MESSAGE FROM JERUSALEM
FINDING MIRACLES IN THE MOST MUNDANE PLACES.
Greetings from Jerusalem!
I said I wasn’t going to “live blog” from Israel — and I’m not going to.
But before I get into really substantive stuff in the coming weeks, here are some initial reflections on symbols. To be specific, the symbols on Israeli utility hole covers (what we used to call manhole covers).
Please stay with me.
A couple of days ago, I was at the impressive Tower of David Museum, which focuses on the history of Jerusalem, and is housed in one of the world’s most spectacular citadels.
I learned a lot (as one hopes to do at a museum) but this, in particular, surprised me: The Star of David, as the most (or even one of the most) definitive symbols of Judaism is a relatively new phenomenon.
Today, of course, we see a Star of David and we think of Jews. We think of Jews and we think of a Star of David. That symbol, of course, is also the focus of the flag of the Jewish state.
According to the museum, though, the Star of David came into common usage as a symbol of Judaism only around the 1700s and gained prominence only in the 1800s.
Traditionally, the menorah had been the foremost symbol of Jewish identity. The seven-branched candelabrum was considered sacred and was associated with the Second Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE.
There seems to be a range of opinions (!) around why the menorah became a less common symbol and the Star of David a more ubiquitous one. For almost 2,000 years, after the Temple was destroyed, Jews were mostly dispersed from Jerusalem — though I was at the Kotel, a surviving remnant of the ancient Temple, last night, on the Jewish Sabbath, an experience I will write about soon, and Jews were certainly not dispersed. In fact, you could hardly move amid the crowds of swaying, praying Jews. But anyways …
A quick bit of research tells me that the Star of David was associated with Jews first through the kabbalists, the Jewish mystics. It became more widespread as a symbol of Jews, Judaism and Jewishness more broadly for a range of reasons, apparently.
One perspective suggests that as Jewish communities faced modernity, they wanted a symbol that was not explicitly tied to their religious rituals, as the menorah clearly is, but more generally identified them as a people, or a nation.
Others maintain that the menorah was so ubiquitous a symbol of Jewishness that the Star of David was adopted as something less immediately identifiable and that therefore would not leave those displaying it so open to antisemitic hostility. Given the manner in which recent history has seen non-Jews employ the Star of David, and the fact that some Jews today are justifiably cautious in publicly wearing this symbol, that explanation carries some sad irony.
This is not a dissertation on the menorah or the Star of David — I’m sure libraries of volumes on this topic exist — but on symbols more generally and … I’m coming to it … utility hole covers.
I would just note as well that, of course, there are many other symbols associated with Jewishness.
The “chai” symbol; the hamsa (which is interesting because it is embraced by Jews, Muslims and, as far as I can gather, many others across the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Williamsburg); the representation of the two stone tablets of commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai; the Shield of Judah, a sort of coat of arms with a lion; and many others.
Like the Star of David, many of these, naturally, represent both Jews and the Jewish state. For example, there is a symbol that depicts a cluster of grapes so ginormous that it takes two men to carry it with a pole between them.
This is a biblical image that is most commonly called the Spies of Canaan and comes from a story in the book of Numbers, in which, during the 40 years in the wilderness, 12 spies are sent by Moses to scout out the land of Canaan before the Israelites enter it.
While the Promised Land is referred to as a “land of milk and honey,” the imagery here (and the biblical story) imply that, in the Valley of Eshkol, the spies found a single cluster of grapes so gargantuan that it had to be carried on a pole by two dudes. The Promised Land was just that abundant and fertile.
Since the 1950s, this symbol has been the primary logo of Israel’s ministry of tourism.
I like the symbiosis of the biblical and modern in this imagery for a few reasons. First — let’s be serious — this was no land of milk and honey. It was rock and desert.
Spiritually, culturally, theologically, nationally and in a whole ton of other ways, this land held immense meaning and metaphorical abundance. But fertile farmland it was decidedly not.
In biblical times and into the modern era, this was, in the words of my friend Selina Robinson, until 1948, a “crappy piece of land.”
(If you haven’t yet read her book about how those four words turned into a major political brouhaha in Canada, ended her political career, and shone klieg lights on the antisemitism rampant in certain sectors of Canadian politics and society, stop reading now, click here and buy her book immediately.)
