I was at home a few days ago when the phone rang. Zvia Shelly from Partnership 2000 in Beit Shean was on the other line. "Hi Yaron," she said. "Next week we have a special guest-an Episcopalian priest from Cleveland. Could you give her a tour of the Mt. Gilboa area?" I asked for some more details, which Zvia provided, and I quickly said yes without really being sure what was involved. Soon enough, the big day arrived, and at the designated time I met Zvia at the new guest house in Beit Shean. She introduced me to Reverend Tracy Lind, the dean of Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, an educated, pleasant woman of about 50 years of age. I asked Tracy to tell me a little about herself and her expectations from the tour. In response, she handed me a postcard and her business card, noting her church in the picture. Among other things, she told me that her father was Jewish, that she is also a writer, and that for years she has dreamed of visiting the Holy Land so that she could see things for herself that are hard to understand from a distance.

Tracy's church is not far from the Jewish Community Federation in Cleveland, and she explained that the relationship between the two institutions is very neighborly. For that reason as well, she was interested in learning as much as possible. Who knows where newly gained insights could lead, I thought to myself, as we began the tour.

I apologized in advance for my less-than-perfect English. I prefaced our day by telling her that I would be giving her a very personal perspective, as a child of the Beit Shean Valley, an Israeli, and a Jew who lives and works in these meaningful, historic vistas.

We got into the cab and drove to the northern edge of the Binyamin Mall parking lot. We stood there, looking over the ancient antiquities site, and that's where we started-from the end of the saga. I told her about the huge privilege our generation has, to dwell in our ancient homeland with the Bible in hand, and not just read the verses, but to live them - to walk in the footsteps of kings, judges, prophets, and Hebrew warriors. I explained to her that here in Beit Shean, this experience is even more intense, for this region was the site of much ancient history of our people.

Finally, I pointed to the Beit Shean tel itself, the heart of the antiquities site, and the remains of the ancient city walls, where the desecrated bodies of King Saul and his sons were hung up for display by the Philistines. Reverend Lind, who until then had listened nicely and nodded occasionally, let out a surprised "Ohhhhh."

"Until now, I didn't realize there was a connection between Saul and this place," she said. (I had been saying the king's name, Sha'ul, in Hebrew.) "I can't believe it-here's where it all took place!"

I apologized again for my English, and asked her if I could, with her permission, continue to use Saul's Hebrew name. (I explained that I thought the former king would probably answer better to Sha'ul than to his English name.) She didn't seem to mind at all, and so with piqued curiosity, we headed out of the city towards the Gilboa Mountains.

At the junction leading to the southern edge of the Gilboa, I asked the driver to continue a little farther south into the Jordan Valley. A little after the checkpoint, we turned left into a green field where the Bezek riverbed met the highway, and there we stopped. For Reverend Lind, we were in the middle of nowhere.

After getting out of the car, I told her I wanted to let her know about King Saul's life, as well as his death, and that this was the best place to do so. I saw her looking around, first at the field, then at the nearby citrus grove, and then across the border at the Gilead Mountains in Jordan, trying to figure out what I was going to say.

I pointed at the mountains in Jordan, and I told her about the Israelites living there in Yavesh-Gilead, who became subservient to the Ammonite king Nachash, with all the shame hidden between the Biblical verses (I Samuel, Chapter 11). I explained the national misery described in the passage, and the tribe of Israel that was so lacking a protector-and how only a few days stood between those Israelites and the end of the Nachash's ultimatum, when he promised to brutally blind them all.

And then I told her of Saul, at home herding the cattle when he heard of the predicament of his Israelite brethren. Burning with anger, the future king slaughtered two of the cattle, and used them to carry out the first national draft to the "Israel Defense Forces." I showed Tracy the Bezek Canyon where Saul led the huge army of 330,000 Jewish soldiers. Here he readied them for battle, here he split them into three strike forces, and here he gave the orders for the dawn attack. After that successful battle, Saul was still not king, but history was in the making!

I explained the metamorphosis, as I understand it - the dark period of the Judges (which admittedly sparkled at times with the light of a temporary redeemer) was over. The period of the Israelite Kingdom had begun, which would lead to the holy Temple, a court of justice, a united army, as well as a united Land of Israel. And all that began here, in this dusty field, across from the Gilead Mountains. Here crouched in anticipation the soldiers of Saul, he who was to become the first king of Israel. Even the events of the end of his life could not take away from the greatness of what he did then and renewed for Israel, relevant now as it was then.

