I told a friend that I want to write about The Mountain and she immediately tried to argue me out of it. “It’s just sticking your neck out to be harassed,” was the prediction. “You’re the wrong ethnic persuasion to dare to have an opinion.”
But the subject of The Mountain has arisen in things I’ve read lately and I can’t help caring about it. What I set out to do is to find out what it looks like today, what are the statistics on pilgrims visiting that most sacred mountaintop. Is it safe to visit or a war zone?
I wondered why, of all the people who take those pilgrimage tours to the Holy Land, no one that I can remember has returned with photos and tales of the visit to Mount Sinai, aka Mount Horeb.
As you’ll remember, that’s the mountain where Moses was summoned to meet with Yahweh. God handed down the laws that would bind mankind to Himself, marking the Israelites as his chosen people, no longer pagans who made up their gods as they went along. Moses is depicted as bringing the Ten Commandments down from the smoking peak, then breaking those stone tablets when he got to ground zero and found those foolish folks back at their old tricks of making a golden idol.
But, as we know, God gave Moses a second set. And Jesus extended the covenant to bring his followers down through the centuries into the fold of God’s tribe.
Jews know that the law was way more than 10 clear rules; more than 600 instructions on food, dress, relationships, charity, all still there in the first books of the Torah which Jews read through every year.
OK, we still have the details of that world-changing encounter with God more than 3,000 years ago. But where is The Mountain? I mean, can you believe it, there is no peak that is identified and widely recognized as Mount Horeb, or Mount Sinai. They have lost track of that most sacred site!
Here’s an excerpt from a modern Jewish archeological webpage:
“Modern scholars differ as to the exact geographical position of Mount Sinai, and the same has long been true of scholars of Judaism.”
“Josephus (a Roman historian) only specifies that it was within Arabia Petraea, a Roman province encompassing modern Jordan, southern modern Syria, the Sinai peninsula and northwestern Saudi Arabia.”
The information site points out that St. Paul later mentioned Mount Horeb in epistles, vaguely indicating only that it was in Arabia.
Mount Horeb figured in one of my favorite Old Testament stories read at the Aug. 9 Mass, the account from the First Book of Kings of the prophet Elijah trying to run away from threats against his life from the evil Queen Jezebel. He walked 40 days and nights to get to the mountain of God, Horeb, it says.
“The Elijah narrative appears to suggest that when it was written, the location of Horeb was still known with some certainty,” according to the scholarly website. “But there are no later Biblical references to it that suggest the location remained known.”
Elijah’s encounter with God is dear to my heart. I carried it folded in a little prayer book for years, reading it often when my soul was not so settled. It speaks volumes to me. After the prophet whined about the ungrateful people who had turned from God, the Lord told him to go stand on the mountain in the Lord’s presence.
“At that moment, Yahweh was passing by. A mighty hurricane split the mountains and shattered the rocks before Yahweh. But Yahweh was not in the hurricane. And after the hurricane, an earthquake, but Yahweh was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, fire, but Yahweh was not in the fire.
“And after the fire, a light murmuring sound. When Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then a voice came to him which said ‘what are you doing here, Elijah?’”
It speaks to me that finding a sacred space is not so much about spectacular surroundings, the grandeur of nature’s wonders or man’s monuments. It’s about being present, quiet, listening, open to the Lord speaking to you in the whisper in your mind.
Carrying God with them
Moses, miles and years away from the mountaintop experience and at the end of his 40-year trek leading his people to the Promised Land, has been the subject of some readings in the August liturgical calendar. We know that he did not get to cross over the Jordan with them, but handed over the leadership to Joshua. The writers who chronicled those years of wars and travails had points to make. But when you think about it, what a turmoil it was, thousands of people, with their sheep, goats, tents, possessions, moving on to find their place in the world.
No wonder they lost track of The Mountain!
One of the many scholarly sources out in cyberspace made a most significant point. The Jews didn’t need to cluster around the foot of Mount Horeb. God had given them the law, his promise. So, as they moved away from the sacred place, they did carry God with them. When they finally did settle and build a temple at Jerusalem, that is where they believed God dwelt.
There’s a lot of online material from the viewpoint of fundamentalist Christians who like to nail down exact locations of Biblical events but are thwarted by the religious and political tumult of the Middle East. It reminds me of my previous life as a religion reporter, pressed frequently for stories by someone who believed he’d found the crash site of Noah’s Ark on another mountaintop. It never rang my bell, somehow. I thought the story of the great flood, part of the creation story, makes its point without need for GPS tracking “proof.”
Who are we Catholics to criticize, what with the centuries of competition with other denominations to claim alleged sites of Jesus’ footprints on earth. I’ve never had a desire to take that tour.
To be honest, neither would I be up for the hike to the summit, should some locate the sacred mountain. Actually, it would be a blessing if they don’t. How long would it take for developments to spring up: Yahweh View Tower condos, Burning Bush barbecue restaurant featuring that kosher brand that claims “we answer to a higher authority.”
Mountains: they fill up our senses and keep us in perspective in the natural world we occupy. It’s not hard to understand how primitive people found something sacred about the vast, mysterious, cloud-shrouded heights that have stimulated legends and creation stories in all corners of the world, not only Hawaii.
However each people views its link with something that is divine, beyond our comprehension, it is such beliefs that connect all humanity.
The Mountain which is in the news in our corner of the world has much in common with Sinai. People call it sacred space. The creation story they ascribe to the mountain — isn’t it actually rooted in their identity, their culture? Don’t they carry that spirituality with them, just as the Jews carried God with them from Mount Sinai.
May everyone’s search for sacred space bring them peace of mind, not stimulate envy and anger and separation. May there be quiet on The Mountain to hear the murmur we seek.
