You Can Date Boys When You're Forty: Dave Barry on Parenting and Other Topics He Knows Very Little About (12 page)

This is me and the rappelling guy at the top of the cliff.

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Note that I am not looking at the cliff. “Cliff?” I am telling

myself. “
What
cliff?” My shorts are unsoiled at this time.

(Photo by Doug Shapiro)

The rappelling guy keeps giving me instructions. I am slowly making my way down the cliff, but I am still terrified to the point of sphincter malfunction. From directly below, I hear Rabbi Eddie shouting words of encouragement. An alarming thought flashes across my brain. I don’t know what the laws of Israel are, but I can picture this headline:

AMERICAN TOURIST FACES DEATH PENALTY

Pooped on Rabbi While Rappelling

Somehow I make it to the bottom without dying or soiling myself or anybody else. I am trembling, but feeling proud. This feeling lasts for about ninety seconds, which is how long it takes for Sophie to scoot down the cliff—smiling hugely the whole way—then ask if we can do it again. I assure her that we will absolutely do it again just as soon as our legs are rested and there are Walmarts on Jupiter.

After rappelling we walk, some of us shakily, back to the hotel for drinks and dinner, and several more drinks. After dinner Doron has an idea, which is that we should (why not?) experience the desert at night. So we all pile onto the bus and head back down into the crater. We drive for about fifteen minutes, then pull off the road. We pile out of the bus and begin experiencing the desert at night.

Here’s the main thing about the desert at night: It’s dark. We can’t see anything. Doron, who apparently has sonar, leads us, tripping and stumbling, up a rocky invisible path away from the road to an even darker part of the desert. He tells us he wants us to separate, to go off into the desert on our own for a while to look at the stars and meditate in solitude. We separate until we are, as a group, approximately two inches apart because nobody really wants to be separated out here at night with God knows what kind of lurking predatory nocturnal desert creatures such as vampire alpacas.

In our Clump of Solitude, we gaze at the stars for a while—there are a LOT of stars—and then Doron has us form a circle so we can express what we are feeling. We go around the circle and express a variety of deep thoughts, mostly along the lines of: Wow, the universe! Then Doron uses his sonar to lead us out of there. He reminds me of Moses, leading the Israelites out of Egypt until finally, after much hardship and many years of wandering around the desert, they reached the tour bus. And God gave them wifi.

DAY FOUR

After a hearty traditional Israeli breakfast, we have our stomachs pumped and board the bus, which takes us to Masada. This ancient, awesome fortress, on a high rock plateau overlooking the Dead Sea, is a major tourist attraction and an important symbol for Israelis: It was here, according to legend, that in 73
A.D.
a group of 960 Jewish rebels—men, women and children—who had been holding out against a siege by Roman troops, chose to commit suicide rather than be captured alive. In our group, we get to speculating on how the rebels could possibly have brought themselves to kill their own families. One of the dads, Tony Menninger, says: “Having been penned up with my family on a long car ride . . .”

We hike to the top of Masada, where Doron fills us in on the history and we take several thousand redundant photographs of the view. We then proceed to a small pavilion near the edge of the plateau. There, with the help of a rented Torah (you can rent Torahs on Masada), ks orm a circl Rabbi Eddie conducts a bar/bat mitzvah service for two of the young people on our tour, Leo Menninger and Jamie Shapiro. It’s far less formal than these services usually are—we’re in shorts and T-shirts—but it’s moving, and the setting is spectacular, here in this historic place, with the Dead Sea far below in the distance.

The only glitch comes when the parents read a prayer titled “To Be Recited by Parents Celebrating a Child’s Becoming Bar/Bat Mitzvah in Israel.” The parents fail to notice that the prayer book, although it’s written in English, is set up Hebrew style, meaning the pages are numbered in the opposite direction. So when the parents reach the bottom of page 57, instead of going to the top of page 58, they go to the top of page
56
, which puts them in the middle of a different prayer, this one meant to be recited “For Israeli Soldiers or Civilians Being Held Captive.” All of a sudden the parents are asking God to “Send complete rescue and full redemption to those held captive by the enemy.” This seems kind of grim for a bar mitzvah. Fortunately, Rabbi Eddie catches the mistake and gets the parents back on course; the service ends happily, with hugs and many more pictures.

We take a cable car down to the base of Masada, where, to Michelle’s delight, there is a gift shop that Doron describes, accurately, as “the size of the rest of Israel.” There are also a number of restaurants, including a McDonald’s. After eating and purchasing various hugely unnecessary things, we get back on the bus and motor a short distance to the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea is a super-salty inland sea whose shore is the lowest dry-land place on Earth. Tourists have been bathing in it for centuries and for a very good reason: Tourists are idiots. No, really. For some reason, when we leave home and join tour groups, we instantly degenerate to the same level of brain function as watermelons. We can be talked into doing
anything
. Walking backward off cliffs, for example.

In the case of the Dead Sea, what we have is a vast pool of warm, oily liquid (allegedly water, though I have my doubts). We ought to be able to figure out from the name “Dead Sea” alone that we should stay the hell out of it. Fish have figured this out; even
plants
have figured this out. But not us tourists! We walk cheerfully past a sign that says:

Do NOT jump or dive into the water

Do NOT immerse your head

Do NOT splash water on yourself or others

Do NOT drink seawater—if you swallow seawater, request help from the life guard or first aid provider

In other words, the sign is saying:
Turn back now, you fool.
But we do not turn back. We’re tourists! We walk right up to the Dead Sea and we smear Dead Sea mud on our bodies because . . . We don’t know why! But all the other tourists are doing it! If they were stuffing Dead Sea sand into their nostrils, we’d do that, too!

