In Israel, you can experience the beauty of the Arava Desert and a unique community at Kibbutz Lotan, whether at their desert guest house and spa or their environmental educational programs, like the Green Apprenticeship, in which my youngest daughter participated.
Midbar as Wilderness not only protects the health of our planet, but also provide venues of emotional healing for human beings, including…
יְשֻׂשׂ֥וּם מִדְבָּ֖ר וְצִיָּ֑ה וְתָגֵ֧ל עֲרָבָ֛ה וְתִפְרַ֖ח כַּחֲבַצָּֽלֶת
The wilderness and the parched land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.
Moses’ first encounter with the Divine in the wilderness is at bush that burns but is not consumed. According to the Midrash, the choice of a “lowly thornbush” is God’s way of showing that the Shechinah, the Divine Presence can be found anywhere (Exodus Rabbah 2:5) I take this as a message to be more aware and attentive to the divine inspiration that can be found in “ordinary” and humble things, perhaps even in life’s thorns and thickets. These bare winter thornbushes I photographed (at Rockefeller State Park Preserve, except picture 5 and 14 in town, and 12 on a trip to Colorado), inspired me with their beauty and with the amazing connections and patterns that emerge amidst their brambles and tangles.
Learn about my mother’s spiritual journey, or return to the Gateway of Wilderness.
My daughter Arielle once bought me a bookmark at a local store, embellished with a quotation from Henry David Thoreou, “In Wildness is the Preservation of the World.”I knew that saying from a poster that we had at our Ranch in Texas, that had accompanied a Sierra Club photo book by Eliot Porter. Arielle had not heard the story about it that my late mother, Betty Hilton, retold in a sermon she gave at her synagogue. (My mother became a hospital chaplain in her 70’s, and passed away at age 75.) The sermon was about her own time of “wandering in the wilderness” and not realizing that she was being led. In a sukkah (the symbol of wilderness sojourns), she got a new direction that changed her life.
Listen to the wind and the birds and insects in the trees, or if you are indoors enjoy this recording.
Featured Image: TejonWest by RangerX via Flickr
See the famous fruit trees of Israel, or return to the Gateway of Trees.
Proceed to Torah study about trees, or return to the Gateway of Trees.
At the heart of the Bible’s first story, humanity in the Garden of Eden, two trees play a central role, the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life
Are we really exiled from the Tree of Life? While the book of Genesis depicts the exile from the Garden of Eden and it’s Tree of Life, elsewhere Bible declares that the Tree of Life is available to us in another form.
Etz Khayim Hi – It is a Tree of Life, Rabbi David Shneyer, Psalm Songs from Rock Creek
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