A land of butter and honey

It is strange how Israel has always been known as the Land of Milk and Honey. While listening to the OU’s Nach Yomithe day before, I heard our country described as a land of butter and honey.

I am writing these words while staying at the Cramim Resort & Spa on Kibbutz Anavim, just outside Yerushalayim.

We arrived yesterday evening, and after acquainting ourselves with the surroundings, we headed to the dining room. A spread of color, a feast for the eyes, greeted me. I was overcome with emotion as I took in the endless array of food before me.

Since we are in the Nine Days, I asked one of the waiters to show me the pareve section. He called over the chef, who proudly guided me through the many dishes that were permissible.

The answer was almost everything.

I returned to our table with an empty plate.

“There is simply too much to choose from,” I said. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Our table overlooked the Jerusalem mountains. The air was crystal clear, and the landscape stretched before me like an Alex Levin painting, except this masterpiece was real. The ancient olive trees seemed close enough to touch.

Only after absorbing the beauty before me did I make another attempt at the buffet.
A taste of this and a taste of that.

How many different fish dishes can one prepare? How many variations of Israeli salad can a gifted chef create? How many colorful platters of roasted, grilled, and marinated eggplant can emerge from one imaginative kitchen?

And then there was the bread.

Loaves studded with olives, craisins, and nuts, alongside rustic country bread with such a magnificent crust that, once sliced, it looked sturdy enough to bring down the walls of Yericho all over again.

And do not even get me started on the dessert table.

Tiny pastries, delicate bonbons, miniature cakes, each perhaps only two bites, each perhaps several hundred calories. But who counts calories after walking ten thousand steps through the trails of the Jerusalem hills?

Then my thoughts returned to the words of the Tanach I had heard the day before. The prophet spoke of a time when this land would once again become a land of butter and honey.

It was a reminder of Hashem’s promise fulfilled before our very eyes. As I looked around me, I realized that I was not merely reading a prophecy.

I was living in it.