Israel day 9 Tiberias (Sea of Galilee) to Tel Aviv

Early start again at 8.15 am, to go a few kilometres around the bay to the Mount of Beatitudes where the Sermon on the Mount is presumed to have taken place.  Nobody really knows but this location is the best guess and so a church was built on this site in the 1930’s.  It is an excellent guess because the views of the Sea of Galilee are magnificent.  Here is the view Jesus might have had while delivering the beautiful words of this sermon:

Our local tour guide, Varda, while a Jew is pretty switched on and quite sympathetic when it comes to the Christian religion.  She carries a New Testament and at a number of sites she invites someone from the tour to read out the relevant scripture.  She did the same today, with a few verses of the Beatitudes being read out.  At the end Mal begged leave to inform the psychologists, and everyone that at the end of this sermon Jesus taught the value of living in the moment, just as many psychologists are now starting to do.

The relevant passage is: “Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matthew 6:34).  Like most people with an interest in Eastern philosophy, they would have said this was probably a Buddha quote, and were surprised to hear that Jesus preached it.  One lady on the tour was a little emotional, and told Mal afterwards that this was her late mother’s favourite Bible passage.  The tour guide instantly grasped the wisdom and said she would incorporate this passage in her tours from now on.

(As I type this, Julie has turned on the TV which as previously noted is a rare event, and came across the BBC station forecasting Australia’s weather, which featured a map with the temperatures for Sydney and Port Lincoln, but no mention of Canberra.)

From the Mount of Beatitudes we headed up to the mountains of northern Galilee to Safed, the home of Jewish mysticism (the Kabbalah).  The town was founded in 70AD and snakes its way up a steep hill to an area full of narrow twisting streets, shops, art galleries, medieval synagogues (which we didn’t like at all), schools of the Kabbalah and small guest houses and homes.  Neither of us could warm to this place at all, unlike Jerusalem.  Small medieval towns in Europe often feel welcoming, but not this place.  We had a long tour then an hour to explore on our own, but a few of us just used the time to get coffee – a nice half-strength cappuccino for Julie and the most disgusting “Turkish” coffee for Mal.  Julie took pity on him and offered him the last few swallows of hers which he gratefully accepted.

We then travelled to Nazareth via Cana, which is the site of Jesus’s first miracle of turning water into wine.  The signs on some of the shops in Cana said “First Miracle Wine shop – excellent quality”.  Surprisingly, this town plus Nazareth seem to be mostly Arabian.  We and a few others skipped the tour of the Church of the Ascension in Nazareth just to have a relatively relaxed lunch and get a break from the relentless pressure.

Then it was back on the bus to travel to Tel Aviv.  The country side so far has been very hilly, much more than we had anticipated, but we drove through flatter farming lands the closer we got to the coast.  We drove past Armageddon, where the “final battle” predicted in the New Testament is to happen.

We arrived at our hotel in Tel Aviv at 5 pm, and then we had “free time” until 6.30 pm when we walked a couple of blocks to a disused railway station which has been turned into a shopping complex for dinner.  This was another traditional Middle Eastern feast that was just delicious, and then Mal was off to hear about a program for helping troubled adolescents.  Julie walked back to the hotel with one of the other people on the tour who is also a “Non-psychologist”.  Dennis is 82 and he is accompanying his daughter on this trip.  He is an inspiration to others as he is attending most of the events, both psychology and travel, and is managing to keep up with the rest of us youngsters very well, even all the walking.

Our hotel is on the beach, and this is a few pictures from our room.  The sun even correctly sets in the west (this will make sense to those who come from Adelaide).