Revelation at Dawn Atop Mt.
Sinai:
Coffee, Tea, Mattresses... Moses?
The Egyptian tour guide, Ahkmed – who had specialized in Russian
at the University of Alexandria in order to become a tour guide, spoke to our half-full
bus of Russians, and one American, who were determined enough to see Mt. Sinai (Moses’
Mountain) that they would leave the hotel at 10:30 at night, be driven for three hours and
then have a three-hour hike by “flashlight” (British: “torch”) in the dark to the
7,500 foot top of “the Holy Peak” – said that those who watched sunrise from
there...have their sins washed away. (Though it only rains in this very dry, barren place
in January, though then strongly.) Such ideas – to the real diminishment of the
meaning of “pilgrimage” and “purification” – are treated like quaint,
distant beliefs in our skeptical time.
Traveling through the mid-night, the terrain of the southern Sinai
Peninsula was only visible as dark shadows in the light of the bus and stars. There were
only some two areas of “civilization’s” lights: military/police check points. No
towns; no villages; no street signs; no lights.
Arriving, but before our climb – already armed against the dark
with “flashlights” – at one of Christianity’s oldest and most important
monasteries: St. Catherine’s, which even Napoleon put under his protection, we rested,
amidst other groups of tourists from varied lands and languages, for some half-hour in a
special cafe open for the climbers. Then we began the ascent...we had to reach the top
about a half-hour before dawn...
Hardly had we walked past the tall walls of the Monastery in the night,
when we heard many voices coming from the sides of the sand and rock path, from men we
soon discerned to be turbaned, sitting amidst hundreds of “mounds” which could
gradually be seen to be camels. For some 30 Egyptian pounds you could ride – almost
to the very top – on a “verblud”, “kamel”, and so on, offered in a few
languages.
The hike was underway, and our young, novice tourist guide seemed to imagine it was a
race... I am in fairly good condition physically, but I soon decided to saunter (this was
my vacation time) leisurely along at my own pace to the top. Let my guide, and
those who wish to rush with him, take their own pace to the top. When I arrived at the
first rustic (though the word seems misapplied to this dry) Bedouin hut, selling drinks
and snacks under an electric light, I found my group already moving on again after their
short rest. Like the time in my life in which I had first heard of “Mt. Sinai”, I
recalled the tale (at least a TV cartoon) of the tortoise and the hare. Though I didn’t
really much like the image and idea, I was definitely walking the walk of the
“tortoise”.
This was not a smooth and easy tourist climb – though
there was a breeze from time to time. The path was often very populated by jagged,
unsteady rocks, large and small – stumbling, stumping, or even just falling down
(which happened to a few, as some bloody, though minor, injuries showed) was easy to do,
and not casual to avoid. Walking required focus, concentration. The rocks were mostly
pieces of red granite. No one I saw rented a camel to the (near) top of “Moses
Mountain”; though there were “camel-drivers” strategically positioned along the
long, winding, climbing way, to pick up any business by hikers who had come to reconsider how
they ascended. Being in a “tortoise” position, they thought I would soon want or need
a lift. I had to almost angrily tell one camel-driver – to quit asking me; “no
problem”, he finally said.
After about ninety minutes ascending, at perhaps the third rest stop, I
passed my group of “hares”, taking tea on the blanket-covered benches of that Bedouin
inn; I just kept on going at my steady pace, alone in the night, sometimes passing,
sometimes being passed by, a walking flashlight. The higher up I got, the stronger, and
cooler, I found the wind to be.
At about the fifth “rest inn”, where I did stop for some hot
chocolate (it was quite cold up there!) just before the final ascent up some “800
“steps’” (impassable at night to or by camel) I left just as the “hares”
arrived. The “tortoise” awaited them on the top – though we didn’t find each
other again in the dark, and crowd, till after daybreak.
The Mountain of Moses...ancient Biblical history...the “Holy Peak”;
going to the top to watch the sunrise...sins washed away...pilgrimage...
I did not expect any great revelation there; but I had planned to
quietly and thoughtfully watch the sunrise on one of the most important, famous, even
mythical, places in the history of not only “Western” humanity.
