The Galil and The Golan Heights

We left the wonderful life at the Frank's house to take a 3-day journey up north, which became a 4-day journey.
We made a phone call to friends of the Dreyer's who lived in the Galil, also known as Galilee. I talked with Alon Barak . . . first question I asked, was, "Do you speak English?" Alon’s quick answer was, "Better than I speak Hebrew" with a familiar real American accent! We became fast friends in just 3 minutes of talking. We told him we were coming north for a few days - we heard he sometimes had a rental we could use. His advice: "Get up here!" So, on our way up north, we made a stop in Tiberia, also known as Tiberius . . . had coffee on a wharf overlooking the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) and made our way into The Galilee Experience, a Christian Judaica Shop, which we had been to 14 years ago.

Making our way up the hill to Had
Nes, where the Barak's live, was a piece of cake. Alon greeted us with a great smile and showed us the way to our "cottage". Alon just LOVES this area and knows it like the back of his hand, and offers to be our personal tour guide. We meet Ronit that night and just love her! She’s a Brazilian Pediatrician, finishing language school in order to have her practice in Israel. Alon and Jerry map out our journey for the next day.

We made some stops along our morning, first to view places that were important for the military during the recent war. We passed an ancient Synagogue (mainly ruins) at Capernaum; saw a long stretch of banana and mango orchards; stopped briefly at Tavgah, the place presumed Yeshua fed the multitudes bread and fish (but now a resort owned by the Catholic church). From not too far away, Alon pointed out a very high hill where Yeshua went by himself to pray, known as Mt. Arbel. We stopped at Ancient Migdal, which was now a very new excavation site. In the process of preparing for a parking lot for a new hotel, workers came across an ancient menorah, and before long archaeologists set up camp. There were two worksites, one was totally off-limits to nosey travelers, the other we could watch from a safe distance. Migdal was the place where Mary of Magdalene lived when Yeshua set her free from demons. At the time of Yeshua, Tiberia was a "red-light" district, which was only short miles from Migdal.

We left and drove up a big hill to the most unremarkable place to the visual eye . . . "The Tomb of the Matriarchs". The site looks over the sea, the area given Naphtali and Dan, who were Bilhah’s sons. So it is believed that somewhere here, Bilhah's bones are buried, and a tomb built in her honor.

The best part of our day was spent
at Arbel, the mountain where Yeshua went to pray alone. Alon, our tour guy, had Jerry take this twisty windy road up the backside of the mountain to a parking lot intended for many tour buses and cars. There was only a handful of people there, so we enjoyed our leisure hike to the top of the lookout. It was an amazing sight, we imagined Yeshua there, sitting on a rock praying to His Father, looking over all this land He so loved. On one view was Tiberia and the Kinneret Sea, another view was north to the Golan Heights, then more farming/agriculture acreage devoted to mangos, bananas, olive orchards & grape vineyards. It was easy to see that this land had indeed been richly blessed, the land promised to the Children of Israel that they were to inherit upon entering the promised land. We met a man, probably late 60’s, who had hiked up to Mt. Arbel from Tiberia and was taking a much-needed rest, and lunch break. He was a German man who lived in Tiberia, and told us right off that he was a Believer of Yeshua the Messiah. I hope I’m (someday soon?) that unabashed to tell some perfect strangers that I, too, was a follower of Yeshua. We enjoyed visiting this dynamic witness, then left him to his lunch, making our way back down the hill. Perfect ending to a perfect day.