Walking the Bible, by Bruce Feiler ---“It’s as if my internal zip code were being recalibrated, as if my genes were being jiggled and respun.”--- The challenge to write about a book that influenced my relationship to Israel could have been answered with a cliché. The TaNaCH, after all, was my foundational text in school, synagogue and home, and was an intimate and natural companion on my first (bar mitzvah) trip to Israel in 1964. Its personalities and places, vocabulary and ideas, was the canon for my family’s identity. It has continued to run as a soundtrack, or as a DVD’s “behind the scene’s track” during every subsequent trip. I would love to recommend the pairing of this sacred book with the sacred land experience, but I know that it is an acquired taste. Could there be another text that would initiate the reader into a further relationship with land and text? A most meaningful paradigm of land and text is at the core of the Florence Melton Mini School Israel Seminars. As explained by Hayim Aronovitch, master guide and teacher, the ultimate experience is to study Jewish texts as if they are sites, and then to study sites in Israel as if they were texts. Jewish source texts may be unearthed as layers of an archeological tel; sifting through the development of ideas, and the historic and social influences on their development. The personalities one meets through visiting a text as a site will help enrich your own narration of life and meaning. And then, imagine the privilege to visit the sites that birthed the texts, influenced their development, and introduce us to a contemporary set of commentators. Such is the virtual experience of reading Walking the Bible, by Bruce Feiler. A modern Israeli song blends a Biblical imperative with a contemporary punch line. It starts “kum v’hithalech ba’aretz,” rise and walk through the length and breadth of the land… and you will be sure to meet there [the real] eretz yisrael.” Bruce Feiler, a well known journalist for the NY Times and Washington Post, writes of his physical trek across biblical lands, and his spiritual quest to find meaning in the texts. His background mirrors that of many of our community members: “For most of my life, my religious identity was not connected to a particular place, and certainly not any place in the Bible. As a fifth-generation American Jew from the South, I had a strong attachment to Judaism, but one based on family, community, ethics, public service; not spirituality or mysticism. And not on any deep-seated attachments to the Promised Land. (p.31)” And as he wandered, Bible in hand, from one Biblical site to another, he felt “the bungee cord seemed to be catching in another place… some ill-defined part of me, some homeless portion of my consciousness that I hadn’t even realized was looking for a home, suddenly found a place where it felt comfortable… Here was a piece of ancient land- completely alien, yet completely familiar- that seemed to draw me to it in a way I never thought possible outside of my hometown. It’s as if my internal zip code were being recalibrated, as if my genes were being jiggled and respun. (p.32)” Biblical texts, archeologists, scholars, and local residents all help make the “shidduch” between traveler and land. At one point he realizes that it is wrong to simply look for THE truth, whether in politics or theology: “In coming to that conclusion I returned to the essential triad at the heart of the Bible: the people, the land, and God…. Ultimately, rather than try to win this struggle, or succumb to this struggle, I realized that the struggle itself was the goal. I had, like Jacob, wrestled with an adversary I never saw, whose name I never learned, but whose presence I deeply felt. I had, to use the words of Genesis, “striven with God,” the original meaning of Israel, and the name given to all of his descendents. After all my travels, I had reached the destination that the Five Books intended all along. I had reached the Promised Land- Israel- the place where one strives with God. (p.423)” Reading along with Feiler’s journey, one grasps the layers of complexity that is part of a relationship to the land. This book (and the newly available DVD from the PBS television mini-series) will surely motivate community members to take their Bibles in hand and “arise and walk the Land.” It is in sync with American adult learning characteristics- have an open mind, be non-coercive, present ideas and debate them, search for personal meaning, and create a “chevruta” with the text, the land, and all the people you will meet. Walking The Bible spoke to me, a person already “in relationship” with Israel. But I am convinced that it is also an accessible text that will motivate first timers to study and travel, ultimately hearing God’s call to Abraham, “Lech lecha = go for your sake!” Send us your comments or questions More Articles From the Editor  Conflict and Conversation  Makom Mission Ariel View Personal Bookshelf New from Makom Community Initiative Makom Matters