The Nutrition of Abraham and Sarah on The Way To Canaan

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Speaking of threshing floors used in the baking of bread;  we only have to walk or drive down to the bakery and buy a loaf of bread. What kind of food did Abraham and Sarah eat 3,000 years ago,  especially on their trek from Ur on the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia to Canaan?  

From Ur, Abraham traveled 700 miles to the borders of present-day Iraq, another 700 miles into Syria, another 800 down to Egypt by the inland road, and then back into Canaan - which is now Israel.  It is a journey that today's pilgrim, for reasons of international polity, cannot easily replicate. But even though much of the route is difficult of access, and although many of the cities Abraham knew are now only ruins, there are nonetheless rewards for today's traveler, spiritual monuments to the man and his faith. Begin, then, in the Ur of history and imagination, and end at Hebron, where, under Israeli protection, the faiths, however briefly, meet.

They might have traveled by camels.  It's a very long trek.  That would have made carrying food much easier.  

When Abraham strode upon the stage at Ur, he was by Semitic reckoning already a man of 75. And Ur was then a capital city of more than 100,000 inhabitants, a place of beauty, graced with towers, palaces, temples, law courts, market squares, statues, shrines, gardens, mosaics, friezes, reliefs and monuments. 

Abraham is one of the early homo sapiens that we know about, making an entrance of our history after Adam and Eve of the year 5783 BCE Jewish time. Abraham was born in about  1948 BCE.   They were the updated models after Neandertals, the homo sapiens who have been around for a long time, now.   I went back 9 generations starting with Abraham's father, Terah, to get to Shem, one of Noah's sons. 4 more generations back and one arrives at Enoch.                                 

Our babies can nurse their mothers for the first 2 years of their lives.  Then mothers found food for themselves in nature, such as berries and nuts, fruit on trees such as dates, apples, and seeds and grasses to munch on.  They would chew it, and then spit it into the mouths of their babies.    It looked rather like baby food our babies are fed from cans and bottles created by Gerbers.    

The human lineage going way back was of Australopithecus afarensis, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.  It took thousands of years being at each stage to develop the mind and body which happened by genes mutating to go along with adapting to their environment. 

The question is, when did homo sapiens start eating animals?  The answer is 2.6 million years ago.  The first major evolutionary change in the human diet was the incorporation of meat and marrow from large animals, which occurred by at least 2.6 million years ago.  That was way before Abraham's day.                                    

I bet they would have loved to come upon a hamburger stand when on their trek, but none existed back then  Abraham and Sarah lived during the 2nd millennium or was born about the year 1948 BCE, only about 4,000 years ago.  Ur, connected to Babylon, was like the New York City of that day.  3,000 more years and they would see lots of hamburger stands in the year 1948 after World War II.  

He left it for the hinterland of Canaan to start a new life out in less populated countryside. They may have had dried meat in their backpacks, and some form of pita or even matzo made from wheat.  They walked near the river so may have eaten fish along the way to Haran.  They needed to walk even if they came with camels as walking is good for the heart, and they must have walked a lot more than today's humans.    

One wonders how that came to be that humans started eating animals.    Could it have happened that they came upon a carcass of one hit by lightning so there was one cooked, so to speak, and they smelled it and tasted it as it made them salivate and become hungrier and they were then sated?  That would have opened their eyes to a new source of food.                  

  Also, they might have studied other animals in their purview and saw that they ate other animals, so besides staying out of the limelight of being the next meal, thought of their own tummy growling and what might they include in their own diet.   

Those who became meat eaters found they were stronger than others.  I know a boxer who ate a good beef dinner before a boxing match and found he had more energy so won his bouts.  These meat eaters would have become a more dominant group, multiplying.   

Animal-based foods (meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy foods) tend to be good sources of complete protein, while plant-based foods (fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds) often lack one or more essential amino acid.

