A Biblical Journey into the Desert
I spent this past weekend at a Rainbow Gathering in the dessert in the south of Israel. You may have heard of Rainbow, if not, it's pretty hard to describe, but basically it's a bunch of hippies gathering together and forming a temporary intentional community in the outdoors. Rainbow gatherings happen all over the world and vary in size and duration. For more basic information, you can check out either of these two sites.
Anyway, the Rainbow in Israel takes place during the Hebrew month of Cheshvan which is October/November and lasts for four weeks with the peak being on the full moon. I went for my third year in a row, with a group of friends for the weekend closest to the full moon. Actually, this year we lucked out and were able to be there for the full moon itself. This year, the gathering took place in the Arava, the southern desert close to Eilat. I went with a small group of friends and had an absolutely amazing time. We were there from Thursday until Saturday night and there were maybe 250 people gathered at the time.
Something about the location this year, in the middle of the desert, specifically, in a huge dried up river bed, reminded me numerous times about what it must have been liked to live in the time of the Bible. I was hoping to be able to share a few of those moments with you guys.
Since we were in the desert, water was in short-supply and yet more necessary than ever. We brought loads of bottles of water with all our supplies when we arrived, but they eventually ran out and we needed more. Luckily for everyone at the gathering, someone with a pickup truck put a huge water drum in the back of their truck, filled it up at a nearby settled area, and returned with hundreds of gallons of water in a humongous container on the back of the truck. The water container, parked in the middle of the site, had only one small spigot and almost immediately, people from all over the camp started walking to the pickup truck with empty water bottles, jerry cans, and every other water carrying receptacle imaginable.
With empty bottles in our hands, I also walked to the truck with some friends. Standing at the water truck, waiting for our turn, we ran into a number of other friends who had set up their tents far from ours. As more and more people surrounded the truck, waiting patiently to turn the spigot on into their own smaller water containers, people with instruments started joining us at the truck. Soon people were playing guitar and oud and flute, dancing and singing and banging on their water bottles as they waited for their turn. Even after I had filled up my bottles I stuck around the water truck for a while longer. It was truly the place to be. Everyone was hanging around, chatting, catching up, singing – for the entire time that the truck was parked in the middle of the site, it became the central location of the gathering. This struck me as incredibly Biblical. So many stories in the Bible echo the importance of the well to the social life of biblical figures. We joked about finding our future husbands at the water truck, as Rebecca (Genesis 24) and Rachel (Genesis 29) did, but the longer we spent at the water truck the more deeply we understood how natural it was for Isaac and Jacob to find their spouses by looking towards the wells. After all, it seemed that everyone from the campsite stopped by at some point or another.
On Friday night, after we "prepared for Shabbat" (this consisted primarily of changing into slightly less dirty clothes) a very diverse group of slightly more religiously inclined people gathered together for services. But after about three minutes, some of the women decided we could do better than the male-controlled mumbled prayer service and a group of a dozen or so of us just stood up and started walking. Since the gathering was held in the desert, we just started walking away from the clumps of tents further into the desert. We walked further and further, by the light of the moon, without prayer books, until we could no longer hear any of the noises from the main campsites and could barely see the tents in the distance by the moonlight.
We held hands and started singing the songs and psalms used to welcome Shabbat. We stood, we danced, we sat, we jumped, we swayed, we sang in unison and in call-and-response. We welcomed Shabbat. Less than halfway through our singing of the introductory psalms, one of the men from the main service came over to our gathering and said that they were done with the entire service and could we please come back and join them for the closing part. We nodded and then ignored him and sang our hearts out to the desert and the rising moon and the mountains for another hour. It was just so powerful to be in a women's only space in the middle of the desert, not quietly reciting prayers written by rabbis hundreds of years ago, but joyfully singing psalms replete with nature imagery composed thousands of years ago. As we stood among the awe-inspiring backdrop of the desert, surrounded by mountains in a dry river bed that would flood in a few months when the rains from up north would cause a flash flood, as it did every year, I was able to sing the following line from the Psalms and understand it like I never had in many years of singing it every Friday night. Let the floods clap their hands, Let the mountains sing together for joy, Let them sing before the Lord. (Psalm 98)
Then, on Saturday afternoon, we sat around preparing afternoon snacks and reading from the weekly Torah portion while some of our friends were volunteering at the Welcome Center. The Welcome Center is basically a main base, usually just an open-sided tent at least a kilometer or so away from the main camping site, near the road and parking area, which is used as an introduction to Rainbow. At the Welcome Center people put down their packs, have some snacks or tea, learn about the rules for Rainbow, and just rest and put away all their mental baggage from the outside world before entering Rainbow. Our friends who were welcoming people sat under the make-shift tent-awning, away from the heat of the afternoon sun, welcoming strangers to Rainbow and blessing those who were leaving for a safe continued journey.
