Thursday, May 28, 2009

Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks.

This feast has several names; Shavuot which simply means “Feast of Weeks, Hag matan Torah which means “Festival of giving the Torah”, Hag Ha’Bikurim which means “Festival of the First Fruits” and Hag Ha’Katzir which means “Festival of the Harvest”.
The barley has been harvested and we have been counting the fifty days of Omer and are preparing for Shavuot and the harvesting of the wheat.
It has been a period of temperatures swinging from low to high in waves. We have felt the heat of the Chamsine which is the result of a desert storm being brought to us through strong hot winds and lots of desert dust. The word Chamsine is Arabic and actually means fifty so the Bible and nature is in agreement when it comes to this period between these two holidays in spring.

Both the giving of the Torah and the story about Ruth is part of this holiday.
We learn from the Book of Ruth that she was a widow who followed her mother in law, Naomi, back to Bethlehem.
Naomi had left Betlehem Ephrathah together with her husband and two sons in order to dwell in the country of Moab. After her husband and both sons had passed away she headed back to her hometown in the Judean mountains. Her Moabite daughters in law followed her on the first part of her journey but only Ruth insisted on continuing after Naomi had released them. “Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried, “ she stated and continued walking into a new and completely unknown future. Her decision was to become a blessing both to herself and to her mother in law……and even to us. They were on their way to the place and family that would bring forth the Messiah.
The Bible tells us that they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest and that Ruth eventually “stayed close by the young women of Boaz, to glean until the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest.”
Ruth was completely accepted as “a daughter” by Naomi and her new family. She was to become the grand-grandmother of king David. She was “grafted in” physically just as Rahab had been one generation back in time. Rahab was the mother of the man Ruth was about to marry.

Shavuot is all about giving; The giving of the Torah, the giving of the first fruits, the giving of equal rights for whoever chooses God and the giving of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.

To give is a lifestyle. It seems to me that people who give never complains about being in need. God instructs us to give and to follow His directions always brings blessings.

A wise man once said: “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”

Elin Elkouby

Friday, May 22, 2009

The new Palestinian government.

It has been interesting to follow the Palestinian building of a new government. It does not have the support neither of the Hamas nor of the Fatah nor of some of the other groups within the Palestinian political landscape.
Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is trying to please his own people, the Egyptians and the West all together and does not really succeed in doing so.
The Palestinian people are being torn between Hamas and Fatah as it is these two main groups which control the media. They decide everything concerning “what to say” and “how to say it”. The people do well in supporting whoever is the strongest in their region. Not doing so can be dangerous.
Egypt has had a few issues lately with Iranian supported Hezbollah groups operating within her territory. Everybody knows that Hamas is supported by Iran as well. There is a lot of friction within the Egyptian society but Housni Mubarak still tries to host peace talks between the Palestinians as well as talks on an international level in order to put Egypt on "the map".
The West needs a Palestinian “address” which recognizes Israel, but if it does not have any support among its own people it won’t be of much use.

The new government consists of 24 ministers, including Salaam Fayad, who is both continuing as prime minister and who also is ministering the “money box”. Seven of the ministers served in the previous government. Fayad is known to be a moderate politician with good connections to both Israel and the West.

A few months ago it looked as if the Palestinian government was all Fatah and that the biggest group in opposition was Hamas. The war last summer actually was presented to us as if that was the case. We know that Hamas took completely over the Gaza Strip and that it also has strong support within many towns on the West Bank. The media presented this war as to be “the bad guys fighting the good guys” ( My blog on Jan.20.2009 deals with that issue. )

There is a major crisis going on within the Fatah at the moment. Some seem to be leaning towards Hamas. It is amazing how “scaring people to death” can result in a wish to get closer to the enemy.
During the war last summer lots of Fatah policemen were shot in their legs in order to cripple them. (Seventy of these policemen have come to Israel to receive medical treatment and artificial legs.) This may be understood as a warning to cause people to behave according to Hamas set rules. Fatah claims that Hamas has killed more than 700 of their people since the uprising in 2000. They kill the ones they know will not change....