So, while the idea that the desert of this “Promised Land” could produce a cluster of grapes so mammoth that they required two men to carry them on a pole is wishful thinking of biblical proportions, there is a certain magnificence in the fact that Israeli ingenuity, technology, grit, determination and agricultural know-how made that desert bloom in the past 80 years.
Admittedly, Israelis have still not grown grapes that require two men to carry a cluster of them, but the country has become an agricultural powerhouse, to say nothing of the real economic engine of the country, which is high-tech, medical and scientific advances, and almost every form of advanced research and development you can think of. (All while holding off genocidal enemies with one hand. And if you do not know the Israeli comedian Yohay Sponder, stop reading right now, click here, and come back.)
Theodor Herzl, who in the 1890s began to popularize the crazy idea that the Jewish people should have a country like other nations, was met with ridicule from Jews and non-Jews alike. He was considered a madman. (And, frankly, if you read his biographies, he was a bit of a kook. But anyways …)
When accused of being a hopeless dreamer, he replied “If you will it, it is no dream.” Herzl’s idea in 1897 that there could be a country for the Jews was about as realistic as grapes the size of medicine balls. But there you go.
My point: There is no shortage, clearly, of Jewish and Israeli symbols. But, for me, from my first visit to Israel 25 years ago, there is something that symbolizes the miracle of this place. Utility hole covers.
A utility hole cover, obviously, is no religious symbol. As a national symbol, I suppose you could make the case that infrastructure like sewage and access to water is fundamental to a functioning society, but I’m sure you’re still wondering where the hell I’m going with this.
For almost 2,000 years, Hebrew was, for all intents, a dead language. After the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the Jews from their homeland in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, Hebrew fell into disuse as a vernacular language. It remained a liturgical and scholarly language, spoken every day in Jewish prayers and therefore it survived. But as a language used by one person to converse with another, it was mostly used only for transactional relations between Jews who spoke the Babel of tongues in the Diaspora. Philosophy, poetry, and legal texts were sometimes in Hebrew, but this was not how Moshe and Rachel in Medieval Spain or 19th century Bessarabia discussed dinner plans.
While Herzl was working on his crazy idea of creating a country for the Jewish people, another crazy man, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was turning the Hebrew language into a modern lingo. He adapted it for contemporary use and made up words for which a millennia-old language had none.
So fanatical were these two men that, while Herzl was travelling the world (literally killing himself by exhaustion) cajoling any potentate who would meet with him that the Jews needed a state, Ben-Yehuda was putting into practice his idea of revivifying the Hebrew language into a modern tongue. So fanatical was he that he spoke only Hebrew at home, making his son the first native Hebrew speaker in at least a millennium (but closer to two). Talk about setting your kid up for social success.
Ben-Yehuda’s revivification of the Hebrew language was a cultural regeneration that coincided with the national regeneration that was Herzl’s Zionism.
For me, since the first time I saw a utility hole cover with Hebrew writing on it 25 years ago, this has symbolized for me the absolutely extraordinary process of national and cultural regeneration this place, this country, represents.
On the one hand, a utility hole cover is among the most mundane things you can imagine. Usually, you don’t even notice them — although, when you’re in a place like Jerusalem or any other ancient city, you should keep your head down because the sidewalks can be death traps.
The revival of the Hebrew language as a spoken vernacular after almost 2,000 years is a linguistic wonder. The redemption of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancient and ancestral homeland is a political achievement in the range of the miraculous. (As has been their survival and achievement in the face of adversity — if you didn’t when I ordered you to do so above, watch Yohay Sponder now!).
In the context of 2,000 years of history, these two events are, to my mind, among the most extraordinary feats of human achievement.
And, for me, these extraordinary phenomena come together in the unexpected form of an ordinary Israeli utility hole cover.
How mundane is a utility hole cover? And yet how unlikely, how almost unbelievable, is it that a people, a nation, resurrected itself — especially after two millennia of humanity’s most relentless persecution — and concurrently revived its ancient argot into a modern tongue to animate that national rejuvenation?
How easily we can take for granted the marvel of human — but importantly (because too often we universalize Jewish experiences) distinctively Jewish — resolve, endurance, flourishing and spirit?
As easily as walking over a utility hole cover and not observing the miracle it represents.
Absolutely fantastic. Thank you for sharing this and enjoy your time in Israel!
I remember after I moved to Israel and started studying Hebrew realizing that the name Nes Ziona, which is a town in Israel, translates to Miracle of Zion. Wow! And so I started paying attention and it's quite wonderful. Enjoy.