Sataf

On Thursday February 4, we, Kitat Dekel, went on a Tiyul to a place called Sataf. Sataf is an area where Israelites settled after crossing the Jordan River into Eretz Yisrael, symbolically finishing their wandering, crossing water once again as they had when they left Egypt by crossing the Red Sea. When beginning to settle in areas like Sataf, they faced many challenges and were forced to adjust their lifestyle to the areas.

The earliest challenge they faced in Eretz Yisrael was being able to survive with all of the hostile civilizations around them. In Joshua 6, the Tanakh describes one of these such ordeals in the Battle of Jericho. god prescribes actions for the Israelites to take certain actions in order for them to win the Battle of Jericho and survive as a people. The Israelites follow the commands and God delivers the city of Jericho to them. (One Israelite took what had been proscribed but that's another story) The survival of the Israelites was dependent on their ability to be militarily superior to their enemies and with the help of God, they were able to achieve this. However, there was one foe which the Israelites were not able to overcome. These people were called the Philistines. The Philistines lived in the southwestern area of Israel, the modern day Gaza, where the land is flatter than where the Israelites were in the Judean Hills. Because the Philistines were in the plains, the Israelites were forced to stay in the Judean Hills, an area where farming is more complicated than in the plains.

This brings us to the next challenge which the Israelites faced: farming.  The hilly areas of the Judean Hills had been farmed for generations before the Israelites by the Canaanite civilizations, so the Israelites sought the advice of the Canaanites on how to farm the hills. The Canaanites taught them the ways of terrace farming. In terrace farming, you take a hill and make flat terraces all up the hill, therefore making flat areas which are suitable for agriculture. Besides flat land the other two major elements of farming are crops to grow and water to grow them with. Sataf had both of these. In Deuteronomy 8:7 the natural crops which grow in Eretz Yisrael are listed: wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, olive trees, and honey (the honey is a reference to date honey, so in other words… dates grew there).  These crops covered the requirement of crops.

The next requirement was a little bit more complicated. There was a very good water source at Sataf, made up of built up rainwater that kind of dribbles out in a constant small stream, but this water source was about halfway down the hill that Sataf is on. This meant that even with irrigation, gravity would only provide water to half the crops.  To combat this problem, the Canaanites developed an alter-ego of Terrace Farming called Ba’al Farming. Ba’al Farming, used for the half of crops which were planted above the water source, depends on rainwater for the crops to grow. An important part of Ba’al Farming was praying to the Canaanite rain god, Ba’al,  a concept which goes against Judaism’s monotheistic qualities. When the Israelites committed sins like praying to Ba’al, God became angry and punished the Israelites.

It is sins like these that brings us to the last section of our Tiyul at Sataf which centered around our gloriously performed skits. These skits about Deborah, Gideon, Yiftach, Samson portrayed the Judges Cycle in which the Israelites prosperity rose and fell in a cycle. When the Israelites were diligent to God’s commandments, they were a happy people, but eventually, they would break His commandments. This resulted in God punishing the people and plunging them into despair for a short amount of time. Then God would send a Judge, like those we read about, and the Israelites would be saved and end up happy again. Then the cycle would repeat itself, yay!

To get away from curriculum, I had a wonderful time at Sataf. It was a beautiful day to be outside and when we went inside it was into the water source cave which wasn’t too shabby either. I hope you all had as great a time as I did!

A question to leave you with: What did you think was the coolest part of exploring the ruins?