As we sat under the tree that we had pitched our tents next to, we started reading the weekly Torah portion, which began with chapter 18. In just the first four verses we were blown away by how much more deeply we could understand the text from our campsite in the desert. The story opens with Abraham, sitting in an open-sided tent, greeting three strangers who approach him in the desert not far from where we were sitting at that very moment. And while we sat and cut fruits and vegetables, our friends were imitating Abraham and his welcome tent, by welcoming journeyers into the oasis that was Rainbow. Three verses later, Abraham offers his guest water with which to wash their feet. Before this weekend, that verse didn't mean much to me. Okay, so people washed feet in those days. Nowadays we're obsessed with Purell hand sanitizer. Everyone should be allowed their own hygienic quirks. No big deal. But we read the verse very closely this time.
Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. (Genesis 18:4)
Upon a second reading, we thought the following: Who washes feet in the desert?! We have so little water, imagine using some of our precious water to wash feet! What a waste! Oh, but look, the verse says, "a little water." Well that makes sense, with water being so scarce in these parts. But still, that truly shows their generosity. And then we looked at the second part of the verse. Yes, trees do exist in the desert, even far from oases, after all, we were sitting under one right now! And after just a few days at Rainbow, we truly appreciated the shade provided by trees. Tents provided us with shade, but even with the flaps up, the refreshing desert breezes couldn't be enjoyed anywhere near as well as they could from just sitting under a tree.
We continued reading the Torah portion slowly and closely, with a closer understanding and a deeper connection, as the sun sank lower in the sky. With the waning sun light, we decided to follow an ibex path up one of the mountains surrounding the camp site. At the top we had an incredible view of all the surrounding areas. We watched the sun slip lower, now more visible than it had been earlier from the dry river bed below us. As the sun approached the horizon, we decided to pray the afternoon prayer service individually from the mountain top. We each walked a bit away from one another, oriented ourselves toward Jerusalem by using the setting sun to the west and the Jordanian mountains to the east, and said the final prayers of Shabbat. The services closed, as all services do, with the line, It is our duty to praise the Master of all, to acclaim the greatness of the One who forms all creation. Watching the sun set over the desert, standing on top of a mountain surrounded by dry river beds that were still somehow filled with trees and bushes, even a line a said multiple times every day was invested with new meaning.
As we left the gathering I truly felt like I understood how characters in the Bible lived more deeply than I had before. Plus, I had an absolutely awesome time camping with my friends for a few days. I'm looking forward to doing some more hiking in the desert with my classmates in a week and a half – I can only hope it will be half as amazing as this trip was.
Wishing you a week filled with seeing nature's beauty,
Sarah
Anyway, the Rainbow in Israel takes place during the Hebrew month of Cheshvan which is October/November and lasts for four weeks with the peak being on the full moon. I went for my third year in a row, with a group of friends for the weekend closest to the full moon. Actually, this year we lucked out and were able to be there for the full moon itself. This year, the gathering took place in the Arava, the southern desert close to Eilat. I went with a small group of friends and had an absolutely amazing time. We were there from Thursday until Saturday night and there were maybe 250 people gathered at the time.
Something about the location this year, in the middle of the desert, specifically, in a huge dried up river bed, reminded me numerous times about what it must have been liked to live in the time of the Bible. I was hoping to be able to share a few of those moments with you guys.
Since we were in the desert, water was in short-supply and yet more necessary than ever. We brought loads of bottles of water with all our supplies when we arrived, but they eventually ran out and we needed more. Luckily for everyone at the gathering, someone with a pickup truck put a huge water drum in the back of their truck, filled it up at a nearby settled area, and returned with hundreds of gallons of water in a humongous container on the back of the truck. The water container, parked in the middle of the site, had only one small spigot and almost immediately, people from all over the camp started walking to the pickup truck with empty water bottles, jerry cans, and every other water carrying receptacle imaginable.
With empty bottles in our hands, I also walked to the truck with some friends. Standing at the water truck, waiting for our turn, we ran into a number of other friends who had set up their tents far from ours. As more and more people surrounded the truck, waiting patiently to turn the spigot on into their own smaller water containers, people with instruments started joining us at the truck. Soon people were playing guitar and oud and flute, dancing and singing and banging on their water bottles as they waited for their turn. Even after I had filled up my bottles I stuck around the water truck for a while longer. It was truly the place to be. Everyone was hanging around, chatting, catching up, singing – for the entire time that the truck was parked in the middle of the site, it became the central location of the gathering. This struck me as incredibly Biblical. So many stories in the Bible echo the importance of the well to the social life of biblical figures. We joked about finding our future husbands at the water truck, as Rebecca (Genesis 24) and Rachel (Genesis 29) did, but the longer we spent at the water truck the more deeply we understood how natural it was for Isaac and Jacob to find their spouses by looking towards the wells. After all, it seemed that everyone from the campsite stopped by at some point or another.