Today, vegans are the thing.  More and more people are turning to a vegan diet.  Well, we do have 7.98 billion people on planet earth and its getting harder and harder to feed and water that many.  Here, Russians are leaving their country, worried about not having the necessities of life under this regime by being forced into serving the army in an unwanted war.  Other Europeans worry about keeping warm during the winter and needing fuel.  

No such worries for Abraham.  He just worried about producing more of his own children and had to work on that.  Those were the days of very low population of the world.  

Resource:

https://www.history.com/news/humans-evolution-neanderthals-denisovans#:~:text=The%20human%20lineage%20of%20Australopithecus,erectus%2C%20Neanderthals%20and%20Homo%20sapiens. 

Moses, Walking and Riding From Midian To Egypt, 3,601 Years Ago

 

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

                                            

As I traveled on my very short walk today, being I'm going to  be 88 in a few weeks, I thought of Moses who started his very long walk at age 8o.  I realized that he never went back home after arriving in Egypt and meeting up with Aaron, his long forgotten brother.  He arrived in Egypt, met his brother, argued with the Pharaoh, and left on the Exodus that took 40 years.  He died just outside of Canaan at age 120.  

To make such a move, he had to travel with a large entourage of all his family for safety reasons, for an 80 year old man 3,601 years ago would be as much in danger on the road as one would today if alone.  So he had to have traveled with his wife and 2 sons and servants from Midian to Egypt, his old homeland. A grateful Jethro gave Moses his daughter, Zipporah in marriage, despite their religious differences. Their two sons were Gershom and Eliezer.  Moses set out with his family, including his father in law, Jethro,  to return to Egypt to free his people from slavery. 

Midian is way south of the Dead Sea and across from the Sinai Peninsula in today's Jordan. The name Midian instantly brings to mind images of barren desert landscapes, camel caravans crossing vast arid wastelands, and, above all, the land of Moses’s exile where he received for the first time G-d's revelation.

Now walking from Midian, where he had been living, to Egypt is a pretty long ways.   It’s only 150 miles or so  straight across the Sinai Peninsula.  It’s also desert, and  there are signs of small Bedouin encampments from much earlier.   The Sinai Desert has throughout history been the region separating the Land of Israel from the Land of Egypt.  

Midian was the location of Moses’ 40-year exile from Egypt, circa 1486-1446 BC (based on biblical chronology). During that time, he married the daughter of the priest of Midian (Jethro), and tended his flocks. He also visited the Mountain of God, later called Mount Sinai. (cf. Exod. 2:15-3:1; 4:18-20; 18:1-5).

Moses traveling like Abraham before him , no improvement in transportation from Midian to Egypt 

In recent days, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has been a sparsely populated desert region between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. On its southern tip, Sharm el-Sheikh resort is a base for diving and snorkeling around the reefs of Ras Mohammed National Park. Inland, 6th-century St. Catherine’s Monastery is near biblical Mount Sinai, where the 2,285m summit is renowned for its sunrise views. Elat is a famous resort today.  Scandinavians love to go there in the winter.  

85% of Israel's land is made of the Negev desert and its semi-desert region.  Actually, the northern part is a prairie and the southern is mountainous.  You can say that Israel is on the edge of the desert.  A large part of Israel is the Negev and that is mostly desert.  

    What we see of Israel is the Negev Desert land, and then there's the Sinai Desert of Egypt.  Desert, desert, desert; lots of sand.  

Moses and company must have walked in heat at least 150 miles.  How did he do it?  Walking, riding donkeys and or camels,  and maybe in a wagon now and then.  For an 80 year old that must have been 81 by the time he arrived in Egypt, that was pretty hard riding on the tush.  He must have had a very healthy heart, as he died at 120 years.  

What could Moses have seen on his journey in land to become Israel?  In biblical times, much of the land of Israel was covered with forests.  The Land abounded in wild animals,  including lions and bears.  This was another reason to walk in groups.  It was a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees (olive-oil) and honey, all mentioned in the Torah. 

