final destination is Tel Aviv.

---