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The flowers and leaves right here in Khirbet Urva join us with our ancestors who lived on this hilltop right here millennia in the past. Notice the rows of stones, the remainders of Urva’s partitions. Under that unnatural-looking mound within the heart left lies an historical home or one thing.
These are unusual occasions in Israel. Israel the People are maybe in additional bother than anytime because the Holocaust. Our nation is in pain, alone and afraid. Yet Israel the Land is more healthy than ever, as a result of this 12 months’s winter rains are falling arduous and regular, balanced and wholesome.
Healthy Israel
Throughout the Torah, the Land of Israel’s state of well being is expressed by the winter rain cycle. When they arrive on time, nurturing the 12 months’s new life, Israel is wholesome and thriving, and helps its kids with bountiful harvests. When they don’t arrive, or if they arrive on the flawed time, Israel falls sick, and its kids, in flip, undergo from drought.
Here is the Torah’s first blessing for individuals who comply with its methods faithfully:
I’ll give the rains of their time, and the land will give its harvest, and the timber of the orchard will give their fruits (Leviticus 26:3)
To which the Ramban (Nachmanides) commented: “He started with the rains, as a result of after they come on time, as is correct, the air can be pure and good, and the springs and rivers good. This will deliver well being to bodily our bodies, and all of the fruits can be plentiful and blessed by them [the rains].”
Then folks gained’t get sick, and so they and their animals gained’t miscarry or be barren. Their days can be full, as a result of when our bodies are massive and wholesome, they survive their entire lifespan. This is the best of blessings.
Israel the Land is wholesome from balanced rain, as a result of well being means steadiness. A wholesome Israel, in flip, helps wholesome and balanced lives for Israel the Nation. Therefore, Jews collect throughout the fall pageant of Sukkos for a particular rain-prayer, and collect once more within the spring pageant of Pesach to hope for dew as a substitute of rain.
Healthy rain, like we’re experiencing this 12 months, is unfold out evenly alongside the winter months. Every week or two, there’s a number of days of rain, then a break to permit Natural Israel to soak up the blessing and develop its crops. The floor isn’t parched nor a muddy morass.
When we’re out on foraging walks lately, Israel shouts its vibrant well being from the numerous leaves, flowers, and shrubs in each nook of the countryside. New, contemporary life greets us at each flip.
Khirbet Urva
Last week, we had been foraging on Khirbet Urva, a stunning hilltop village close to Bet Shemesh that dates again a minimum of to the Second Temple Period. Khirbet Urva isn’t significantly well-known; I doubt it receives quite a lot of dozen guests a 12 months. When each second hill within the space sports activities millennia-old settlements, solely a choose few get well-known, typically just because they’re probably the most accessible by automobile.
In locations like Khirbet Urva, the verdant foliage between the rows of historical stones bonds collectively the locations and folks of the previous, current, and future. Foraging right here makes Israel come alive; our heritage isn’t simply half-buried buildings and partitions, as a result of native wild crops silently bear witness to the march of time. We roam round consuming the crops whose ancestors had been eaten by our ancestors proper right here.
One of my favourite annual crops, milk thistle, guzzles enormous portions of water in its upward rush. The milk thistle now could be within the “celery stage,” the place we forage the juicy stalks.
Take a take a look at one in every of Khirbet Urva’s scores of milk thistle patches:
Both Sick and Healthy
I don’t know how one can resolve God’s conflicting indicators to Israel: horrible warfare however thriving wholesome rain.
But I don’t actually suppose it’s an issue, as a result of each are true. Inside the midst of tragedy, God is sending us a message of consolation and hope with the pitter-patter of raindrops on our home windows.
For that we might be grateful.
Rain-life Today
Maybe you’re questioning why it is best to care about Israel’s rainfall within the 21th century when many of the nation’s water comes from desalination?
In my new e-book, Land of Health: Israel’s War for Wellness, I clarify how rain is the mannequin of livelihood that descends as a present from heaven, versus river-based life which we wrest away from nature. Land of Health is accessible now on Amazon, in bookstores in Israel, and immediately from me in Bet Shemesh, Israel.
Upcoming Foraging Walk in RBS
Would you want to hitch me on a foraging stroll in Natural Israel?
Hawthorne berries in IsraelBible
Contact me at this time to e-book your non-public stroll. I’m additionally guiding a reduced open stroll in Ramat Bet Shemesh on Election Day (Tuesday, February 27). The stroll can have two components: a simple stroll within the native Yarmut Park, adopted by a simple hike on a close-by hill that sports activities a Second Temple Period clay lamp manufacturing unit and city.
Shmuel Chaim Naiman is a well being instructor and foraging information in Ramat Bet Shemesh. He writes about wholesome Jewish residing and Israel’s pure world, teaches the nightly Healthy Jew class at Yeshivas Lev Hatorah, guides in style foraging walks, and provides customized well being teaching. He lately printed a e-book, Land of Health: Israel’s War for Wellness, which is accessible on Amazon and in bookstores (in Israel). Learn extra at healthyjew.org, and make contact with him at [email protected].
