Wandering Jews - Visit to Egypt (Part 1)

A group of my fellow students started our trek into Egypt from Eilat, Israel southern most city as well as a port on the Red Sea. Since it borders the Negev, the Israeli southern desert, Eilat has been compared to Las Vegas sans the gambling. With its long boardwalk and beach-front hotels, I would liken it more to Atlantic City with euro-trash teenagers instead of misery octogenarians. Besides being a popular beach town for Israelis, it is a convenient launching point into both Egypt and Jordan.

We crossed the Israeli-Egyptian border at 5 AM and the comparative levels of security were in stark contrasted. While Israeli was thorough with a healthy level of skepticism, Egyptian was a fee and a hand-shake. We met our guide, a very kind and unassuming man named Waldi in Taba, the Egyptian border city. We traveled about five hours through the Sinai whose geography ranged from sharp and tightly clusters mountains to an endless expanse of desert.

Egypt has a population of about 80 million people whom inhabit 10% of the land mass – the Nile River Valley. Needless to say, this river valley, moreover, Cairo is a densely populated city with one quarter of the population. In the 16th century, Egypt’s capital move from Memphis to Cairo and it is the home to a number of major Egyptian historical and cultural landmarks such as the Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, Saladin’s Citadel, and Mosque of Amr ibn al-A'as. It is a vibrant, noisy city on a collision course with modernity. Emma Lazarus, the composer of the poem inscribed on base of the Statue of Liberty, had vague understanding of the “teeming masses” when one compares the flood of immigrants to the New York at the turn for the last century to the average day in Cairo. Cairo is the city that neither sleeps nor comprehends the concept to quiet. Even in the wee hours of the morning, the din is bombastic.

Being predominantly a Muslim county, the dress is distinctly modest, yet fashionable. The clothing of the women ranged from full covering of abaya to a simple hijab or head scarf. The younger generation would don a complementary hijab to coordinate with their D&G t-shirts and their Seven jeans. For the most part, the men wore jeans or slacks with a long sleeved shirt. With the oppressive summer bearing down, I admired their religious tenacity.

The Egyptian Museum boasts the largest collection of Pharaonic antiquities that was not absconded by the British, the French, and various tomb raiders and looters. Primarily noted for the treasure of King Tutankhamun, this museum is reminiscent of the museums of the Victorian era or that of the lectures of full tenured Cambridge professors ….. brilliant, but confusing. Our Cairo guide with his distinctly manicured moustache, his unassailable tagline, “Attention, please. Attention, please,” and his Italian-esque addition of vowel sounds to English words was a welcomed resource in this labyrinth of Egyptian history. King Tutankhamun was a minor pharaoh ruling from 1333 BC – 1324 BC during the 18th Dynasty or the New Kingdom period. Being rather historically insignificant, his tomb was discovering intact in 1922.

According to ancient Egyptian beliefs in the after life, the king’s body must be preserved or mummified as well as all of his possessions be replicated and placed in the tomb. Therefore, most of the collection consisted of items a king would require in the eternal after-life – beds, thrones, chariots, weapons, clothing, slaves, etc. An interesting point was the housing or the storage compartments for the items resemble that of the housing unit for the Ark of the Covenant. The piece de resistance is the treasures of the actual mummy – the ceremonial jewelry, accouterments, and garbs. The mummy was encased on two sequentially smaller glided coffins and a golden sarcophagus. The golden head-dress was spectacular and, if one inspects it closely, one can perceive the hieroglyphics “King Tut” on his grill.

I AM BACK

Moishe Pipik has returned from his sojourn. I will be describe in detail after Shabbos. Here is a taste.

WILL BE TRAVELLING

Moishe Pipik will be travelling for a few days, therefore his riveting and action packed blog will not be updated until this coming week. Be safe, stay strong, and keep in touch.

I'll Be Wrapped Around Your Finger

Tefillin are a ritual phylacteries used in the morning prayer service or shacharit. Essentially, it is a pair of black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment with biblical verses. When donning or wrapping teffilin, one box is wrapped around the fore-arm and the fingers, shel yad, while is other is placed on the forehead, shel rosh. Wrapping tefillin is considered a mitzvot or a commandment of God per the Torah and coupled with my interest of becoming more observant, I visited in tefillin factory in northern Jerusalem to inquire about purchasing a pair.

In order to keep tefillin sturdy and true, therefore kosher or holy, the manufacturing process is very labor intensive. With the intent of minimizing the use of glue, a piece of cow’s hide is literally folded like origami to create four individual compartments to house the parchments. The parchment, made from goat hide, is hand scribed with the greatest care for detail and accuracy. I have attached pictures of the various stages of the manufacturing process.

