Day 2 in the Galilee

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A nice man gave us fresh lychees!

We headed out of Nazareth in a rental car Monday morning by 8:30 to meet up with our guide, Lisa Moore, and Janelle Zook’s aunt Robin, uncle Don, and cousin Ben from Reading, PA, as well as Erin Craig from the Village. Fun group! We visited the hillside where Jesus fed the 5,000. There’s a church there (built on an older one, of course ;) with a mosaic of loaves and two fishes, as well as an ancient baptistery.

The mosaic is probably the most popular one in the region and we have seen it frequently on plates, pictures, rugs and scarves in the markets.

Virtually next door, we visited the beach at Capernaum where the resurrected Jesus fed the disciples fish for breakfast and challenged Peter to “feed my lambs.” We had a chance to wade in the water there, too.

That location is just beside the spot of seven warm springs that flow from the ground into the Sea. The fish love it there for feeding on the extra plants that grow. It adds life to the explanation of how the disciples, after their discouraging night of fishing and catching nothing, were able with Jesus’ instruction to catch a boatload (153, according to the text). Lisa shared that the use of the phrase, to cast the net “on the other side” made reference to the pagan cities of the Decapolis, which were just on the East side of the Sea. That’s relevant for witness, as well as simply trying something new, and having faith to give a task another go. It would have also been casting in the direction away from the warm springs – in other words casting away from the spot that you’d most likely expect to catch the fish.

It was in the countryside on the East of the Sea where Romans (pagans) were raising pigs (Jews would not be raising them) that Jesus cast the demons into the pigs (Mark 5).

It was along this area on the north shore of the Sea that Lisa ran into an Arab man she’s known for years. He was selling (or giving) little mementos of the area from the back of his car. Sweet. The girls came away with rocks his daughter had engraved with the Jerusalem cross on them. I paid for a Galilee post card book. Eldon was endearing as he tried hard several times to thank the gentleman in his own best American-Arabic: “Barika allahu fik” [God Bless You for graciously giving of yourself]. On the third time, the man understood and enthusiastically responded.

The same gentleman was in the parking lot as we were coming out of our visit to the ancient synagogue and “Peter’s house” at Capernaum. At that place, he said he had something else for Lisa. He proceeded to share a bag of fresh lychees! Our carload realized the folks in the other car weren’t diving in to peel and eat them, so we mooched some later in the day. They are SO much better fresh than from a can at our neighborhood oriental buffet! (But Harv and her Indian clan already knew that, didn’t you!) Lily was particularly intrigued by the slick shininess of the inner nuts.

We visited the ruins at Panias (Banyas in Hebrew) of the Roman god Pan (the sheep thing that plays the flute). It was cool primarily because it the headwaters of the Jordan River come up there from underground. This was the site of Caesarea Philippi, a headquarters for Herod’s other son (Antipas ruled Jesus’ neighborhood after Herod the Great died in 4 CE), whose land was more in this northern area, and to the east of the Sea. Here, Jesus told Peter he’d build his church on the Rock who was Peter – there was a neat rolling sculpture there where you could press the text of Matthew 13:16-19

into the sand in four different languages.

We got to visit the Nimrod Fortress – an expansive castle on the ridge of Mount Hermon. The kids had fun going down deep, dark spiral staircases to look for bats, as well as perching on precarious stones for photographs. At one point, Nina crawled over the north embankment (no,
her parents did not give the thumbs-up to that adventure) and was thrilled to encounter a marmot (or so she described it). – Terry

We drove our cars north of the Sea all the way to the Lebanon border and then east to the Syrian Border and the Golan Heights. We saw many, many fields with remnants of ancient homes – the property boundaries that they would have established with rocks, of which there are many in the soil.

One place included bunkers on a strategic hill upon which one could see in all directions to Syria, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan. Some roads we drove on had military adaptations so that, if Syrian tanks would come, explosives under manholes would go off and topple large boulder piles over the road. At one point where Syrian armies used to have bunkers, there was an old mosque that the Israelis had used for target practice. Before Terry knew it, Don had Nina and Zoe on the top of that crumbling thing and she was a little surprised when they called her cheerfully from 40 feet up on its roof.

After that, one view of the “Shouting Valley” was fun to imagine. Druze villagers used to call one another, first with the shofar (ram’s horm), then yell the news (Auntie had another baby or whatever) from one mountain top to another. Lisa says they use cell phones now. But from where we stood on a far north Israeli road at the town of Majdal Shams, we could see a Lebanon hill, and a Syrian hill, from which these calls would have taken place.

The atmosphere all day was unusually hazy and we felt more humidity than usual. These conditions call for drastic measures, such as iced coffees (or chocolates) and lots more water. We did cover many kilometers and ended up back on the east side of the Sea for a view of a land mine field and, ultimately, a “St. Peter’s Fish” dinner at a Kibbutz on the eastern shore of the Sea. We ate outside, across the Sea from the lights of the city of Tiberias.

The fish are prepared whole, split up the middle with the innards removed, and fried. Lily and Terry had fillets instead, the little girls were happy with little pizzas, but many others looked their fish in the glazy eye and enjoyed each bite. This was the best meal of the trip so far according to me – ambience, food and service was all superb. -- Eldon

It was 11 p.m. when we finally left to head back to Nazareth, a 45-minute drive. Zoe conked immediately and the rest of us just got punchy. Eldon mis-read a sign for Herod something (a town) as “Herold” and Mom and I kept thinking of silly ways to build on that. I said “Herold Anti-pass” and then Mom came up with what that might mean. . . but we won’t take you there. Then I started in on Constantine . . . another story, that one. –Lily

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DECKER!! xo