On Friday night, after we "prepared for Shabbat" (this consisted primarily of changing into slightly less dirty clothes) a very diverse group of slightly more religiously inclined people gathered together for services. But after about three minutes, some of the women decided we could do better than the male-controlled mumbled prayer service and a group of a dozen or so of us just stood up and started walking. Since the gathering was held in the desert, we just started walking away from the clumps of tents further into the desert. We walked further and further, by the light of the moon, without prayer books, until we could no longer hear any of the noises from the main campsites and could barely see the tents in the distance by the moonlight.
We held hands and started singing the songs and psalms used to welcome Shabbat. We stood, we danced, we sat, we jumped, we swayed, we sang in unison and in call-and-response. We welcomed Shabbat. Less than halfway through our singing of the introductory psalms, one of the men from the main service came over to our gathering and said that they were done with the entire service and could we please come back and join them for the closing part. We nodded and then ignored him and sang our hearts out to the desert and the rising moon and the mountains for another hour. It was just so powerful to be in a women's only space in the middle of the desert, not quietly reciting prayers written by rabbis hundreds of years ago, but joyfully singing psalms replete with nature imagery composed thousands of years ago. As we stood among the awe-inspiring backdrop of the desert, surrounded by mountains in a dry river bed that would flood in a few months when the rains from up north would cause a flash flood, as it did every year, I was able to sing the following line from the Psalms and understand it like I never had in many years of singing it every Friday night. Let the floods clap their hands, Let the mountains sing together for joy, Let them sing before the Lord. (Psalm 98)
Then, on Saturday afternoon, we sat around preparing afternoon snacks and reading from the weekly Torah portion while some of our friends were volunteering at the Welcome Center. The Welcome Center is basically a main base, usually just an open-sided tent at least a kilometer or so away from the main camping site, near the road and parking area, which is used as an introduction to Rainbow. At the Welcome Center people put down their packs, have some snacks or tea, learn about the rules for Rainbow, and just rest and put away all their mental baggage from the outside world before entering Rainbow. Our friends who were welcoming people sat under the make-shift tent-awning, away from the heat of the afternoon sun, welcoming strangers to Rainbow and blessing those who were leaving for a safe continued journey.
As we sat under the tree that we had pitched our tents next to, we started reading the weekly Torah portion, which began with chapter 18. In just the first four verses we were blown away by how much more deeply we could understand the text from our campsite in the desert. The story opens with Abraham, sitting in an open-sided tent, greeting three strangers who approach him in the desert not far from where we were sitting at that very moment. And while we sat and cut fruits and vegetables, our friends were imitating Abraham and his welcome tent, by welcoming journeyers into the oasis that was Rainbow. Three verses later, Abraham offers his guest water with which to wash their feet. Before this weekend, that verse didn't mean much to me. Okay, so people washed feet in those days. Nowadays we're obsessed with Purell hand sanitizer. Everyone should be allowed their own hygienic quirks. No big deal. But we read the verse very closely this time.
Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. (Genesis 18:4)
Upon a second reading, we thought the following: Who washes feet in the desert?! We have so little water, imagine using some of our precious water to wash feet! What a waste! Oh, but look, the verse says, "a little water." Well that makes sense, with water being so scarce in these parts. But still, that truly shows their generosity. And then we looked at the second part of the verse. Yes, trees do exist in the desert, even far from oases, after all, we were sitting under one right now! And after just a few days at Rainbow, we truly appreciated the shade provided by trees. Tents provided us with shade, but even with the flaps up, the refreshing desert breezes couldn't be enjoyed anywhere near as well as they could from just sitting under a tree.
We continued reading the Torah portion slowly and closely, with a closer understanding and a deeper connection, as the sun sank lower in the sky. With the waning sun light, we decided to follow an ibex path up one of the mountains surrounding the camp site. At the top we had an incredible view of all the surrounding areas. We watched the sun slip lower, now more visible than it had been earlier from the dry river bed below us. As the sun approached the horizon, we decided to pray the afternoon prayer service individually from the mountain top. We each walked a bit away from one another, oriented ourselves toward Jerusalem by using the setting sun to the west and the Jordanian mountains to the east, and said the final prayers of Shabbat. The services closed, as all services do, with the line, It is our duty to praise the Master of all, to acclaim the greatness of the One who forms all creation. Watching the sun set over the desert, standing on top of a mountain surrounded by dry river beds that were still somehow filled with trees and bushes, even a line a said multiple times every day was invested with new meaning.
As we left the gathering I truly felt like I understood how characters in the Bible lived more deeply than I had before. Plus, I had an absolutely awesome time camping with my friends for a few days. I'm looking forward to doing some more hiking in the desert with my classmates in a week and a half – I can only hope it will be half as amazing as this trip was.
Wishing you a week filled with seeing nature's beauty,
Sarah
posted by sarah @ 1:42 AM
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