 | Pastoral Involves Beni Kaye. |
Last month Jane's Defence Weekly reported that the Israeli Ministry of Defence plans to launch an independent military-designated communications satellite. The Israeli MoD already has five operational satellites in space and receives services from a commercially owned satellite, so why would it want to add another satellite to its fleet?
The existing satellites complete an orbit of the earth every 90 minutes and download collected data to ground stations in Israel once they are in transmitting range. The new satellite will be capable of relaying data from the other satellites in real time providing important information to both military intelligence and units in the field.
Early next year Israel Aerospace Industries hopes to launch its Amos 4 communications satellite designed to cover Africa, Asia and Europe.
IAI is also developing the Opsat 3000 satellite which will replace the older Ofeq series. The Opsat will have onboard a new high-resolution remote-sensing camera capable of providing 50 cm resolution images.
It's comforting to have so many eyes in the sky, especially a new one equipped to see relatively small objects on the ground.
The report in Jane’s came to mind during our Shavuot celebrations.
I mentioned to our non-Jewish guests from New Zealand that Shavuot is probably our most “dichotomous” festival. After the destruction of the Temple, the rabbis emphasised Shavuot’s connection to the giving of the Torah.
In place of the harvest festival at the Temple, the rabbis made Shavuot a time to celebrate the learning of Torah. On Shavuot, they reenacted the “event” at Mount Sinai, the giving and acceptance of the Jewish codex of law, the Torah.
In the academic study of Jewish law , the verse "not in Heaven" (Deut. 30:12 serves as the biblical grounding for the jurisprudential structure of halakhah (Jewish law), the source for rabbinic authority.
Our satellites orbiting above, our eyes in the heavens give us a qualitative edge. Perhaps prophetically phrased in Isaiah 51:6 “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath...” The rest of the phrase doesn’t suit my purpose so I have left it out.
Had they been programmed to do so, the satellites above, both our own and other celestial bodies, could have recorded the Shavuot parades in Israel.
Ostensibly Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of the First Fruits is ideally suited to the saga of the Jewish agrarian renaissance, the return to our ancestral land.
When I first came to Ein Harod some of the founding fathers, the people that pitched their tents by Gideon’s Spring on that first day in October 1921, were still active. Their accounts of the plough turning the first furrow in the Jezreel Valley and the emotion-packed harvesting of the first crops, imparted some of that creative joy as well as no small measure of naïveté. Since then they have all gone the way of all flesh and the community they founded has changed.
Like many kibbutzim Ein Harod is more dependent on industry than agriculture for its livelihood. On my way to work every day I still pause by the bend in the path to view the valley, surveying the patchwork of fields, groves and fishponds. Beyond that point I pass close to the dairy and the sheepfolds. Field crops, citrus groves, livestock branches as well as our country guesthouse are all working well and turning a profit. However they comprise a minor complement to the major breadwinner, our industry.
The hyperlink above opens a video that portrays Shavuot in the broader fabric of folk cultures. The pastoral harvest scenes replaced by mechanised farming.
The joie de vivre depicted in the scenes of the 19th century French countryside painted by artist Julian Dupré were a disappearing way of life that had to give way to machines that could do the job faster, more efficiently using fewer people.
The kibbutz and the moshav eagerly adopted the latest innovations in mechanised farming while reserving a nostalgic corner for the reenactment of ancient ceremonies.
Family, friends and other visitors love the Cutting of the Omer ceremony at Pesach, the Shavuot parades and the Succot celebrations. By and large the kibbutz members and their children love the holidays too. However, at times, especially when the guests outnumber the kibbutz members the celebration is more like a performance. Some complain that the celebration has become an irksome task. On the other hand a few strategically placed kibbutzim have capitalised on the harvest festivals by selling tickets for the “authentic” show performed several times during the day.
My breakfast parliament members, most of them born and raised here, recall Shavuot with mixed feelings. The festival triggers childhood memories of hot summer days when they were crowded on tractor-drawn wagons dressed in white with prickly floral wreaths on their heads, on display with the rest of the kibbutz produce.
While in many places the traditional parade of tractors, agricultural implements, wagons and floats is still the star attraction, for some years now my kibbutz has converted the parade to a static display on the main lawn by the dining room. This year after a brief opening ceremony members and guests moved from stall to stall examining the produce, implements, tractors, ploughs, discs and special attractions. Among them a plywood cow that produced chocolate milk, real lambs for the children to pet and a small stand where our cryogenic and vacuum equipment industry displayed its wares.
Above all it was a huge “happening” an undeniable success.
On the last day of their stay at Ein Harod I took our guests to Eli’s lookout, a vantage point at the top of the hill above the kibbutz. On the way up we stopped by a fenced off area that contains a 7th century winery, with two treading floors, one covered with a simple mosaic. The grape juice drained from the floors into two vats both plastered and in a good state of preservation. A few winters ago a heavy rain washed away a section of top soil near the treading floors exposing a small cellar. Perhaps wine or olive oil amphorae were stored here. The whole installation had a dual purpose and was used for processing grapes and olives. It is one of many discovered along the crest of the hill between Ein Harod and Tel Yosef. At some time Jews farmed this land and sent their produce through Beit Shean/ Scythopolis to the markets of Rome.
While we stood on the treading floor I conjured up a scene that likely took place here. The pickers carrying baskets of grapes to the treading floor probably sang as they stacked their baskets by the edge of the floor where the grapes were crushed by foot. By all accounts, and there are accounts, it was a joyous occasion.
Here as elsewhere in the ancient world a large part of the population worked the land. Farming was a precarious occupation. Droughts, pestilence, wars and other unforeseen tragedies plagued the farmer. When the rains came in time and he had a bountiful crop he was thankful and rejoiced.
Although our ancestors were promised a land flowing with milk and honey only 20% of it is naturally arable. Today agriculture comprises 2.5% of Israel's gross domestic product and only 3.6% of the country's exports. Agricultural workers make up about 3.7% of Israel's labour force, yet they produce 95% of the country's food requirements. The food items we lack, namely, grains, oil seeds, meat, coffee, cocoa and sugar are imported. However, these imports are more than offset by exports.
Historians inquiring into what our ancestors ate claim that barley and wheat were the staple crops in both the biblical and post-biblical periods. Researcher E.P Sanders stated that, "Grain constituted over fifty percent of the average person's total caloric intake, followed by legumes (e.g. lentils), olive oil, and fruit, especially dried figs."
With Shavuot behind us we face an eventless summer with no major festival in the calendar till September.
Have a good weekend..
Beni 16th of June, 2011.
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