מזבח יהושע בן נון בהר עיבל
(Updated with some minor corrections)
As a service to bloggers in Israel this Chanuka, I'm posting a special Chanuka tiyul/tour offer which I received today.
The tiyul will be to Har Eval (Eval Mountain) on Sunday, the 7th day of Chanuka (Sunday Jan 1rst). What's so special about Har Eval? Has Jameel totally lost it for good? Where the heck is Har Eval, why would anyone go there, and it sounds mega scary...
Backing up - a bit of history. When Bnei Yisrael entered the land of Israel under the leadership of Yehoshua, one of the first commandments they were supposed to do was to go to Har Greizim and Har Eval. 6 tribes would stand on either mountain top, with the Levi'im in the valley below (Shechem), and they would read the brachot and klalot written in sefer Devarim. Yehoshua also built a mizbe'ach on Har Eval.
Many archeologist believe that the structure found on Har Eval in 1983 by archaeologist Adam Zertal is that of the mizbe'ach actually built by Yehoshua. The tiyul which is under the safety, security and auspices of the IDF will take people to the mizbe'ach on Har Eval.
In light of the current political climate, I can't say when we'll have another opportunity for such a great tiyul. If G-d forbid, this area is given to PA control, we can easily assume that this historic find will suffer the same sort of treatment as the shuls in Gush Katif and Kever Yosef.
For more information, please email me. I'm not organizing this and will NOT to post all the details for security reasons.
Chanuka Sameach!
Hat-tip to MM the kiwi for the corrections.
Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael
I hope to see you there.
ReplyDeleteDo sensible people tend to believe the ID of the location as Yehoshua's mizbeach?
ReplyDeleteWhat about the supposed mishkan site at Shilo? I was very excited when I went to visit there, but found the experience disappointing. It was just a laid out rectangular field.
If it were Yehoshua's mizbeach, you might expect to find the following things:
ReplyDelete1) Only whole stones, that had not been hewed with metal.
2) An inscription in stone containing the entire Torah.
See Yehoshua Ch.8:
ל אָז יִבְנֶה יְהוֹשֻׁעַ מִזְבֵּחַ, לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, בְּהַר, עֵיבָל. לא כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה מֹשֶׁה עֶבֶד-יְהוָה אֶת-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, כַּכָּתוּב בְּסֵפֶר תּוֹרַת מֹשֶׁה--מִזְבַּח אֲבָנִים שְׁלֵמוֹת, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-הֵנִיף עֲלֵיהֶן בַּרְזֶל; וַיַּעֲלוּ עָלָיו עֹלוֹת לַיהוָה, וַיִּזְבְּחוּ שְׁלָמִים. לב וַיִּכְתָּב-שָׁם, עַל-הָאֲבָנִים--אֵת, מִשְׁנֵה תּוֹרַת מֹשֶׁה, אֲשֶׁר כָּתַב, לִפְנֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
30 Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD, the God of Israel, in mount Ebal, 31 as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of unhewn stones, upon which no man had lifted up any iron; and they offered thereon burnt-offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace-offerings. 32 And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote before the children of Israel.
Labrab: Yes, most sensible people believe it. I'm not surprised that many of the identifying features are gone -- its been quite a while since it was built. I doubt that anything square from back then would still be square do to erosion and the elements.
ReplyDeleteI'll have more info on it after my tiyul - with pictures and all.
Sounds pretty cool to me.
ReplyDeleteWhen you're up on Har ‘Eival, watch out for mis-thrown curses!
ReplyDelete(especially "unforgivable" ones)
;-)
have fun....
ReplyDeleteJ.
Steg: Thanks - but no one threw any brachot at me when I visited Har Greizim last year. Maybe its better to be down below in the valley?
ReplyDeleteI've been to Har Eval before, just never to the Mizbe'ach. (And i was counting on you or mar gavriel to let me know how to properly steg-ify the transliteration of "Mizbe'ach"
I was just referencing Harry Potter, don't worry about it (or as they call him in Hebrew, "the Lion Releases"?!).
ReplyDeleteI've never been to Har ‘Eival, or Har Gerizim, or anywheres else in the Shomeron west of Derekh Habiq‘a (except for Sartaba) or north of Nabi Samweel and the J'lem-Modi‘in road. So what else is on ‘Eival besides the altar?
I generally try to not be a spelling-supremicist and needlessly go around 'correcting' other people's perfectly-fine-for-them transliterations. Sorry if i missed where you asked for advice; i'd personally spell it mizbeiahh, with |ei| for tzeireh and |hh| for hhet, and no |'| since it's just a patahh-ganuv without an alef. Not sure how MG would spell it, since he has a number of different styles. I'm actually a fan of Amshinover's funky transliterations, so i couldn't be much of a purist :-P .
Would love to go. Yet another reason to make aliyah. They keep piling up...
ReplyDeleteMCAryeh: We'll have you in mind when we go...hopefully, we'll be able to continue this tiyul tradition.
ReplyDeleteStge: I'll report back next week what else in on Har 'Eval besides the mizbeach (though just the mizbe'ach is still reason enough to go.)