The Camping Trip
Wild Boars and the Cows
Our chartered van, driven by a Chabadnik with a “The Rebbe is Messiah” sticker on the dashboard, drops us off in a parking lot just south of Kiryat Shmona with access to the Israel National Trail. There are eleven of us total, allowing us to have our own minion out in the middle of the forest, wherever we were. The van drives off and we do our last preparations before hiking off, including last organization of our packs; refilling our water bottles, and eating our bagged pickles. Moshe gathers the gang for the final pep talk, and asks me to do he final send-off.
Hands in the middle, I say. On the count to three, say … I search my mind for a good team name, and I think back to our couple pre-Trip meetings. The question of how many tents to pack came up a few times, with the Pierce brothers preferring not to take the extra weight, myself unsure if I wanted them, but Moshe completely adamant on the matter. Hiking here the previous year, Moshe had run-ins with wild boars, and Moshe hates wild boars. He hates them up, and his zealous anti-boar rhetoric became a running joke. Hands in the middle, I say, On the count to three, Wild Boars. ONE. TWO. THREE … WILD BOARS!
And with that the Wild Boars hit the trails for a 6-day 40k hike through the Galilee, across the North of Israel.
*****
After our first couple hours hiking, and as we scale our first steep up-hill stretch, we find an ideal lunch break location: beautiful hill, shaded, rocks for sitting, etc. Greeting us on the top was a bull, a muscular and stoic bull perched on top a rock, and not shy to moo. A real live cow, in the wild. This is incredible to us; those with cameras (myself included) take pictures preserving in our memories this marvelous beast in his environment. We wouldn’t be so enamored with cows later on.
That lunch, Zvi introduced a tremendous chiddish to the group: Ten-Minute Smoked Tuna. He opened his can of tuna without draining any of the vegetable oil, stacked a few slices of toilet paper over the can, leaving the corners dry and the middle soaked in the oil, and he lit the baby on fire. We watched in awe as the entire can was soon enveloped in flames, wondering if Zvi truly knew what he was doing. He laughed off his doubters, let the fire burn off all the oil, scraped off the thin layer of toilet paper ash, and had himself a delicious hot meal. Each of us packed 3-4 meals worth of tuna, so for future meals we too had ourselves Zvi Specials. Until then, however, we toiled in basic tuna and mayo.
After lunch and Minchah we trek on, and we are able to put in a good couple hours of quality hiking. Soon the day drifts into evening and we continue on the path keeping an eye out for potential camp spots. The immediate terrain will not do as our path takes us through barbed wire fences boxing out cow pastures. We see one cow on our path, and apparently frightened, the cow jumps over the barbed wire to evade us, only his hind leg does not make it over. The cow kicks as hard as he can, but cannot free himself. He kicks harder, and then again, finally breaking out. The cow did not outwardly express any pain, but this is a huge beast and that was mamish barbed wire. We are all a little spooked that we drove a cow to do such a thing.
The cows would have their revenge.
Twenty feet in front of us sat an entire pack of bulls, completely blocking our path and looking very agitated. A chorus of moo’s surround us, only these are not expressionless farmhouse grunts, but rather “we have strength in numbers” territorial grunts, and they are hailing from every direction, communicating with one another, plotting a course of action to deal with us intruders. These white boys will not pass.
What on earth do we do? Moshe thinks we should trek on. Eytan says turn around, but as we look behind, behold two cows are standing on the path, completely boxing us in. There will be no turning around. The cows stare at us unflinchingly and furiously, their huge muscles tensing up. The moo’s drown out everything else.
We compose ourselves. While the cows block our path, there is a dead end path to the right, leading to a jumpable fence into a cow pen. We will go there. Yitz instructs us to be quiet, to walk slowly, and most importantly to stay close together and appear as big as possible together. We move slowly, tepidly, our breaths louder than we’d like. We make it to the gate, and the first of us climbs over, and then the next. The cows follow us, and trap us into this substantially smaller space. Now we really must climb over. One of the guys accidentally knocks over the fence, making it easier to cross, but potentially easier for the cows if they so chose. They ultimately do not, and we walk past many baby cows (potential angry mom cows don’t notice us), hop another fence, and find ourselves on the trail. Baruch Hashem
*****
The Israel National Trail starts all the way in the North along the Lebanon border and runs the entire length of the country, zigzagging all the way South through the Negev desert and down to Eilat. As such, the Trail covers everything from the Forests of the north to the parched Judean Mountains that roast in the desert heat. Some hike the entirety of the trail over the course of several months. We had only six days, yet even within our relatively short distance, we saw all kinds of different terrains.
