Aug 15, 2016
seen from China
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1987 Sun Sentinel article about family trip to Israel, cont'd.
And here’s the part of the article that mentions my brother running down the Snake Path was one of my personal favorite experiences at AMHSI. As my AMHSI teacher, David Mitchell, taught us that day at Masada when we asked why we had to run up and down the mountain on such a hot day instead of taking the cable car, “BECAUSE WE CAN AND BECAUSE WE ARE HERE.” I love how the author captured my brother and the Steingo kids’ sentiment here:
Our prayer is part of a B’Nai Mitzvah for several of the young people in our group who have come of age. “To be thirteen is to stand between two worlds: the past of childhood and the promise of adulthood,” young Lee Israch reads, her voice rising above the desert wind.
We are gathered atop the mountain fortress of Masada where 960 men, women and children chose mass suicide rather than Roman slavery more than 19 centuries ago.
The sun is a yellow-white ball hanging in the east over the shimmering surface of the Dead Sea. We are standing in the ruins of a synagogue more than 2,000 years old.
Some 80 generations have come and gone since the Roman legions drove the Jews from this land. And now their children, 80-times removed, have come home.
The service ends and we wander through the rubble of Masada`s unknown martyrs in silence.
"I don`t want to go back down in the cable car," announces teenager Michael Steingo when it`s time to go.
"Neither do I," adds Louis Reinstein, also in his teens.
"We want to walk down the mountain like the people did in the old days," explains Leanne, Michael’s younger sister.
The way down the mountain is called the Snake Path, a tortuous route too dangerous and open for the Roman troops who built a massive earthen ramp to capture Masada.
The modern parents are concerned.
"It’s hot," one says.
"You might fall and hurt yourself," another warns.
"Awwww," Robert Israch says. "We want to see how it used to be."
"These kids are right," announces Buzz Tabachnik, the Inverrary investment executive who wanted to stay home. "If we’re going to do Israel, we’ve got to do it all the way."
Then, with the sweat streaming from under his bright green yarmulka, Buzz Tabachnik begins the long, hot journey down the Snake Path, followed by a small band of laughing young pilgrims from the other side of the world.
Geisel Library at UCSD
