Tanach/Bible "What If's"

As a student of the Bible, who has very little back knowledge and an awful memory, I sometimes find my mind going in strange directions during classes or when thinking about what I've learned. Last week I found myself writing the following note:

The day before my chevruta, study group had gone over the account of King Saul's visit to the witch/fortuneteller, 1 Samuel, Chapter 28. Chazal and midrash have a lot to say about the woman.

Did she really conjure up Samuel The Prophet, or did she just fake it?

Considering that her/Samuel's prediction was on target, totally accurate, that King Saul and his sons would die in battle, gives it all a spooky  legitimacy. Add to this the similarity to Samuel's very first G-d given prediction, when he was told to tell Eli the High Priest that Eli and his sons would all die ending their ruling dynasty. For some strange reason, it popped into my head that the woman was Chana/Hannah, Samuel's mother. No place in the Bible tells of her death.

What do you think?

Gush Shiloh, Grape-Growing Center of World

Yesterday my friends and I took a short "road trip" around the communities, hills and valleys surrounding Shiloh. We're all living here well over thirty years and remember when Shiloh was considered rather isolated. Two of us are from the days when Shiloh was the only Jewish community between Ariel, Tapuach and Beit El, Ofra. Today, not only are there lots of small and medium communities in the area, but Eli is even larger than the more veteran Shiloh.

For us the big surprise was the amount of agriculture, more specifically the massive vineyards and groves of olive trees. It's easy to see that these are commercially cultivated. Everything is neat and carefully pruned, unlike those growing in my garden.

We ended our little trip by picnicking near the Givat Harel Vineyards, a "pot luck" lunch, which we shared.

Here are some photos:

It bothered us that the cluster of grapes wasn't shaped accurately.  

Most of the photos are from east of Shiloh. We didn't go all the way to the Allon Road. Givat Harel is northwest of Shiloh. It's clear that Gd created this Land to grow grapes and olives.

Renewed Shiloh at 40

Even the most visionary of us early/veteran residents constantly repeat that Shiloh has grown and developed so much more and become larger than we could ever have envisioned.

Instead of one small, struggling isolated community which we had moved to in time for the opening of the school in 1981 with our four children, there is now an amazing amount of Jewish towns of all sizes. And there almost as many schools as there had been children on that first day, September 1, 1981.

Shiloh isn't even the largest community in Gush Shiloh, the Shiloh Bloc. Eli is the largest and most ambitious. But the heart of the bloc is here in Shiloh, at Shiloh Hakeduma, Tel Shiloh, one of the holiest places in the world.

I look around and I'm awed by the signs of life on the hills, north, south, east and west of us. And the other night at the big celebration of forty years, I truly enjoyed the fact that I barely know my neighbors. That's not because I don't participate in all sorts of activities. It's because there are so many new families, especially young ones, and our neighborhoods are spread out.

Many of those raised in Shiloh are returning home to raise their own children here. And others, who want more of the pioneering experience of their youth, are moving to the smaller communities nearby.

What's most amazing is that Shiloh, which had once been described as "alone in the middle of no place," is now closer to Petach Tikva than Jerusalem. We're also ten minutes from the Jordan Valley. By car you can get to most of Israel in barely an hour.

Shiloh is the real Merkaz Ha'Aretz, Center of the Land of Israel.

A great miracle has happened here for sure.