Shabbos Chronicles: Part I: Qetura

Friday morning alarm clock
Grab apple, pack bag, fill water bottle, roll out.
Exit school and enter…….
Shabbos Mission Mode

Once you step into this alternative universe anything can happen and everything does. You throw yourself and all your faith completely into the hands of G*D, whose palms are always well moisturized and never sweaty. An adventure is guaranteed, replete with magical encounters with people who are generous with their proverbs and delicacies. And after a stream of seemingly random events (although it’s clearly ordained from above) BAM you are miraculously spit out at doorsteps of a home in an unexplored town right in the knick of time. Straighten the skirt, fluff the hair, clear throat and reach into bag for that bottle of wine you brought for dinner.
Knock knock knock
Shabbat Shalom!!!
Mission Complete

The concept of Shabbos in Israel incredibly engrained into the culture. Everyone you meet, even that woman standing in front of you in line at the post office, invites you to their home for Shabbos and it’s perfectly normal to call up a complete stranger and ask if you can come to them for a meal. It’s that exclusive party in the VIP room at the club and everyone has an invitation, whether they want one or not. Every schedule is based around it, every business runs according to it, families, friends, communities run on the fuel of Shabbos. It’s coming in, the purple sky, go greet her, its lovely to meet her, nothing is sweeter, the Shabbos bride never gets old. Eternally beautiful in her gown. Coming soon to your town ;)

As a student and explorer, Shabbos presents an ideal opportunity to travel the country and experience all the vibrant shades of Judaism. Thus far I have been to cities all over the country and taken a seat at every type of dinner table imaginable (I’ve seen some bizarre things). I regret that I didn’t start recording each Shabbos adventure earlier ……but its not to late to start.

The Shabbos Chronicles: Part I
Kibbutz Qetura

I was told to be at the bus station REALLY early because it always sells out and I definitely don’t want to be stuck standing for three hours in the aisle. Sure enough, despite my attempts at timeliness, the bus was sold out and the bus driver exercised his scope of authority and wouldn’t sell aisle tickets. If it was any other day of the week I would admit defeat and go home, but I was not about to give up hope, the weather forecast said cold and rainy in Jerusalem and although we desperately needed the rain, I wasn’t about to stick around for it. Plus, I had a once in a life-time invitation to visit a Kibbutz near Eilot (the eternally sunny south of Israel) nestled between the border of Jordan and the Judean Mountains.

The girl standing in front of me had her arms crossed, similarly huffing and puffing about the bus situation. I had to give it a try, “Sleecha, you wouldn’t happen to be going to Qetura”. She turned around and smiled mischievously, “Yes, trying to, but this bus driver is being a schmuck". After a two minute interrogation, Adina and I shook hands thereby creating an alliance and a mission statement: getting to Qetura before Shabbos. We grabbed our bags, left the bus station, jumped in a cab and took it to the furthest highway entrance in Jerusalem.

(Mom, dad, please close your eyes for this part) Tremping (hitchhiking) is a very normal thing in Israel. Everyone does it and dare I say, it’s very safe. Two reasons for the prevalence of hitchhiking in Israel are (a) owning a car in Israel is difficult since there is a 100% tax on all car purchases (b) everyone trusts each other. And so Adina and I stuck out our hand and prayed. Well actually, I prayed. Adina is an atheist. As we stood there waiting for a ride our life stories began unraveling. Adina, nice 18 year old girl doing her pre-army training was stationed at Qetura for the year. She grew up in a ‘religious home’, her father’s a Rabbi, and she is the rebel in the family. Adina, proudly scantily clad…it’s a novelty when you decide to take off the long skirt and replace it with a pair of skinny jeans, tells me how much more she loves life now that she has boyfriends, parties, drinks, and chills. She looks at me like I’m a religious freak (although I feel equally liberated in my life style choice) since I am wearing a skirt, that I can’t possibly understand where she’s coming from, so I just smiled to myself because she hasn't the slightest clue of where and how I ended up here.



Suddenly a car pulls up; a nice boy in a yarmulke asks where we are going. His travel route accommodates ours until the Dead Sea and we gladly accept the ride. Adina and I jumped in, leaving Jerusalem behind and beginning our descent to the Sea, the lowest and saltiest place on earth. As we drove away he turned the stereo up, Neil Young’s voice filled the car (G*d sent me a little message: it’s all good).

