“Lo toda” is the Hebrew phrase meaning “no thank you” and I have used it the most since arriving here. It is an infinitely useful phrase when brushing off vendors in a market with an air of friendly Canadian politeness. My favourite phrase since my arrival, however, must be “slikha” meaning “sorry”, a word that I use very frequently both in English and in Hebrew. It allows you to push past people and walk by beggars while still feeling like a friendly person. I am fairly certain that I am the only one on the streets of Jerusalem who uses it though. Both of these much-used phrases would do us no good as we entered the Judean desert. We took on the hike down to Saint George’s Monastery, a journey facilitated by a steep path that snakes from left to right down the hillside, passing by caves, beautiful vistas, and an overgrown wadi. The way back up the hill was even more challenging and it was on this half of the journey that we all learned (and repeated many times) the Arabic translation of “no, thank you”, “la shoo-khran”. These words were taught to us by some friendly Bedouins who consistently asked us if we wanted to pay for a ride back up the slopes on the back of one of their donkeys. We repeatedly refused their help in favour of sweating it out up the hill, a trek that was both arduous and rewarding. While the short lesson in Arabic phrasing was incredibly edifying, the real value of this day lies in the realization of the isolation and inaccessibility of the Judean wilderness. The readings that we did for today characterize the desert as a place of refuge, where those who were being persecuted by society could run when they had nowhere else to go. As an uninhabited space, the desert has long been considered a place of liminality. In the ancient world, city walls were a symbol of protection both physically and legally. To reside within the walls of a city meant that you were safe from wandering vagrants, protecting by the laws of the land and sure of your place and your future. To be outside of the city walls and between cities placed you between law systems, between sources of protection, and therefore in an uncertain and precarious position. People in the desert lived in a luminal state between sources of protection and culture and, from the readings, it seems that the main demographic that chose this lifestyle were those who stood to lose by being involved in a city’s legal system. They had likely perpetrated some sort of crime to cause them to fear the laws of the city and flee to the desolation of the desert.
Lawrence Schiffman identifies the early Christians as a group on the fringes of society who might have required the refuge of the desert landscape. I had previously learned about the be’er kat ha’minim – the “blessing” on sectarians. This addition to the synagogue service asks that all sectarians be cast out from among the midst of the righteous and their names revoked from the Book of Life. This spoken blessing refers to anyone who is not practicing Judaism at the time properly. It includes Christians but also any other group that was beginning to split away from Judaic ideology. Further, Schiffman includes an account of a rabbi facing charges for saying the b’er kat ha’minim improperly. Clearly this part of the service was integral and it was very important that it be recited perfectly. The place of the recitation within the synagogue service is very significant. Knowing that the piece referred to them, sectarians would be unable to participate in that portion of the service. They would be forced out of the synagogue and out of the Jewish community because they would be unable to participate in the ritual and would understand that they were unwanted by people who at the time were their fellow Jews. This would effectually push away any members of groups who were beginning to break away from practices and beliefs that were seen as a part of Judaism at that time. The addition in Schiffman’s article that particularly surprised me was a section on law against the minim that distinguishes the sectarians from non-Jews and declares all of their children momzerim – bastards. The distinction between a non-Jew and a sectarian is very poignant. It points out sectarians as individuals who had been members of the group of chosen people and who, in their rejection of Judaism and membership of the chosen group – are now permanently defiled, their children wholly illegitimate. The minim are worse than non-Jews because they were born to the chosen people and now reject them. Non-Jews were never a part of this grouping and so their lack of participation in the community does not concern Jews at the time at all. This would be harsh treatment for a person who had grown up within the Jewish community and then due to their decision to embrace some of the new beliefs presented by different groups at the time (Christians among them) were then told that they could no longer be a part of the community that they had been born into. In a time when community was everything, this left early sectarians with very little to turn to. It makes sense that they would seek comfort in the liminality of the Judean desert.
