Chapter 3

The next morning after breakfast, David and Peter traveled about a half hour to a museum. There they sat through a short movie, which described the discovery of an ancient boat dating back to the time of Christ. It had been discovered buried in the mud along the edge of the Sea of Galilee during a period of an extended drought. After the movie, they entered the exhibit that held the boat, which was remarkably well preserved considering it was submerged for nearly 2,000 years.

“Come on, let’s go, said David, “We have to catch a boat.”

With that, they walked out the side door of the museum and along a short pier, joining up with a tour group waiting to board a large wooden fishing boat.

“I have a friend, another tour guide. We’re joining his group on a boat ride up to the town of Capernaum. You can’t come to Tiberius and not take a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee.”

After a short wait, they boarded the boat and found seats along the rail. During the ride, as they reached the middle of the sea, the Capitan cut the engine and in the quiet of the moment, a priest, the apparent leader of the group, stood and in a soothing voice, read from the bible. It was a passage relating how Jesus had appeared to the disciples during the middle of a storm walking towards their boat, calling for Peter to join him.

The scene depicted in the story was in sharp contrast to the glorious morning that they were experiencing, thought Peter. The air was still, the water calm and the sun shone brightly as it rose higher in the bright, blue, cloudless sky.

The captain started the motor and, after another twenty minutes, they pulled up to a dock. Everyone began to depart from boat. When Peter stood waiting for his turn, David grasped his arm saying, “We’re not getting off here. They have a bus waiting for them here; we have to go back to the museum to get my car. Don’t worry; we’ll be driving out this way later in the day.”

When they got back to the museum they retrieved their car and David drove them along the coastline, stopping at several churches, each dedicated to events described in the New Testament. They ate lunch at a small cafe along the route.

It was mid-afternoon when they reached the church dedicated to The Sermon on the Mount and specifically the eight Beatitudes. David parked the car and went into tour guide mode as they headed towards the entrance of the church.

“This is the general location where, according to the New Testament, Christ had his followers recline on the ground and delivered one of his most dramatic sermons featuring The Eight Beatitudes. It wasn’t nearly as lush and green then as it is now. It’s believed the church is built over one of the seven underground springs that feed into the Sea of Galilee, which, by the way, is a fresh-water sea and the main source of drinking water for the northern half of Israel. The gardens you see are the result of a rather extensive irrigation system.”

David guided Peter to the entrance of the church and, after a brief history of the church, said:

“Peter, if you don’t mind, I’m going to leave you here for about a half an hour. I want to go home and see how my daughter is doing. After touring the inside of the church, you can take a walk in the gardens. I won’t be long.”

It didn’t take Peter long to walk the perimeter of the inside of the church. Carved high up on the face of each of the eight walls of the octagon shaped church were The Beatitudes. As he was leaving he turned and looked up one last time. On the wall directly opposite the doorway was written: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs shall be the kingdom of God.”

‘I certainly hope so,’ he thought turning and leaving the building.

He strolled through the gardens for about twenty minutes until he came to what appeared to be the gardeners’ work area. It was in a small cove, with large piles of soil and mulch and several large potted plants. Peter was just about to head back to the church, when his gaze caught some movement from behind the cove. Someone was kicking and punching, with great ferocity, a large leather bag hanging from a tree limb. Peter couldn’t help but stare at this spectacle. He had never seen anything like it before. The person striking the bag seemed to be rather tall, with long dark hair tied into a pony tail, and was obviously in great physical condition with broad shoulders and a narrow waist.

Suddenly a second figure approached wearing a red sports cap.

‘That looks like David’ he thought to himself. ‘And if that’s David, then that must be his daughter.’

His suspicions were confirmed when she stopped striking the bag long enough to say something to David while bending slightly offering her cheek which he kissed before turning and retreating from sight.

They each made it back to the church at about the same time and returned to the car. David said their final stop before returning to the hotel would be Mount Tabor the suggested sight of The Transfiguration. The ride lasted about a half an hour, with David doing most of the talking. It was a harrowing ride up to the top of Mt Tabor; the road wound back and forth across the face of the mountain with only a short guard rail between the pavement and the valley below. When they arrived at the top, David walked with Peter up to the front of the church.

“You go in; I’ll wait out here. When you come out we’ll walk around the building and I’ll point out some of the sights.”

Peter walked through the church, noting the elaborate scenes painted on the ceilings of the various rooms inside. It was nice and he took some pictures, but this just wasn’t satisfying for him. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he knew for sure that all of these modern-day churches were not it.

