A woman at the restaurant furtively slipped slices of cheese between layers of bread. I wondered why she glanced guiltily about. Later, I would learn that it was a meat restaurant, and to eat cheese in a meat restaurant is a violation of dietary laws, if not common courtesy. (Chain-smoking in the same restaurant, however, was no problem.)

Outside the restaurant, the wind was so strong it stung the skin and stripped paint from cars. It was the same vengeful, swirling, hot force that appeared when the Ark of the Covenant was opened in the Indiana Jones movie. As I sulked, feeling abandoned by God and all sensible human beings, people smoked and chatted happily at tables around me. We had nowhere important to rush off to, but I still so desperately wanted to get out of there. I felt that if I said how badly I wanted to go home, I might turn into a howling, frozen pillar, Lot's wife. I stared out the window, impotent.

As the wind whipped past the window, I could see the power of the Old Testament God who gave the Ten Commandments to Moses not far from here. I could imagine the ancient Hebrew men and women feeling powerless and humble in this harsh land. Edward O. Wilson says that religion is based in our biology, and that it comes from both fear and the instinct for survival. It was beginning to make sense.

I didn't belong here. I didn't feel especially moved in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or at the Western Wall, or at the Dome of the Rock. I watched, self-conscious, as people prostrated themselves, davened, covered their shameful skin, hid from the might of God. I only felt the might of the sun and its heat.

Yet I saw, at the restaurant, that there wasn't much difference between the might of the land and the might of God. The Navajos believe that the land is their Bible, that every feature of their land is sacred and must be respected. I also saw that people who chose religious faith - or at least the fervent faith of the Holy Land - were comfortable with the unknowingness of belief, and of the land. I was trying to do and to see and to conquer, really, in a very Western, rational way. I left no room for doubt, or for chance.

Now the country, the land, was exacting its revenge. And while being trapped at the Dead Sea didn't make me into any more of a believer, it did give me a sense of awe. There was more than just air and sand in that blast of hot wind. There was more than just happenstance in those keys floating out of the pocket.

There was a message: you don't always get to choose when to leave, or how the circumstances of your life will work out. Cleopatra was said to have begged Marc Antony to give her control of the Dead Sea. Of course, Cleopatra wanted control of a lot of things. Wisely, he turned her down.

[1]       2

Debra Bruno is assistant editor of Moment Magazine, an independent Jewish bi-monthly covering politics, culture, and religion. She's forgiven her husband for dropping the keys.

Related:

The Wrong Half Margaret Mackenzie Schwartz
March, 2004

Two Rituals Joshua Bolton
January, 2004

Erev Temima Fruchter
December, 2003

Anything You Want to Be Ben Cohen
July, 2003

On Eighth Avenue in New York Jay Michaelson
New York, full of life, a cure for loneliness.
June, 2002