Dearest Rachel –
In some ways, I don’t know how we managed it back in the day; before you were able to let me retire, we tended to be short on time, because even though I was given five weeks of vacation time after so many years of service, it was hard to squeeze such time into my work schedule. There was always so much to do at the office that taking the time off was difficult to negotiate.
It was also something of a commitment in terms of money back then; while it’s that much more expensive now, the funds your parents left us (and the sum that legacy has since continued to grow into) has all but eliminated the burden that it used to be for us (and still is for most others). You were even able to help sponsor a mother-and-son duo to go back when the trip conflicted with our plans to see your godmother back in 2020, just before everything closed down; and I plan to maintain that custom going forward and bring someone else along in the future.
That being said, it’s wild to bear in mind that, despite those difficulties, we managed to go to Israel nearly as often as the church offered it to us as a possibility. Granted, there was the 2020 trip I mentioned, and I’m not sure if one took place in 2016 between the two that we did attend, but I think at this point, I’ve been there as often as anyone other than our pastors, who were all but required to lead these tours – not that they seemed to mind, especially when they were able to bring their families along. I’ll give them credit for not having grown as jaded as even I have, although that probably comes to me more from the things I’ve been doing to record all this that, while commemorating everything I can for posterity, also tends to make for a distancing effect.
That having been said, they made a point of warning everyone that had made a previous visit to the Holy Land not to make comparisons with those earlier trips. Things change all the time, everywhere you go, and that can go especially with a place like this; but to focus on the changes (especially with an attitude of “last time was better because of” this thing or that) tends to distract from the reverence we ought to have toward the place.
For my part, I’ve tried to hew to that dictum, and had reasonable success toward that end. Once I get over the fact that the biggest change (your absence, and to a lesser extent, Daniel’s presence) has nothing to do with the place, it’s easy to deal with the things we might do or not do that we didn’t or did before. Not only that, but some of the places, especially in the relative hinterlands keep getting more and more uncovered from visit to visit; archaeology moves on, and it’s fascinating to see what more is found to verify the things we hold to as proof of the verified history behind the Bible stories we believe in.
Meanwhile, while our daily schedule was subject to change from time to time, and we have to roll with the changes accordingly, after so many of these trips, it feels like the overall itinerary has been refined to a science. The 1-3-1-3 layout of hotel stays, with recovery days upon arrival and between our times in the Galilee and Jerusalem (besides, what better way to enjoy the Dead Sea area than to stay there for a night?) works like a charm; it’s just enough to absorb a large portion of each area while keeping the overwhelming part of our schedule and all we’re seeing to a minimum.
That having been said, these is, of course, only so much time in the day, and there are only so many places we could stop at in the amount of time we’re given. An extra day or two in either main location would not be amiss, but even I understand that would render such a trip prohibitively expensive, in terms of both time and money, for most would-pilgrims among our number. That, and the kosher dining restrictions, while not limiting in terms of quantity and savor, tend to wear on one used to eating meat and dairy together in a meal; you wouldn’t believe how happy I was with my in-flight lunch on our trip back, which included a Salisbury steak and cheesy scalloped potatoes. So a ten-day trip will have to be the extent of it.
But it does mean that places we’ve been to are being passed over (if you’ll pardon the expression) due to that lack of time. Of course, we’ve seen and been to them (although not all, as each itinerary has been different; I forget what things and places Daniel and I have seen now that you hadn’t, apart from getting quite a bit deeper into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher this time around), but many of those with us won’t have gotten the chance to visit places like the Mount of the Beatitudes…
Of course, there are some places, like Taghba, where the feeding of the five thousand allegedly took place, that we were at once, found a church in a D-level site, and never bothered with again. Likewise, I don’t think any of us truly missed the visit to Yad Vashem this time around, as it has little to do with Biblical history; and you in particular found it so gut-wrenching the first time around that you sat around with one couple’s young son while his parents went into the museum, as he was too young to deal with everything the place had to show. I suspect that the current situation (and the reason the country is littered with yellow flags from one end of the place to the other) is another reason this particular stop was set aside; the present tragedy is closer to people’s hearts and minds than the Shoah of some eighty years ago.
And, of course, there were the places given relatively short shrift this time around. I mentioned about not getting into the actual shepherds’ caves and the flash flood threat keeping us out of Ein Gedi…
…but there was also more to Sepphoris than we got to see this time around, including a synagogue with a mikvah. We also skipped past the town of Nazareth itself (although we did look over the valley from the Mount Precipice) as well as the Church of the Nativity, as we tend not to emphasize the locations overbuilt with churches.
But yeah, you can see that we’ve seen and done things that weren’t a part of this trip. And I sometimes wonder if I should even bring this stuff up; would it bother the others if they realize what they didn’t get to see? Keeping quiet would leave them none the wiser for not having engaged in this location or that; you don’t know what you’re missing out on unless you’re told what you could have had.
Still, you might ask, and it was running around in my head about it all. It not a complain, by any means; it’s just an observation. I understand that we can only do so much, and even as the tour group gets this more and more down to a science, there are inevitably places that only those who’ve been there multiple times will recognize as being absent from previous visits, and you having been one who’d seen the place a couple times before yourself might notice the difference as well.
Anyway, the trip is over, we’ve absorbed it all as best we could, and we’re going to need to rest up for the next couple of days. While we do, honey, please keep an eye on us, and wish us luck, as we’re still going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 