Tourists vs. Pilgrims: “Moses had wasted his time!”
Some religious pilgrims of the East, travel hundreds of miles like
“inch-worms”, laying their bodies down, standing, laying down forward again,
standing,...for days, and even months en route to holy places. At the top of Mt.
Sinai – which I had read and heard about since childhood “in Church” – I
found when I arrived a modest number of people (the “hares” were still hurrying up)
speaking a far from modest variety of languages. What I had not at all expected to find,
was: a lit, if rugged, Bedouin inn, selling, as had the others: coffee, tea, Coca-Cola,
Fanta, Snickers, Mars, granola bars, etc., in addition to the needed water!; and the very
strong and cold wind on the mountain top.
The Bedouin sellers called out, more or less comprehensibly, in a
variety of languages (Russian, English, Italian, French, German, et al.): “coffee, tea,
chocolate, blankets, mattresses”. I had been forewarned it would be “cool”, and had
borrowed a jacket at the hotel. But this was cold, though it was May 12.
One needed to try to find a place, a “cut” in the granite rocks, to
shield oneself from the strong, blowing cold wind. Flashlights helped; but some of the
drops around the top, that one could hardly see well at night, turned out by daylight to
be thousands of feet straight down!
“How much?”, I asked, in which language I can’t remember. (Tired;
sleepless; cold, and getting colder; 5:00 am.)
“This blanket...five fund [Egyptian pounds, about 5 = $1]...this one:
ten...more warm blanket ten fund”.
I later regretted economizing; though I found a great “cut in the
rock”, facing the East, and blocking most of the wind. Afraid of heights...had I found
it in the daylight, rather than at night by flashlight, I might well not have seated
myself there at all! So high; and near the edge...
I had noted the very dim glow of the coming dawn before many others,
and in my “great spot” tried to snuggle into the blanket to stay warm, and
meditatively watch the dawn on Mt. Sinai. I, stupidly – as I slowly, incredulously
and simmeringly came to realize – had assumed that others had the same idea and attitude
to watching the sunrise on the “Holy Peak”. Covered as I was by a gray blanket amidst
the rocks, I recognized as I heard voices approaching that I had to be sure that others
climbing on the rocks did not step on me. Soon, by chance, two English-speaking women (by
accent: American) approached, and, to my selfish irritation, sat in the same rock cut as
I. They could see nothing more of me than a blanket covering a nameless, sexless,
nation-less, silent body...a shade in the dark. They immediately began discussing whether
to eat their granola bars now or later. I assumed, wrongly, that this topic, and type of
topic, was temporary, and would soon be ended, by the light of the dawn which was
increasing,...this was Mt. Sinai,...the Holy Mountain where, at least so it was said,
“watching the sunrise would wash away one’s sins...” Though the light grew brighter,
they did not grow quieter, nor more circumspect. Still discussing granola bars, and the
cold rock (“please tuck my blanket in behind my neck more”), ...today’s plans,
tomorrow’s plans, yesterday’s plans, ...pssst went the soda can top. Naive me: I kept
believing – as the night grew lighter – that this amazing array, none
related to the mountain or the dawning, of trivial topics would soon cease....
After some fifteen minutes of such nonstop trivia – and, in my
unpopular view, unconsciousness and disrespect to the time and place, by these and the
lots of other tourists now sitting and clambering in the rocks – I, one “gray
blanket in the rocks”, really almost said to them the frustrated formulation that came
to me: “Moses had wasted his time.”
I moved to another now discernible rock cut, further forward,
and really alone...except for the many, hardly-avoidable human voices jabbering in a great
variety of languages behind me. These two women were far from alone in their, to me,
dubious “presence” on the Holy Peak, to which sincere “pilgrims”, including the
Prophet Elijah, had for centuries journeyed: German, Russian, French, American, various
northern and eastern European languages, Japanese, Hebrew and many others from around the
world were to be heard chatting indifferently. (I would guess there were some twenty
languages on Mt. Sinai that morning.)
