We Can’t Climb Now on the Roof of the Army Base on Mount Odem
We Can’t Climb Now on the Roof of the Army Base on Mount Odem
But just a year ago we hiked up there to look at Lebanon and Syria. This is what we saw.
Last summer, our extended family went glamping in the lovely Odem Forest Resort inside the Golan Heights town of Odem.
For less than the price of a night in a hotel, we got for 3 nights a wooden platform to pitch our tents, access to bathrooms and showers, and, most importantly, lots of slides and rides for the kids. There was even a little onsite petting zoo.
One afternoon, my two-year-old Eitan and I hiked up the extinct volcanic mountain behind the village. At the summit we found an empty IDF army base whose roof offers a spectacular unhindered view of northern Israel and our unfriendly neighbors: Syria and Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon.
Here’s a little video clip of the scene:
Then Eitan was tired, so he took a nap in the shade of the empty base.
Little did we know how quickly the peace would unravel.
Just a few weeks after we packed our bags to head home from Odem, Hamas launched this terrible war with the October 7 massacre, and Hezbollah has chimed in ever since with rockets and mortars, making the entire north of the country miserable - and many areas unlivable.
In August, I checked the Odem Forest Resort’s website, and it seems that they were open for business. But it also seemed that they were fully vacant, because nobody wants a vacation less than a handful of miles from Hezbollah’s rocket launchers. And I’m pretty sure that the Odem Mountain army base overlooking Lebanon and Syria isn’t open for Eitan and I to tramp over its roof.
I think how their owners and staff must be feeling now - and the thousands of regular people, like our family, who couldn’t visit Odem this year. Residents of Israel’s north have lost much of their livelihood, and the rest of the country has had far fewer opportunities to get a change of scenery this summer. We’re all beginning the new school year worn out and stressed.
These are the little tragedies of this past year in Israel - but they’re no less real than the more dramatic tragedies we read about in the news. For almost a year, millions of regular Israelis have been struggling with problems like these every day.
The numerous minor challenges of living in a country at war come together to create another war - not the war of bodies that’s fought with guns and tanks, nor the war of minds that’s waged in the press and online, but the war for wellness that we face in countless choices every day.
If we don't invest in the war for wellness, we might lose the health, resilience, and faith we need for fighting the other wars. We can get obsessed with what's happening "over there," forgetting that our lives are happening right here. As individuals and as a nation, we might fall into anxiety and depression, or lash out irresponsibly in anger.
As Healthy Jews, we’re at the front lines of Israel’s war for wellness whenever we choose to put our health first. We’re experiencing together how the Land of Israel holds the solution to all the troubles and struggles of the Nation of Israel.
As I’ve been sharing with you recently, I’m publishing now a beautifully designed book - based on my posts this past year on The Healthy Jew - about how Israel is the healthy body of the Jewish people, together with practical suggestions for living well during challenging times.
(By the way, Land of Health was featured last week here in the Jewish Link magazine - and much more coverage is coming soon!)
If you don’t yet have a copy, it’s waiting for you now online at Amazon and Menucha Publishers, or in Jewish bookstores all over the world.