Four persimmons, Three hours, and two car rides later, Adina and I arrive at Qetura. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here we are in the middle of the desert, surrounded by barren sandy grounds and huge mountains in the distance and smack in the middle of it is a patch of green life. It looks like an illusion, impossibility. Ben Gurion was not playing around when he proposed that we make the desert bloom!






Allow me to tell you more about the Kibbutz. http://www.ketura.org.il/. Qetura is one of the last Kibbutzim to remain in its communal socialist ideal. It was fascinating to experience the “kibbutznic” mentality, which is I own all of this but none of it is mine. Living in an intentional community is a beautiful concept; it seems very natural and healthy. Everyone has a sense of belonging and support. They all eat together in a cafeteria, work together, make decisions together, they share everything.

Qetura is incredibly successful in all they do, which is surprising since most of their endeavors are experimental. By attracting both dreamers and physicists to the Kibbutz, late night bonfires turn into discussion of changing the world and then the next day these ideas are taken to the lab. Although most of their projects are top secret and I can’t tell you , lets just say they are very committed to alterative energies. They have a half a dozen projects going on simultaneously. I wouldn’t be surprised if they beat everyone to the chase by finding a cost-effective alternative to oil first. Their homegrown solar company just received grants, positioning them as the primary energy provider for all surrounding Kibbutzim. They also have the largest algae factory in the world, an impressive dairy farm, and (their biggest source of income) over 3,000 fruiting date trees that produce the fattest, sweetest yummiest dates I have ever eaten.



Another big draw to the Kibbutz is the Arava Learning Institute with the motto “Nature knows no Boundaries” with a commitment to environmental leadership and coexistence. I was so impressed by the institution whose student body consists of Israelis and Palestinians working together to find solutions for problems that effect everyone in the region, such as water conservation through high-tech drip irrigation, creating insect and disease resistant strands of trees, and tackling other obstacles in the maintenance of large-scale agriculture in an arid desert.

Beyond the institution, Qetura works closely with its neighbors on a project called the Middle Eastern Regional Program, specializing in sustainable, organic desert agriculture. Qetura is the home base of the project and is successfully domesticating plants from all over the region for the first time. The plants have multiple functions and are being tested for medicinal, cosmetic, and desert rectifying properties. I was given a tour by my friend who worked on the farm this summer and was blown away.
Some of the plants (to name just a few) were:
Mesquite tree, responsible for the flavor in BBQ sauce and a good source of ethanol. The tree also sheds needles which turn the dry sandy desert ground into fertile soil, a pretty amazing feat.
Merula tree: the infamous tree from the African desert that creates a sweet fruit that ferments and gets the elephants drunk. The kibbutz actually manufacturers a Merula liquor.
Argania: a tree native to Morocco that yields a nut whose oil is used medicinally and cosmetically.
They also have olives, pomegranates, Judean wormwood, frankincense, mirth, capers, acacia, Indian almonds, Egyptian carobs, and a ton of other plants whose names escape me.

I had the incredible honor of sitting at the Shabbos table with Dr. Elaine Soloway, expert in desert agriculture and medicinal plants. She is pretty much responsible for most of the projects I mentioned above. Besides single handedly planting 2,000 of the date trees, founding the Middle Eastern Cooperative, teaching at the Arava Insitute, and raising 6 sons (I don’t know how mom’s do it!), Dr. Elaine’s claim to fame is that she sprouted a 2,000 year old extinct date seed found 40 years ago during excavations at Masada. There is a very good chance she will be able to repopulate this native date tree. The article can be found here: http://www.allbusiness.com/middle-east/israel/4050271-1.html. Her green thumb is miraculous, her desert garden testifies and the oldest seed to germinate puts her in the books. Besides that, she makes an exquisite mushroom pizza and is exceptionally hospitable.

Shabbos was amazing as usual, my friend and I went out into the middle of the Judean Mountains where nothing exists but the dirt and the sky. With nothing but blue clouds and sandy mountains into the infinite distance, it’s completely understandable why and how the revelation of G-d happens here.

I returned to Jerusalem on Sunday, sunburned and feeling optimistic about the future, the state of Israel and the world at large. As we headed north, the bus was redirected because all the wadis were filled by the torrential rains Jerusalem got over the weekend (B''H)