Christian sectarians especially could find not only refuge but also spiritual meaning in a flight to the desert. According to tradition, much of Jesus of Nazareth’s ministry grew out of the desert. John the Baptizer is the first Christian figure reputed to have fled to the desert, baptizing Jesus of Nazareth in the Jordan River as he was in the habit of doing with various disciples at the time. This is where the book of Matthew places Jesus’ vision from Heaven of a voice that indicates to the crowd that he is the son of God, a trait upon which claims of Jesus’ messianic nature largely rest. Having also visited the Jordan River today, I can attest to its remoteness. Just like the Judean desert, our trip there involved passing through much desert space and a healthy dose of looking out the window. Today, the river flows on the border between the modern State of Israel and Jordan, the Israeli side of the river boasting a seating area and a fair-sized gift shop while the Jordanian side featured a surly-looking soldier and a covered wooden seating structure. This makes it a modern liminal space between two countries just as in the time of Jesus of Nazareth it would have been a liminal space due to its placement far, far outside of any municipal boundaries. All of this to say, Christian tradition holds that Jesus of Nazareth carried out much of his early years of teaching out in the wilderness. Considering that the Judean desert at this time is characterized as a place of brigands and those fleeing the justice of organized civilization, one might say that this is rather odd company for a messiah to be keeping. The reality is that, while these messianic figures definitely had a religious agenda, their ideas also had far-reaching political implications. According to Jewish messianic thoguht of the time, a messiah, an “anointed one”, would bring a revelation of a new truth from God to the people. This truth would then usher in a new world order which, for Jews, should consist in the independence and supremacy of Israel as opposed to its domination at the hands of the Roman Empire. Thus, messiah figures like Jesus of Nazareth were looked to for more than spiritual guidance – the people also took their cue from these figures in matters of political revolution. In this way, messianic figures had a lot of power to incite the people to whatever ends they chose to focus them towards. It then makes sense for Jesus of Nazareth to have spent a good deal of his time in the Judean desert – he would have been looked upon warily by the authorities who would have considered him a force for political unrest. The desert was a place of refuge for this Christian figure and also the venue for many of his spiritual experiences and teachings due to the fact that his potential for political power made him unwelcome in urban spaces.
Jesus of Nazareth, however, was not the first figure to be purported to have found religious meaning and political asylum in the Judean desert. The prophet Elijah also fled to the desert in order to escape Jezebel’s purges of prophets of Yahweh. There, tradition tells us that he hid in a cave in the hillside and was fed by ravens sent from God. We did not have the privilege of seeing the cave that is held to be the actual hiding place of the prophet because the monks informed us that it was currently closed, but the presence of religious figures seeking refuge in the desert draws a very strong parallel between Christianity and Judaism. Jewish tradition involves those with religious messages secreting themselves in the desert in order to escape political-religious pressures just as Christian tradition holds Jesus of Nazareth as a figure who acted in the desert in order to escape the notice of political and religious authorities. Thus, while early Christians were being pushed into more liminal spaces as they were chased out of synagogues, the shared significance of religion in a liminal space can be seen as a unifying factor between the two faiths which, as Schiffman points out, completely diverged by the time of Paul, when Christians moved away from Jewish ritual entirely and began to look to non-Jews as prospective members of the new faith. Today, the desert continues as a space of religious significance. Saint George’s Monastery attests to this. Religious figures continue to seek out this barren space as an ideal venue for spiritual pursuits and though the space may have provided a separate space and a division between early Christianity and Judaism, it now unites people of all backgrounds. The Jordan River allowed us to mingle with a group of Christians from Côte d’Ivoire. At the monastery, our diverse group of Canadian students saw various members of the Greek Orthodox Church perform venerations within the monastery’s chapel and conversed extensively and in some cases unsuccessfully with a group of Bedouins during our hike to and from the monastery. “La, shoo-khran” – proof that the Judean desert continues its illustrious history of uniting different societal groups. Both religious figures and vagabonds were welcome there.