Gush Etzion

Gush Etzion (the settlement block of Etzion) is an Israeli settlement outside of the Green Line, the 1949 Armistice Line between Israel and its neighbors after the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. Israeli settlements outside of the Green Line is a contested issue in the Israeli-Palestine Conflict namely within immediate proximately to the Palestinian Territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Gush Etzion is within in the West Bank located equidistance between two cities of biblical importance – Bethlehem (birthplace of Jesus) and Hebron (the burial place of the “Patriarchs” – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob). There is an ancient Roman road passing through this settlement that was the alleged route of Abraham when he traveled from Hebron to Jerusalem. Along this road, called the Road of the Patriarchs, there are archeological remnants of mika’vot, baths for ritual purification, for this route was commonly used for the semi-annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the period of the Second Temple, 516 BC to 70 AD. As a southern approach to Jerusalem, during the Israeli War of Independence, it was part of a noted and prolonged siege by Jordanian Arab Legion and Arab irregular forces. One day prior to the end of the war, as a result of an overwhelming, coordinated attack, the settlement fell and all of its soldiers and the citizens were massacred.

A settlement block is partition into small units, like a neighborhood within a city. But, unlike a city, these neighborhoods, although with visual proximity, are physically isolated from one another. My classmates and I visited one of our professors at one of the settlements within Gush Etzion. It was not unlike a pioneering gated community in the Midwest – an outpost of uniformly designed townhouses, shops, and synagogues spun into a compact suburb. It truly had the appearance and the trappings of an American suburb. To make a finer point, although this settlement is outside of the Green Line, it is a permanent settlement in existence for at least the past thirty years. This is not a temporarily settlement that is often the reported point of strife within the Israeli-Palestine Conflict.

Israel can be defined as covenantal (the “Promised land”), sociological (the totality of the Jewish people), and experiential (the Jewish homeland). As I travel and studying in Israel, I am beginning to learn the necessary and the value of this land.

Sunday Night Fever

On Sunday evenings, after the commerce and negotiations of markets of Mehane Yeduda cease and the vendors close their shops, an Israeli band plays traditional Israeli music in one of the alcoves of the Shuk. An adjacent restaurant serves a light evening meal of fish on long, communal tables as families gather for the evening’s entertainment. Not unlike most experiences in the Shuk’s narrow streets, the place is a compression of people. Near the band, an improved dance floor is occupied with groups of friends (typically partitioned according to gender) swaying and moving rhythmically to the music. The dancers’ manifestation of the music was expressed via the hips and with graceful movements of the arms.

While the instruments were common - guitar, mandolin, and persuasion, the music was lively and distinctly Middle Eastern. The crowd was fully participating in the songs and at revelry of the moment. At times, individuals would step into the mass of dancers and begin performing a solo dance, and the crowd would respond with applause. The music was effervescent and joyful and that was openly reflected on the faces of the crowd. My friends and I did not know the words to the songs, and our desire to share in the collective singing, we crafted homophonic (similar sounds) lyrics. When all else failed, a hardy “EH” sufficed.

Second Shabbos In Israel – Let’s Get Ready to Frumble

Israel is a microcosm of global jewry for it reflects all of the various denominations, sects, and international communities of the Jewish faith. This Shabbos, a fellow student and I spend Friday evening with a haradi, ultra-orthodox Jews from central and Europe, family near the neighborhood of Me’a She’arim. The haradi are the classic “Lithuanian” Jews steeped in a rich Orthodox tradition of yeshivas and Talmudic study. Noted for the donning of black hats, the haradi represent a very conservative and observant group within the Jewish spectrum.

My host was raised in the US and he had been studying and living in Israel for a number of years with his family. We attended late Mincha, afternoon prayer, and an early Maariv, evening prayer, service at his synagogue. It was brimming with men ranging from mid-twenties to early forties all donning black suits and the customary black hats. Granted my Hebrew is improving, I could not keep pace with the rapidity of their davening (a modified Yiddish word for “prayer”). The Shabbat meal was a languid and delicious full of discussion and debate. I was able to address a number of religious issues that needed clarification; moreover, his perspective offered a different on the faith and its teachings. I found value in experiencing a more traditional approach to Judaism. Although it does not appeal to me, my learning and my experience in Jerusalem has fostered an appreciation and an understanding of that lifestyle.

My host family was extremely hospitable and the food was exceptional, and like my previous Shabbat experience, continuous. Considering my travels in the American South, the hostess’s homemade, kosher lemon meringue pie would give Paula Dean stiff competition.

During the long walk back from the Me’a She’arim neighborhood to my flat in Baaka (about a one and half walk), I walked through a number of Jewish communities from the ultra-othordox to the Hasidic to the secular. Even though it was after midnight, the streets were alive with people – all observing Shabbat in their own way.