The new government has yet to be approved by the majority of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Elin Elkouby

Friday, May 15, 2009

To be a guide

can be a wonderful spiritual experience. I meet with lovely people from many different backgrounds both geographically and spiritually. To show people the Holy Land is a true privilege. I am in the situation where I add knowledge and spiritual awareness to those who listen and I am fortunate to learn a lot myself from the people that I take around.
But in our walk in life we are not only on a spiritual journey. The body and the soul come along as well. As a tourist guide I need to keep my eyes open for people’s physical needs and to make sure that rest rooms are available and that people are not being exposed to too much sun as I do my explanation. People need to drink, to eat, to get some rest and it is important not to talk too much……(which of course is very hard for me …)

The travel agent is usually not very visible to the tourists, but they are working “behind the curtains” all the time. Tourism is a business. Families are depending on the income from this business. As a guide I am “recommended” to visit certain restaurants and souvenir shops along the way. The agent has made agreements with the owners and receives commission from visiting tourists. ( as do the team on the bus ) This is not something that is special for Israel but it simply is the way it works all over the world.
Don’t worry, it is not as bad as it may sound. Actually the system with “tourist restaurants” and “tourist shops” is a great help to us. These places make it possible to get lunch quickly and also to do shopping without wasting time and loosing people. The problem occurs when shopping become more important than the itinerary.

The driver is an important part of the trip. A guide and a driver is very much a team and the “taste of the trip” can depend on the relationship between the two. I have often recommended tour leader to ask for an Arab bus driver working for Arab Bus Company. It makes life easier for groups visiting Bethlehem or Jericho.
Jewish Bus Companies and drivers are not allowed into these areas. The group will have to change bus on the border if the itinerary includes visits to Palestinian Authority controlled areas. It is the “tourist shop” owners in these places that provide the bus for the visit and so of course they will make sure that the tourists are not only taken to see the Holy Places but also to visit their shop. In those cases where tourists are not interested in shopping but rather want to meet with people this can be a problem.
On the other hand we have a problem with Israeli Arab bus drivers working for Arab Bus Companies because they are not being paid.
People are so busy criticizing Israel for treating the Arab population bad. This is just one small example to illustrate how they treat one another.--- When I work with an Arab bus driver every conversation with him is about money. They loose money before they start working because they have to pay bribes to the person in charge of deciding which driver goes with which group. They have to pay the parking fee at the air port from their own pocket. If they do not live in Jerusalem they often have to pay for over night stays themselves. ---At home they have a wife and four, five six….children waiting for them to make a living.
My priority is always to spend enough time at the places according to the itinerary. When I work wit an Arab bus driver this is a constant source of confusion. If they do not receive commission from tourist shopping and a nice tip at the end of the trip they simply come out loosing money as they work.

So, pray for me. It is not easy to balance the different needs.

Elin Elkouby

Friday, May 8, 2009

Lag B-Omer, a new holiday coming up.

In the beginning of next week we are going to celebrate one of the minor Jewish holidays called “Lag B-Omer” or “the thirty-third day of counting the “Omer”.

The “Omer” is Hebrew for sheaf, or a bundle of grain tied together, but it also means a specific measure of grain. The Torah instructs Jews to harvest the first “omer” of barley, the first grain to ripen in spring, at the end of the first day of Pesach, after sundown, and bring it to the Temple in Jerusalem. ( see Lev. 23, 5-15 ) The “counting of the Omer” refers to the period of forty-nine days that are to be counted from that first night on to the beginning of the “ Feast of Weeks”. In ancient times the wheat harvest started on Shavuot (“Feast of Weeks”) so the counting of the “omer” served to connect these two major agricultural events.

The celebrating of “Lag B-Omer” is not based in the Bible. It rather refers to events in Jewish history which happened after the time of both the Tanach (the Jewish Bible) and the New Testament. Most people connect it to the period of the Second Jewish Revolt against the Romans led by Bar Kochva in 135 AD.
Others connect it to death of Shimeon Bar Yohai, a major figure in Jewish mysticism. He instructed people to rejoice at his funeral and so his followers are celebrating with great festivities which include the fist haircut for three-years-old boys.

Most Israeli children do not go too deep into the historical background of the holiday. What is most important for them has to do with the camp fires that are being lit all over the country. Children’s main occupation in the weeks prior to this evening has to do with the collecting of fire woods. (They turn it into any house builder’s nightmare…)
On the evening itself every open spot is covered with small and big camp fires. The nice part of this is that it brings the parents out of the house as long as the children are small. Potatoes are being wrapped in aluminum foil and thrown into the fire to bake and marshmallows are “puffed” on burning coal.
When the children gets bigger they prefer being alone with their friends. That gives the parents an opportunity to do something nice with their friends as well.

Lag B-Omer has turned into being the “Feast of the Camp Fires”. Most youth stay up all night so the schools have decided to stay closed on the following day. What dominates the atmosphere the next morning is the smell of “dying “ camp fires and quiet …….

Elin Elkouby