The day before the tour, I devoted some time to considering how exactly I should give a Biblical tour to a Christian audience. I considered the question, asked around, and finally came to the conclusion that I would present my beliefs: We are proud and grateful to God for who we are. We are happy to be back and part of the land our forefathers walked, and we are not ashamed or regretful about anything. Just the opposite is true. At the same time, despite our mutual baggage, we would like to maintain dialogue, mutual respect, and listening.

We left the field and started driving up the Gilboa. As we began the ascent, I turned to Tracy and asked her-what impact did these sites have on her? She said it was hard for her to express in words what she was feeling.

"You see, I've been reading these stories for decades," she began, "but this is the first time I feel that I'm actually living them. In America, everything is bigger than life, but things seem unconnected - the surroundings don't speak to you. But here, every rock, every mountain, has a real, living story. I am so moved by it all. I came to Israel for three weeks, and this is what I was looking for..."

Our conversation turned to slightly more theological matters. She gave me the impression that she represents a modern, moderate, and open form of Christianity - the type of religiosity that, at its origin, was a legitimate and even understandable development that called on believers to look around them and see God's hand in everyday life. (It was only later that this message was reshaped and recast by others.) Reverend Lind seemed to be not at all interested in the perpetuation of problematic theological claims, and certainly not in the historic injustices performed in their name. Whether her outlook is based on her personal family history (a Jewish parent) or on new ideas that exist in today's Church, she didn't say. What is clear is that she is not tied in any way to the sordid aspects of Christianity's past. She seemed to me to be more interested in finding those points of understanding that can help bridge the gaps and bring about more openness in the world.

Once atop the Gilboa ridge, we drove to the new Shamir memorial observation point, overlooking the Beit Shean Valley.

On the way up the mountain, I told her how my family once traveled to a very popular tourist spot in South Africa called "God's Window." After a long drive, we arrived at the site, looked out at the vistas, and said to one another: "It's nice, but not as nice as the view from our backyard, on Mt. Gilboa." At the observation point, I didn't have to add anything (and in truth, I couldn't have even if I had wanted to, because of the strong winds!).

From there, we continued on to the monument commemorating Aliza Malka, our Aliza. I began to point out the things around us - the far edge of the Gilboa Mountains, the "Green Line," the separation fence, Jenin Valley, Judea, Samaria, us, them…and she almost fainted. She took out her camera, and just like in the Bezek riverbed and atop the observation point, she began taking picture after picture, all the while asking "What, is this really THE Samaria, the Biblical Samaria?"

Then I told her of Saul's last battle on the Gilboa. I described for her the pain, the national disaster, and the feeling that everything that had been achieved was now lost. I told her of David's lament for Saul and Jonathan, and of Natan Alterman, the "national poet" of Israel, who after experiencing the Holocaust and the establishment of the Jewish State, found no words better to describe that period than "the holocaust of Saul" and "the rise of David."

We also talked about Kibbutz Merav and the Arab village Jilabun, neighbors atop Mt. Gilboa, who maintained a wonderful and inexplicable coexistence even as the Intifada raged in other parts of the country. Far from the eyes of the press, that hilltop cooperation was apparently far removed from reality as well, a complex reality that was soon to consume even the last islands of tranquility.

Then I told her of the hail of bullets shot at my family's car that missed their mark, and the other horrible burst of machine-gun fire that killed Aliza, and forced all of us to raise our guard and shore up our fences. Finally, I told her of coping with reality, and our community's resolve to continue, and the "Aliza Brigade" established by the local teens in memory of their friend. Suddenly, it seemed that everything tied together: Saul, Jonathan, Malkishua, Merav, the Bezek riverbed, Beit Shean, the Philistines, the Green Line, Hebrew warriors, the separation fence, the Shamirs, Natan Alterman, Aliza, Independence Day, Memorial Day..."the Eternal One of Israel shall not lie nor change his mind!"

We then drove up into Merav, and Reverend Lind asked me: "So what now? How do you deal with it all?"

I told her that people who know where they come from and where they're going find the strength to carry on. I also told her that, on a personal level, almost every day when I open my window and look down on the valley below, I say in my heart: "Good morning Saul. Hello Samuel, and Gideon, and David, and Jonathan. Here we are, continuing what you started, walking in your footsteps."

We said our goodbyes, each of us returning to his or her own world. I'm not sure what Reverend Lind got from our tour of the region, but I know I am stronger because of it.

  Tammuz 5764 - June 2004