As you can see, we've left the land of kibbutzim, flowing water, and greenery. This is exactly what we've been training for. As a child, one of my favorite movies was Lawrence of Arabia, the story of a British officer during World War I that integrated himself into Bedouin society with the goal of establishing an independent Arab state from the Ottoman Empire.
Through this movie I began to romanticize the desert, with its sweeping landscape and bleak nothingness. And as we hit the Negev outside of Arad it finally dawned on me the importance of the desert as the birthplace and central theme of Judaism: the three relationships of man to man, man to himself, and man to God. As all that is tangential melts away in the heavy, beating sun, man is stripped down to these three core facets of existence. Petty desputes and infighting go by the wayside as internal dialogue and personal betterment occupy much of the time during these long hot hours.
There's nowhere to go but straight ahead.
-Jeremy
No comments:
Post a Comment