David took him around one side of the church.

“If you look out there, pointing to the east across the valley, behind those mountains is the city of Tiberius. When we go around to the other side, you can see the Jezreel Valley and the city of Nazareth. You can imagine what it must have been like in Biblical times to climb this mountain on foot, and how the people at that time must have thought they were standing on the top of the world.”

They spent about ten minutes admiring the view, then returned to the car and drove back to the hotel. After a long day it felt good to sit in the lounge with a glass of wine and just relax and unwind.

“David, how many tours like this do you do in a year?”

“I probably do about 40 bus tours a year. I also do several smaller tours each year when I can fit them in.”

“You must be away from home an awful lot.”

“Way too much my wife used to say; but what can I do, it’s how I make a living. You get used to it after a while.”

“David, I don’t want to keep you from your family; I’ll be fine by myself tonight.”

“Don’t be silly, I already told my daughter that I’d be home late this evening; she’s fine with that.”

After several moments of silence, David stood saying, “I’m hungry, let’s go to dinner.”

Dinner was an elaborate buffet; with serving areas in different places, offering various choices of sea food, meats, grilled vegetables and salads, pasta, rice and potatoes, and desserts. They each made several trips around the room, turning dinner into a four-course banquet.

“I’m stuffed; let’s go outside for a walk along the promenade.”

They took a leisurely stroll along a wide concrete path overlooking the Galilee until they reached a large monument that had an electronic sign with numbers illuminated in red lights. The sign read (-213.4).

“David, what is that,” Peter asked?

“That’s the level of the lake. Remember I told you that the Galilee supplies Israel with much of its fresh water. It’s obviously important to us, so we closely monitor the water level. What that number signifies is that the current water level is a little over 213 meters, or around 700 feet below sea level.”

“Below sea level?”

“That’s right; it’s the lowest fresh-water lake in the world, and only the Dead Sea, which is a salt-water lake, is lower. We have to watch that the lake doesn’t drop too low because it’s the weight of the water that keeps the salt-water springs on the bottom of the lake from contaminating the fresh water. We have to regulate how much water we draw from the lake.”

“Wow; that must be a very fine line to walk.”

“You can say that again. Not only does Israel depend on the lake for water, we also pump water into Jordan as well. In fact, it was one of the causes of the Six Day War with Syria and Egypt. Syria tried to divert much of the Jordan River, which is the major source of the lake water. Of course Israel opposed such a plan and thwarted it, leading to unrest, which resulted in the war in 1967. As a result of the war Israel captured the Golan Heights, which contains some of the sources of water for the Galilee.”

As they walked back to the hotel David said, “The sun will set in about a half an hour, let’s go up to your room and open that bottle of wine. I want to show you something.”

After opening the bottle, they walked out onto the balcony and, sitting in a couple of comfortable chairs, they enjoyed a glass of wine waiting for night to fall.

“Those mountains over there across the lake, that’s the Golan Heights. As you can imagine that land is very important to us. Not only is it a major source of water for the lake, it is also very strategic in a military sense. Can you imagine our enemies building gun emplacements overlooking this area?”

Peter commented, “From here it looks deserted up there.”

“Wait until it starts getting dark.”

Sure enough, as the sun set and darkness began to engulf the area; suddenly lights began to appear all along the ridge overlooking the Galilee.

“All of those are Israeli settlements; we will never give up that land for peace.”

David poured each of them another glass of wine as they sat back enjoying the cool evening breeze that came off the lake.

“I saw you this afternoon when you went home. I was walking through the gardens and came upon what appeared to be the work area for the gardeners. My gaze was drawn past that area towards movement beyond the trees. I watched as a lone figure attacked with a vengeance a large bag hanging from a tree. I was fascinated and stood transfixed watching even after I spotted a second figure, you, walking into the scene. I assume that was your daughter? I’m sorry I didn’t mean to spy on the two of you.”

“Please don’t worry about it. You couldn’t have known it was me or my daughter. The house was originally part of the church complex, but when the Order realized that they didn’t need to staff the church with full-time priests, they put the house up for sale. I was fortunate enough to be able to buy it and move my family out of the congested city of Tel Aviv. Now, unfortunately, it’s only me and my daughter living there. After my wife died, my son Eli moved back to Tel Aviv to work for the Government, and my older daughter Rimona got married and lives with her family there as well.”