A Moment of Happiness at the Shore of Galilee

We rushed through the Old City of Jerusalem, visiting various mosques and shrines and holy places. Here and there priests of one sect or another were singing their prayers before altars, oblivious of the herds of tourists. The places seemed too ancient and too holy to be profaned by mere tourists.

The shops along the narrow lanes in the Arab quarter closed at noon. Our guide told us that Palestinian protesters had insisted on the closing. Graffito was scrawled on shop walls as a warning. But he said they needed the business, so the half-day closing was a compromise. “Business before politics,” he said cynically.

That afternoon we drove the short distance to Bethlehem to see the birthplace of Jesus in the Church of the Nativity, brushing past swarms of peddlers outside the doors. The birthplace and the manger were contained in a grotto or cave. It seemed strange to me that the exact site would be known, but our guidebook explained that the knowledge had been passed down from father to son, and the Christian emperor Constantine’s pious mother, Helena, found it and built a basilica over it in 325.

The next day we set out for Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee. Everywhere I was struck by the newness of Israel and the antiquity of its setting. At the foot of the Mount of Olives we passed an automobile junkyard. On the desert roads we passed several low-slung Bedouin tents surrounded by sheep, goats and donkeys. Outside one, a woman on a horse was leading 200 to 300 sheep. A man on a horse was following with some kind of flute. Our guide said, “Most of them use cassette recorders now.”

In Jericho, a green oasis in the desert and perhaps the world’s oldest city, we stopped at a stand where brilliantly colored fruit was laid out for sale. Tangerines, grapefruit, melons, dates, kumquats, apples and prunes. The prunes were imported from California.

Above the Sea of Galilee we stopped to visit a kibbutz. It seemed strangely tranquil. Its residents lived in small row houses behind small yards filled with bright flowers. A very young man sat at a table outdoors in front of his house with his wife and a small child. His garden was vivid. “My grandfather planted that garden,” he volunteered as we strolled past. Another young man rode down the walk in a John Deere tractor pulling a wagon full of children. It seemed almost too idyllic, especially when one remembered that the hills of Lebanon were not far away.

We arrived in Tiberias in time for lunch aboard a boat on the Sea of Galilee. Though the day was clouded and the sea was not its storied blue, it was indeed beautiful in its ring of mountains. I was offered a Joseph’s fish but elected chicken. The fish was large and whole, the shape of a deflated football, and I did not like its baleful eye.

In the afternoon we visited several sites where Jesus is said to have preached or performed miracles, including Capernaum, where he preached in the synagogue and “healed great multitudes,” and the Church of the Beatitudes, where Jesus spoke the immortal words--”Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. . . .” and the spot where he is said to have fed 5,000 followers with five loaves of bread and two fishes. A new church stands over the site of ancient Byzantine mosaics. On a stone that served as the altar is a mosaic of a basket of loaves and two fishes. Our guide asked for someone to read an appropriate verse. One of our group, Ann Conway, obliged:

“He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? Go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. . . .”

She read it beautifully, and then we were on our bus again, arriving finally at the beautiful Galei Kinneret Hotel at the Sea of Galilee.

Our room had a small balcony that overlooked the sea. It was late in the day and the sea was dark bronze. A magnificent eucalyptus tree stood on the shore against the cloudy sky. We had no sooner entered the room than my wife went out onto the balcony and sat in the chair, facing the sea. I left her alone.

Half an hour later she came in. By then the sea was dark and a nearly full moon had risen. She said, “I don’t know when I’ve had time to spend half an hour just looking at something beautiful. I cried.”

I think it was the high point of our trip.