We would pass through long prairie fields overgrown with golden ragweed and thorny flowers. We walked through dense forests, and through canyons. We threw Frisbee around lush green hills, with Arab sheepherders watching over large flocks.
Our only real objective the first three days is that we knew we had to make it to Meron by Friday afternoon, in time for Shabbat.
*****
Meron
With the permission of the shul, we pitched our tents in a yard next to the shul playground. Part of me had wondered whether we could get invited into a family’s home for Shabbat (this would be easy in Jerusalem), but as we entered the city, it looked more and more like we would be on our own. As far as food was concerned, however, we had a stroke of luck: it happened that in Meron, the Yad Ezra soup kitchen provides Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening Shabbat meals on a monthly basis. We arrived for the Shabbas preceding Rosh Chodesh, so we happened to stumble upon free (and surprisingly high quality) meals for all Shabbas with 400 of our closest Hassidic friends.
Overall, Meron (from my limited perspective of the place) seems to be a place bursting with contradictions. On one hand, it is an ancient city best known for housing the Kevar of Shimon Bar Yochai, the man who redacted the Zohar (or what you might know as Kabbalah) while hiding in a cave from the Romans for 12 years. It is said of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai that he had the same neshama as Moses himself; the former gave the world the hidden Torah while the latter gave over the written and oral Torahs. Yet this ancient sanctuary is just up the hill from what looks like a modern suburban-Phoenix-looking city, with little one-level houses complete with fenced-in front yards and palm trees. The Kevar attracts the most pious of visitors, including throngs of Hassidic and ultra-Orthodox, compared to the modern Zionist residents. Depending where you are in the city, you are either standing in an American-esque modern Israel, or you are in 1800’s Lithuania. There did not seem to be much middle ground.
The tension between modern Meron and the ultra-religious presence rose to the surface during Shabbat dinner at Yad Ezra. The 400-person cafeteria was crowded and hectic, but it was an overall nice meal with lots of singing coming from different parts of the room at any given time. As the evening was ending, a fight broke out in the corner. All the men stood up and crowded around, watching what turned out to be some punk rebellious local teenage gang picking a fight with another. It was hard for me to see over the religious spectators, many of whom stood upon the tables in curiosity to get a better view. We were finished with our meal, so we evacuated; the fight followed us outside. At this point the belligerent temper-throwing teens were in a shouting match with the religious. This was all very disturbing to see. One of the kids threw rocks. Another stormed past with a glass bottle in hand, threatening to strike. When he stormed past me, I had half a mind to tackle him myself before he could do anything truly dire. I saw the look in his face and he was truly exasperated. It was all a very big shame.
I felt it too, though. Davening at the Kevar for Shacharit on Saturday, I found myself in a hot and crowded-to-capacity room, surrounded by men pacing about and bumping into one another. Men wore a dazed look, completely transfixed on the Torah service to the exclusion of basic social decorum. I couldn’t get out soon enough. That service disturbed me on a number of levels. I felt horrible for being so critical towards them, but something inside of me couldn’t handle it and for a fleeting second, I was one of those rebellious teens, lashing out in a rage. Here I am studying in Jerusalem in yeshiva for the year, learning the ins and outs of the Orthodox world, and yet this service could still affect me thus. Is this the world into which I am trying to fit?
Moshe helped me straighten these thoughts out. He told me underneath all my feelings over there was the basic tension that all of us Baal Tshuva feel, navigating between two opposing worlds, worlds in which we simultaneously do and do not completely identify, and striking to seek that perfect balance.
