A Window on Dor

Do some farming.  Find a 6th century synagogue.

That was on the to-do list for the members of the kibbutz Bet-Alpha back in 1928.  Their find contained one of the nicest mosaic floors discovered in Israel, so on a road trip yesterday four of us decided to swing by the northern location.

Three segments run down the center of the Jerusalem-facing synagogue.  Closest to the apse is an image of an Ark flanked by lions and two menorah (menarot, if you want to be technical).  In the middle is the full zodiac, underscoring how important the calendar is for Jewish ritual, and recalling the belief that the temple was a microcosm of the entire universe.  Finally, at the bottom, Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac is depicted, which coincided with yesterday’s first reading for Mass from Genesis.

From there we continued to the nearby site of Gideon’s selection of his warriors.  Ma’ayan Harod still has a running spring today, made famous by Judges 7.  Even after Gideon has cleared anyone who was hesitant to fight and 22,000 men go home, God still wants to thin down the remaining 10,000.  So it’s from this spring that Gideon sifts his men—those kneeling down to drink vs. those who ‘lapped with their hands to their mouths’.  He sent home the kneeling crew, so he was left with 300 men.

When you’re there the true meaning of the text is clarified: ‘kneeling down’ actually meant diving into the swimming pool there:

Heading west brought us to the coast just south of Haifa.  There was the Templar ruin of the fortress Atlit, also known, in an apparent tribute to this blog, as Castle Pilgrim.  Built in 1218, it was never taken in siege.  Unless you count it’s being besieged today by the navy base that surrounds it, which means this is about as close as you can get to it:

Continuing south we arrived at Dor, winning the day’s prize for longest occupied site, with its origins going back about 4,000 years.  It shows up in Joshua 11 to its own misfortune: teaming up with a whole crew of kings and armies against the newcomers Joshua and Co., Dor is trounced and the king, among others, is killed.

Various groups lived there over the millennia, including the Romans with temples left behind, the Byzantines with a church, and crusaders fortifying the area—after which it appears to have been abandoned.

Centuries of the Mediterranean doing what the Mediterranean does have worn away the bay and headlands, leaving behind beautiful rock formations and tide pools.

Which were met by a sun-drenched beach, which we also researched.