Our Fall Harvest Trip: Part One

This fall HaShem provided us the incredible opportunity to travel to Israel with HaYovel for nearly two months and help bring in the grape harvest in the vineyards in Judea & Samaria. This is the territory that you might recognize as “The West Bank” but in truth this is the Biblical heartland of Israel. Our trip was simply amazing and I know that many of my friends want to hear all about it, so I’ll try to share as much as I can in various posts over the next few weeks.

In all we harvested over 300 metric tons of grapes as well as some olives and pomegranates.  We fasted along with Israel on Yom Kippur and we celebrated Sukkot with guests in our succah as we were guests in Israel.  We heard from many special speakers, met some amazing people, were able to participate in some really neat and exciting events and were privileged to make new (and dear) friends.   Re-entry to “normal life at home” has been difficult after spending so much time participating in something so much bigger than ourselves, something that was foretold thousands of years ago.  I still hear one man joyfully and tearfully telling someone in our group, “I can’t believe it!  I had to come and see for myself.  You’re really here.  When HaShem gave Isaiah the vision… he saw you.  It’s you he saw… here… now.  And here you are!”  How do you come home to “normal” after that?

We left “normal life at home” just after Sabbath very early in October and flew to Tel Aviv.  Along the way we picked up two young adults, children of friends of ours, that were joining us on this adventure.  We arrived in Israel mid-morning on Monday and were walking through customs when we were greeted with a loud “HEY! I know that guy!” as my husband was enveloped in a huge bear-hug with some man I did not recognize.  I have to admit, I wasn’t quite sure what to think!  Just one look at my husband’s face proved that this stranger was no stranger at all, he was a good friend who had come to pick us up.  These men had met this past winter when they had gone to help with the pruning.  It was precious for me to see someone so happy to see my husband and to see that my husband was also so happy to see him.  This is when I knew, for sure, that we were in for something really special.  :)  

We took the “scenic” route to our camp as the two men caught up and showed us a little bit of Israel.  When we were told where we were to be staying, Shalom let out a huge smile and a sigh of relief.  He was hoping to be assigned to one particular camp, the camp that had become a very special place to him on his previous trip for pruning.  I was excited and exhausted after our two day trip, taking in all I could but knowing that I was going to be fading fast very soon.  After arriving at our camp and getting our belongings put up, we met the others in our group at lunch and then opted to go to bed.  It was now Monday afternoon in Israel but we hadn’t slept since Friday night in the US.

The next  morning, Tuesday, we were up early.  Breakfast was at 4:15 am and we were scheduled to be on the road by 5:30 am.  Our first day of harvesting was to be in a beautiful vineyard in Shiloh.  Our teammates told us that this was a beautiful vineyard and we were blessed to begin with this one because the grapes were plentiful, the vines had been properly pruned and the terrain was smooth.  And truly, it was really fun!!  We divided into teams of two, picked up our clippers and began to clip large clusters of grapes into crates.  After a few hours of work we went to a different vineyard to join the other two groups of harvesters and listen to a special speaker, Yisrael Medad of My Right Word.  I was already familiar with his writing and to have him speak to our group was a blessing.  When we broke for lunch Miriam said to me with a big grin, “I was looking all over for you earlier and realized that looking for the woman with the head covering and skirt wasn’t going to make it easy to find you!”  We both smiled and felt blessed to finally be among others who have similar convictions.

We were excited about what we were able to experience on our first day in the vineyards and we were also excitedly awaiting the arrival of our friends who were going to spend two weeks harvesting with us.  We weren’t sure what camp they were going to be sent to so we asked (okay, we begged) that they join us.  We were certain that we could squeeze two more cots into the room we had.  The others in the apartment we were sharing weren’t too sure, I’m sure they thought we were insane!  There were already 20 people in the three rooms that consisted of our “basement apartment” with two people already sleeping in the hallway.  But our begging paid off and our friends joined us in our room where we would laugh ourselves to sleep at night and giggle in the mornings as we bumped into each other in our tiny room with most of our door blocked by our strategically placed tower of cots.  Oh we had such fun together!