This multilingual chat – three of which I understood, from about
seven which I recognized in my immediate vicinity – in the lightening darkness
behind me, sounded more like a crowded metropolitan cafe than any “Holy Peak”. I tried
as well as I could to ignore with my ears what I gladly could not see with my
eyes – it turned out that by mere chance, and necessity, in the darkness I had
found perhaps the best, most forward “seat” on this part of the mountain from which to
see the dawn and sunrise.
Some people joked; others just chattered about their various activities
while traveling; others complained regularly of the uncomfortableness of the rocks, the
temperature, or the wind. A common Russian girl, perhaps 18 years of age, who spoke with
almost no attention to how loud it might be to those around her, complained of her
blanket, trying to get seated, etc. I heard her in Russian say something like “What’s
taking the sun so long to rise?” (By this time it was fully dawn, but the “ball” of
the sun could not yet be seen.) A young man – in his late 20’s I’d guess by his
voice – speaking English with a German accent, bragged loudly of the “500 photos of
temples” he had taken, adding that he was going to Viet Nam, “because it was less
touristic”. Right, I thought. From time to time the Egyptian Bedouin “salesmen”
called out “coffee, tea, blankets, mattresses”. One could almost think.
The mountain scenery – truly what is commonly called
“dramatic” – became more and more visible, and what I had already predicted to
myself happened: when the whole sun was visible through the gray haze, someone called out
“hurrah”. It was the young Russian girl.
I had been astonished by the whole dawning event. Contrary to my
expectations, the people who had come to Mt. Sinai – the vocal majority I should
say – had no interest, intent or inclination to be quiet, or thoughtful. For them
“dawn” seemed to have been a sort of slow, overlong, tedious prelude to “the
event”: the sunrise. People had talked in their various languages of the minutes till
the sun would actually rise. And after it rose, they rose,...and started to walk back down
the mountain. Thank God, I thought, as the crowd – who had most all (except for a
few camel riders) walked three hours by “flashlight” in the night up to this
sunrise – quickly began their descent. They had had, I suppose now, their
“experience”. Soon, of the some perhaps 200 people on the peak, only a few remained
here and there standing, sitting. Finally – quiet. Time to look, and reflect.
It was truly – as pictures can indicate – an
“austere”, “forbidding”, powerful mountain scene surrounding Mt. Sinai on which
the Sun’s light now shown. Rugged. Not a tree in sight, except the Lebanese Cedars at a
Bedouin camp nearby in a valley to the East. I saw to my surprise several black spots far
below; moving amidst the huge boulders and rocks; on closer attention, I saw that they
were goats, foraging in the rocks for scrubs, with two robed shepherds ambling nearby. The
colors of the scene were earth hues of red, tan, grey. Dry. The mountains around were so
still, stark yet dynamic they seemed like a sort of loud, screaming silence.
I myself frankly doubted – as since presumably only Moses and
God knew the exact location where he had received the Tablet of the Ten Commandments,
amidst all the mountain peaks in the area – whether this was the peak. With
no “steps” it would have been a much more difficult place to reach; but as Moses had
already seen God nearby in the famous “(Non-)Burning Bush”, he was, surely more
serious than the multinational mass tourists who though it was during an uncommon
alignment of the planets, and the night of the “new moon” as well came on the night of
May 12/13, 2002.
I had some quiet time on Mt. Sinai, after the tourist crowd had begun
to descend, before I, too, needed to go down again towards the Monastery and bus. After a
quick, limited tour of St. Catherine’s, which focused especially on the 6th century
Orthodox Church (with Russian priests escorting us), the return trip to the hotel began in
the hot, mid-afternoon. But on the bus trip back to the young resort town of
Sharm-el-Sheik, while the rest of the “pilgrims” slept as it drove through what a book
on St. Catherine’s well describes as a “moonscape of granite rocks”, with Bedouin
tents, camels and goats in unexpectable places visible from the road amidst the barren
rocks, mountains and sand, I had to reflect on the depressingly clear “revelation”
about humanity – multi-national, multi-lingual, multi-diversely racial,
etc... – in the dawn atop Mt. Sinai.
By Stephen Lapeyrouse
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