And at that point I appreciated the extent to which us Wild Boars had struck that balance, and it really was beautiful. Here we were, eleven guys experiencing the land of Israel first hand, speaking of Torah as we hiked, wrapping tefillin among cows and wildflowers, praying under open skies on top of the hilltops. Just eleven well-balanced guys hiking the country and searching for truth.
And with that, we left Meron behind.
*****
The Climb
The Sunday we left Meron was to be our last long day of hiking, and it is a beautiful one, albeit challenging. As the end of the day neared, we need to decide where to settle for our last night. Yitz says there is a good campsite ahead, but it’s a bit off the trail. We’re only about thirty minutes away tops; for the first time this trip we’ll be able to set up camp early enough to set up tents and collect fire wood before sun sets. Jamie decides to lead us through a mostly-dried river bed consisting of large round rocks rising above mud and puddles with branches, vines, and chutes creating a complete canopy upon us, and sticking out in our path. It looks like a Vietnam jungle in there.
This is a difficult walk outright, but I am the bearer of a freshly sprained ankle. I don’t know where I hurt it initially, but playing Ultimate Frisbee in hiking boots may not have offered the right ankle support, and I was struggling today. Walking on level ground was more or less fine, but the bulk of the day was climbing up and down large rock formations. It was beautiful, and under most circumstances I would have loved it, but my ankle was too tender to keep pace with everybody. I was laboring hard then, and now all the more so as I am faced with this impossible river walk. They know I’ve been struggling. Why would they take this route?
We walk in this riverbed, trying to balance upon rocks to avoid the water and mud, too focused on not falling to converse and frustration building. I take pleasure in seeing one of the guys in front of me fall as this will validate any future plunges I myself will take, but of course I quickly scorn my thought process. The walk goes on: 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 25, and so on.
Perhaps out of necessity, I have a change of attitude, and I keep telling myself to just take it one step at a time. Just one step at a time. I grab onto branches and use them to brace my steps, for leverage as I maneuver forward, and all the sudden I am truly grateful for that branch hanging just so. One step at a time, one obstacle at a time. Every step is a new maneuver, a new challenge.
At about this point, Jamie (who is all the way in the front) is apparently worried that this river will never end, and daylight is in short supply, so he makes the executive decision to start heading up the canyon walls. As I approach, I look up to see what we are up against and it is daunting: an 800 steep slope higher than the eye can see, full with 8 foot tall thorny plants greeting us at every step. We are losing sunlight by the minute, so there is no choice but to climb, bum ankle and 50 pound pack be damned.
I climb up on all 4’s, clutching at whatever plant reaches my searching palms first with no regard to the thorns that stab. I exert myself completely for 30-60 second stretches, stopping only to catch my breath and gather my bearings before trucking on. When the dirt under my feet gives way, my fistful of thorns keep me standing; I’ll stand, look up to see how much farther to go, and seeing that the horizon is not yet in site, I move forward.
Every step I take is a small miracle. Every branch I clutch, every rock I grab, is a helping hand. Every bit of adrenaline running through me to numb my ankle is an outright blessing. As we soon as see the tops of trees sneaking into our view, we know the end is near, and that our strength will have lasted the whole way through. We scale what must have been a mile high canyon, and we are alive and we are well. We find a spot on top to drop our bags and to lie ourselves down and soak in the moment before its time to move on. I recline on my pack, watch how the lights from a nearby city cast the wild flowers into silhouette and I feel the night winds blow.
Thanks to a quick scouting job by Moshe, Danny, and Alex Pierce, we find vacant farmland close by to pitch our tents and to rest our weary bodies. The night masked the glorious landscape in which we stayed. We woke the following morning to a vast expanse of rolling hills and rocky cliff sides. That, and cows.
*****
If the climb was the climax of the trip, all that we needed to put the icing on the cake was to make it to the Kinneret, the fresh water lake that was to serve as our finish line. We walk through horse farms, banana tree orchards, and a Kibbutz, but we finally made it. The water was freezing.
Mike Zharnest mentions that if you remove all clothes and dip into the water three times, this will serve to remove touma (spiritual impurity). I’m all about removing the touma, as are all the Wild Boars, and so I did so. We spent the day lounging by the water before it was time to catch a bus from Tiberias and fall pass out on the ride back home.