After we smear on our mud, we go into the Dead Sea and, as millions of tourists have done before us, we marvel at how easily we float. Our upper bodies are bobbing
way
out of the water. We’re excited and amazed. It doesn’t occur to us that
this is not normal
. This is exactly why the fish left. The fish were, like,
WHOA, dude, this is WAY too floaty.

But we idiot human tourists bob happily away and pose for pictures, lying on our backs and pretending to read a newspaper. Ha-ha! Dead Sea fun!

But then as the initial excitement wears off, we begin to notice that every little cut or scrape on our body is sti kr b/p>nging. Then we notice that other sensitive areas, our various bodily crevices and orifices, are also starting to sting. In fact, they’re stinging a
lot
. Especially our butts. Our butts are shouting at our brains:
Get out of this toxic stew, you moron
. That’s right: As tourists, our IQs have declined to the point where
the most intelligent organ in our body is our asshole
.

So we get out, rinse as much of the Dead Sea off as we can in the outdoor showers and, with butts still stinging, rejoin Doron, our highly knowledgeable guide, who, for the record, has not gotten within a hundred yards of the Dead Sea. We get back onto the bus and head for the city where we’ll be spending the next four nights: Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is often called the Las Vegas of the Middle East because of its many casinos and strip clubs.

No, I’m kidding. Jerusalem is an extremely holy city.
Everybody
came through here at one time or another: Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, possibly L. Ron Hubbard. You can’t wave your arms in Jerusalem without striking a place or thing that is revered by one or more major world religions, so whatever you do, do
not
wave your arms. There are many intensely religious people walking around here; sometimes, there is tension. And by “sometimes” I mean “pretty much nonstop for several thousand years.”

There is also, I regret to report, shopping.

We check into our hotel and after dinner we set off on foot for the Old City, which is divided into the Muslim Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Jewish Quarter and the Armenian Quarter. I never did get a clear explanation on why the Armenians have a quarter. I mean, nothing against the Armenians, but it seems kind of random, doesn’t it? I mean, why doesn’t Yemen have a quarter? Or, for that matter, Wisconsin?

We go to the Muslim Quarter, where Doron leads us through a tunnel that runs underground along the Western Wall. The Western Wall is important to Jews because it is a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Temple Mount, which is considered the holiest place in Judaism. The first Jewish temple stood here, before it was destroyed by the Babylonians. The second temple also stood here; it was destroyed by the Romans. Jewish tradition holds that a third and final temple should be built here. The problem is that when the Muslims conquered Jerusalem in the seventh century, they built a shrine, the Dome of the Rock—it’s the third-holiest place in Islam—right on top of Temple Mount.

Fortunately, all of these events happened centuries ago. Tempers have cooled since then, so the Jews and Muslims will undoubtedly let bygones be bygones and work out a solution for sharing this holy place that satisfies everybody.

Ha-ha! I am kidding again. In this part of the world, no matter how long ago something happened, plenty of people are still hacked off about it. “Bygones, schmygones,” that is the official motto of the Middle East.

We get back to the hotel quite late, exhausted from a long day that began in the desert, took us to the majestic heights of Masada and then to the lowest place on Earth, and ended in a sacred part of one of the world’s most ancient, historic and spiritually significant cities. Little wonder that as I finally drift off to sleep the last thought that goes through my mind is:
My butt still stings.

DAY FIVE

This is not an easy morning. We visit Yad Vashem, the official Israeli memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It’s very well done, managing to convey the horrifying scale of the mass murders without ever letting you lose sight of the fact that every victim was an individual person, with a unique life and spirit. The most moving exhibits, for me, are videos in which survivors describe, matter-of-fa k maonvey tctly, what was done to them and their loved ones solely because they were Jews. After two hours I walk out into the bright sunlight with tears streaming down my face, holding tight to my daughter.

My Jewish daughter.

From this somber place we go to one of the liveliest places in Jerusalem: the Mahane Yehuda open-air market, which is bustling with people buying food for Shabbat, the day of rest that begins at sundown Friday and ends at sundown Saturday. This is a big part of the Jewish week and it of course involves eating. Michelle finds a store called Kippa Man, where she buys—you cannot have too many—souvenir yarmulkes. We eat lunch at a falafel stand that claims to sell the best falafel in Israel.

FACT:
Every
falafel stand in Israel claims to sell the best falafel in Israel.

FACT:
And
every one does
.

In the evening our group attends Shabbat services in a suburb of Jerusalem at Kehilat Mevasseret Zion, a reform synagogue led by Rabbi Maya Leibovitch, the first Israeli-born woman rabbi. After the service, our group breaks into smaller groups, which go to have Shabbat dinner at the homes of members of the congregation. We and another family from the tour go to the small, neat home of Kay and Adi Elkayam, a couple in their sixties. Kay was born in Philadelphia and came to Israel as an adult; Adi is a native Israeli. She’s a talker and quite funny; he’s quiet and just as funny. (When I ask him how he met Kay, he answers, without elaborating: “By mistake.”)

They serve us a massive and delicious meal, during which Kay tells us in no uncertain terms what she thinks about Israeli politics, the Middle East in general, religion, U.S. politics and many other topics. During this time Adi is silent, plodding back and forth between the kitchen and the dining table, bringing us more and more and still more food. Finally, he stops next to Kay and announces: “I do not agree with her.” (
Pause.
) “About anything.”