Tel Aviv on Nov. 29th - just a place and just a date -- but so much more. Sometimes, somewheres -- specific time & space converge as complex narratives that offer us important introspection.
This weekly recap of @belowthebiblebelt929 was filmed on 11/29 in Tel Aviv - the Israeli city named after the first Jewish city of exiles on the banks of Babylon’s rivers.
The exact location for the filming is surreal -- the plaza in front of the Tel Aviv Art Museum, now renamed “Hostages Square” - where families of the Israelis taken captive on 10/7 gather to protest, pray, and be surrounded by support and hope. Art installations have sprung up, TV cameras hover along mental health stations under a tense cloud of despair.
Ezekiel was taken as captive from Jerusalem for lifelong exile by Babylonian soldiers 2,600 years ago. What would he have said about this heartbreaking reality?
On November 29th 1947, the United Nations voted 33:17 on Resolution 181, adopting a plan to partition the British Mandate into two states, one Jewish, one Arab. Some danced. Some didn’t. The date is yet another marker of competing narratives in the conflict the still pits people against each other, arguing about sacred space and crucial dates, claiming land and legacy each at the other’s expense on one small stretch of land all claim is holy and is home. At what costs?
Ezekiel lamented Judea’s loss and exile.
Throughout the chapters that we’ve read these past weeks he blames the people for a long list of transgressions - moral, ethical, religious and political - that led to this tragic destruction. The land will disown its people, he warned them; it will become desolate:
The land considered holy by so many was discarded by the prophet as no longer so. The sacred status is not permanent, he claims, and it’s contingent on the people’s choices leading to divine wrath.
So is the land still holy? Can the people living in it live up to the morals that will help them create peaceful justice among all who live under the same sky?
On this earth, in this place, at this time, we can echo Ezekiel’s concerns and hope along with so many refugees, captives, hurting and hopeful: Let the best in us prevail over the rage. A better future of sacred time and space awaits us, beyond hurt, with hope and healing.
Somewhere, Sometime: Captive in Tel Aviv