 Egyptians grew crops such as wheat, barley, vegetables, figs, melons, pomegranates and vines. They also grew flax which was made into linen. The most important crop was grain. 

Moses was on the move for 40 years starting at age 80.  He was awesome!  I hope he traveled in some sort of conveyance.  

Incidentally, Beersheba or Beer Sheva, officially Be'er Sheva is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", 

It's a city that goes back to Bible days to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a big, important Jewish center.  Beer-sheba seems to have been the dwelling place of Abraham at that time, for after the sacrifice of Isaac, he returned and dwelt there (Gen. 22:19). According to Gen. 26:23-33, Isaac went up to Beer-sheba, and there the Lord appeared to him; he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord.

Resource:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/sinai

facts about Israel, division of Information, Ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem

https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/places/related-articles/midian

How Jews Got to Jerusalem in the 1400's From Europe

Nadene Goldfoot
Italy was very close to Palestine, even back in the 1400's.  Jews living in Italy could have taken a ship and returned to Palestine, but there were times when the Popes ordered their followers to prevent Jews from traveling there.  The Italians denied Jews the use of their ships.  This either forced them to forget about returning or caused them to have to take a very long land route instead.

 The land route for many involved having to travel through Germany, Poland and Southern Russia, or through the inhospitable Balkans and a Black Sea crossing before getting to the fairly safe Turkey.

In 1433, after a ban was imposed, Yitzhak Tsarefati urged Jews to go through tolerant Turkey.  Often a journey took years.  Immigrants would have to work at stopping places to raise money for the next leg of his journey.  Sometimes one bent on returning to Jerusalem would ask a Jew with money to finance his journey and so share vicariously in the mitzvah of his aliyah.  It's a good deed to help another in this endeavor.

An immigrant Jew from Germany had set out from Nuremberg and traveled to Posen which was about 300 miles.
From Posen (Pozanan),  Prussia or Germany  to Lublin was 250 miles.
From Lublin, Poland to Lemberg (Lvov) was 120 miles
From Lemberg, Ukraine to Khotin was           150 miles
From Khotin, Bessarabia or Moldova to Akerman was            150 miles
From Akerman to Samsun was               6 days
From Samsun, Turkey to Tokat was                6-7 days
From Tokat, Turkey to Aleppo was                  15 days
From Aleppo, Syria  to Damascus was             7 days
From Damascus, Syria  to Jerusalem was         6 days

In those days the Ottoman sultans encouraged Jewish immigration to their empire.  Their gates were open to Palestine for them then.  The sad fact is that the conditions in Europe made it almost impossible for Jews to get there.  Many who did were refugees from the Inquisition and were scholars, artisans and merchants.  They found homes in Jewish centers that were in existence.  This small flow of Jews from Europe injected a new pulse into Jewish life in Palestine in the 16th Century.

We today have poor excuses of not visiting Israel in our period of jet travel.  It only takes 9 hours and 5 minutes to go from New York to Tel Aviv.  Leaving August 1st at 2:25 pm one can get to the destination by 11:50 pm August 2nd.  It would cost $1,284 dollars one way.  A later trip in September is listed for $966.

I traveled in 1980 to Israel and was able to take El Al.  That was a wonderful experience, but I suggest you lose weight first.  The seats were fairly small.  However, it was like already being in Israel with men joining together for prayers at certain times.  Also, boarding the plane was different.  We walked through a hallway of soldiers with rifles ready to protect us.

The latest horror of travelers killed on the tour bus in Bulgaria tells us that being Jewish in Europe is not a safe place for us to be today.  We've become targets for terrorists just for being Jewish.  Even though it's the center of anti-Semitism,  I always felt safe in Israel.

Resource: Battleground, Fact and Fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz, pages 97-98

http://book.statravel.com/staglobe/AirFlightSearchResult.do;jsessionid=FA0FECCBF442C134A9556C07D105E38A?followAction=AirFlightSearch