Sons of Light and Sons of Darkness

Today in my travels, I made the decision to visit the Israel Museum. The Israel Museum is Israel's Smithsonian (of sorts). It is home to countless pieces of art and treasures beyond most people's wildest dreams. One of the most fascinating parts of the Israel Museum is the Shrine of the Book. The Shrine of the Book (which most people know as the white building shaped like a...nipple) is home to the Dead Sea Scrolls, or what is left of the Dead Sea Scrolls. After a semester of learning about the Dead Sea Scrolls at UCF, I was excited to go there and actually understand what I was looking at. The first time I went to the Israel Museum was five years ago and I didn't really understand what the Dead Sea Scrolls were, or what their significance was. Now I do.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, found between 1947 and 1956, are the oldest known, and existing, biblical documents found to date. The collection of scrolls does not only include the Septuagint (the original five books), but includes a large amount of apocryphal (books that did not make it into what we Jews call the Tanakh: Torah, Prophets, and Writings) writings that describe the people that may or may not have hid these scrolls away. One of the most famous scrolls, The War Scroll, is a telling of what the end of days is to be like. It describes a war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness, with the Sons of Light ultimately prevailing. Many theories have been postulated as to whom the Sons of Light and Darkness actually were. The Shrine of the Book is actually constructed to represent the War between these two sides: the actual Shrine being the Light, and a large black wall representing the Darkness, with the Light ultimately prevailing.

Upon my visiting the Shrine of the Book, I thought about the current situation that Israel is in (who can miss it?). Israel against Hezbollah, a group that has been taken over most everyone's thoughts for the past two weeks, and 20 years. Israelis from the north have flocked south like geese in Winter, hoping to avoid the Katyushas landing in their backyard.

Israel has made its fair share of mistakes over the past 60 years; I won't argue with that. But with every conflict, with every war, innocent people are caught in the middle (such as those living in the north of Israel, and the displaced Lebanese not supportive of Hezbollah's actions). What did the Sons of Light feel about the....Sons of Grey? What about those who didn't want to get involved? Those who had no choice?

Or maybe we all are Sons of Grey. Just trying to find a happy medium.

Pictures from the Israel Museum will be posted tomorrow.