We were up before dawn each morning and harvested in Shiloh for several days.  One afternoon for lunch our team met up with the other harvesters at a spring where the children played in the water – even though it was green.  LOL  The water wasn’t gross, the olive trees have that effect on the water turning it a brilliant neon green color, but leaving your skin feeling soft.  It was at the spring when we heard the announcement that we’d be going into Jerusalem that evening, to Ben Yehuda Street (a popular location for tourists because of the shops and restaurants) .  Oh boy, everyone was excited!  We all hurried home to get cleaned up for a night on the town.  We were able to buy nearly all of our souvenirs that evening as well a few visual aids and tangible items that will be helpful teaching tools as we read through the Torah portions with our study group.

Another day we were part of a group to help in a study that the Ariel University Center of Samaria was conducting.  We were to carefully count the clusters on each vine and then weigh them.  At first we didn’t know why but later we were told that the university was conducting a study about the shemittah year – the sabbath year for the land and the plants.  As it turned out, the grapes from the vines that had been allowed to rest for a sabbath year were indeed tremendous in both volume and quality.  The vines we harvested held between 75 and 100 clusters on average.  The vines that Shalom harvested held 365 clusters!  I’m not certain of all of the various groups in the study but I assume that the vines I harvested were the control group because they seemed to have average numbers of clusters and the men in charge of the study excitedly told Shalom that the vine he was working on was indeed one that was allowed to rest as HaShem instructed and that the quality of these grapes was incredibly amazing.  What an exciting opportunity to participate in this study and see science proving the truth and faithfulness of HaShem’s word.

After lunch another day our crew (our family, our surrogate ‘children’ for the trip that came with us, and our friends) was invited to join one of the other camps as they toured the site of Ancient Shiloh with David Rubin.  We were invited into the Shiloh Synagogue that was built to resemble the Tabernacle that stood in Shiloh for 369 years, we toured the school across the street and one group of boys sang for us part of their Torah lesson that day, we were given a tour of the Shiloh Israel Children’s rehabilitation facility and then we were brought to the site of ancient Shiloh – where there were archaeological digs going on and where the site of the Tabernacle was.  We saw ancient winepresses, olive presses, grain storage facilities, homes, etc.  And then we were given time to sit and contemplate all that we had heard and seen that afternoon.  Miriam and I spent some time near the outer courtyard of the Tabernacle for while my husband and Shalom walked around a bit.  It was a precious time for everyone and we headed back to our camp with full hearts that afternoon.

Friday arrived very quickly and it was preparation day for not only the weekly Sabbath but Yom Kippur.  It was a wonderful day of preparing our camp as far as cleaning and organizing our respective ‘homes’ but also preparing our hearts for the significant day that lay just ahead of us.  I wrote about our Yom Kippur in Israel here.  We had some amazing group discussions that Sabbath and I am still deeply blessed and encouraged when I think on those conversations.

The following week we would harvest in new vineyards, meet new people, and prepare for Sukkot.  I’ll share about Sukkot in Israel in another entry later this week (I hope!).  But you can take a look at this video and see if you can spot anyone familiar (I’ll give you a hint, 3 of the photos are of our family).  I couldn’t help but get excited as we sat in road repair traffic in the mountains of Israel because the Prophet readings at this time were about preparing the way for the festival pilgrims to travel to Jerusalem and preparing the way for Messiah (see Isaiah 40 and Isaiah 57).  Here we were, people from the nations coming to Israel to help establish the Jewish people in their land, in the Biblical Heartland, at the time of Sukkot and being told that because we’re here it is another sign that Messiah is coming soon, and I’m excited about sitting in traffic.  LOL  Again, I think some of our teammates thought I was a little loony.

Very early on we were keenly aware of the special group of people we were working with.  The humility, the honor, the commitment to the Father and to Messiah Yeshua that these people shared was such a blessing to be a part of.  Seeing families working together, young adults walking in purity and humility, everyone striving to walk rightly before HaShem as they encouraged one another – I cannot put that experience into words.  Living in a community setting like we were for 7 weeks can be challenging at times, we’re just not used to it.  But even in those frustrating moments (and they truly were only just a few short moments), the respect and honor and humility that everyone had for the other was incredible.

I’ve shared a little already about the spiritual battle that I found myself in before, during and after our trip.  This is something that the Father and I are still working through and He has given me some wonderful insights in recent days.

Stay tuned, part two, Sukkot, is here…