Exposure
Friday night, August 25, 2023
Congregation B’nai B’rith, Santa Barbara CA
One day last week, Marian and I were trekking in the Dolomite mountains in northern Italy, on the path from the Lagazuoi mountain rifugio where we had spent the night, to our next stop at Rifugio Averau. Our only guide was the Cicerone guidebook “Trekking the Alta Via 1,” which in its opening page says about this trek “beginners need go no further than the popular high-level trail Alta Via 1—straightforward yet astoundingly rewarding, and perfectly suited for a first alpine experience.” Many pages later, the specific description of day 4, detailing the trail from Lagazuoi, mentions that “the path narrows and is a little exposed as it cuts across steep scree flanks with constant ups and downs. Watch your step.”
Preparing for the trek back in Santa Barbara, I had not really thought to ask: “A little exposed.” What does that mean? And what does he mean “Watch your step?” Obviously, when you are walking in the mountains, you watch your step. I had not thought to wonder, “why does he bother to say “watch your step” just here?”
In the refugio dormitory the night before, we had met Marina, an appealing young woman from Rome, trekking on her own. Marina struck us as warm, intelligent, and happy, so we asked if she would like to walk with us. She quickly agreed but explained that she wanted to take a detour to visit a WWI bunker on an alternate trail. Marian and I decided to stick with the main route but agreed that we would meet back up with Marina at a designated spot a few miles ahead. Not long after leaving Marina, we encountered another hiker at a confusing junction and asked which was the way to Dibona. He replied “both of these will get you to Dibona, but this is easier and this is more difficult.” The meeting place we had designated with Marina was on the more difficult path…so we were committed and had to take it.
Over 200 million years ago, the Dolomite mountains were an ancient underwater coral reef. About 65 million years ago, immense tectonic pressures sent them soaring dramatically into the sky, pink and orange above emerald green valleys, with fields of dazzling white broken rock sometimes called “scree.” That is the scree mentioned by the guidebook as being a feature of the trail from Lagazuoi.
For a hiker, the trail experience begins with the ground immediately underfoot. The easiest trail to walk is smooth packed dirt, with just a little give to cushion your tired feet.
More difficult is hiking on a dusty, sandy trail that just swallows your feet as you try to push off. Sometimes a trail passes over pure rock, on which walkers leave no footprints and the path becomes invisible. You have to find a trail marker, a stripe of colored paint on a rock, or a small pile of rocks that previous hikers have piled up to show you where to go. Some trails are just mud. Or the trail might cross a stream or a river and you need to find rocks to hop across, or a fallen tree serving as a bridge. Or you just have to walk right through the water, and find some way to get warm and dry on the other side.
Some of the most tiring walking is on riprap….thousands of small broken rocks that move underneath you with every step. Or extremely smooth rock, worn down by thousands of previous walkers. Some of those rocks are as slippery as ice, just because so many people have walked exactly that way before. My least favorite waking surface is rock covered with a thin layer of loose stones, which slide underneath you if you put your foot down wrong. Even with great care, even using my trekking poles, I have slipped many times over the years on loose dirt that moved under my feet when I thought I had taken a solid step.
About half an hour after leaving the junction where we were told our trail was the more difficult, we came to the section of the trail mentioned in the book. Rock covered with a layer of loose sand, and a very narrow path. The mountain wall was on our left, sometimes sloping gently up and away from us, but here and there, an enormous boulder sticking out in front of us, forcing us to inch past it. To our right, at our feet, was what one young Italian described to me as “the nothing below.” This is what the author of our guidebook meant by “a little exposed. Watch your step.”
Every day at this time of year, during the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah, we Jews read psalm 27, a psalm about courage and faith, which includes the memorable verse: Horeini Adonai darcecha un’cheini b’orach mishor. God, teach me your trail, and guide me on a straight path. The psalmist invokes the universal experience of walking to express our deep human need for a good path. A trail to follow.
Lest you think we were crazy to attempt this trail, or exceptionally heroic, I should mention that we encountered a family of five hiking the trail…mother, father and three kids. The youngest…Abigail…is three years old, and carried her own small backpack. Throughout the experience, we said to each other “If Abigail can do this, we can.” We survived, although there were some moments of fear. Marian’s comment when we were back on solid ground was “that was fun!” Which did not express my feelings about what we had just experienced. To be clear, I did not mind the steep climbs or the miles of walking. It was the exposure…the narrow path and the sheer drop-off. For just for a few seconds, we were “exposed”….we experienced the small but real possibility of falling.
There were quite a few places on the trail where we came upon a crucifix. A small shrine, made of wood, with not just a cross, but the corpus, the body of Jesus….dying on the cross. We were in Italy, the world center of the Catholic Church, and the repeated encounters with the crucifix were an element of our trip which I had not anticipated. The simple crucifixes at crossroads out in the wilderness, or in beautiful spots for sitting and gazing at the mountain scenery, caught my attention briefly but I quickly turned away. After all, I am a Jew…a rabbi…and these Catholic images were not meant for me. In fact, all my life, without giving it much thought, I have avoided looking for long at Jesus on the cross. If I gave it any thought at all, the image of that man dying on the cross always struck me as strange, and even kind of gruesome.
It was not hard to simply ignore the simple wooden shrines on the trail, with the small body of Jesus hanging on a small two or three foot cross, especially when all around us were the stunning and magnificent Dolomite mountains. But in the last few days of our trip we went to Venice, and we went to visit the Gallerie dell’Academia and the churches. We wandered in and out of halls and churches filled with some of the greatest paintings in history, by Titian and Veronese and Tintoretto. In one magnificent Catholic house of worship after another, everywhere we turned, there was Jesus on the cross. In paintings, in stone, in wood. Some small, many life-sized. Some gigantic. In some crucifixes Jesus is alive and suffering and in others he hangs dead and lifeless. Usually his expression is peaceful and accepting, but sometimes he is wracked with pain. After a day or two, I had had enough, in fact too much. I told Marian “It would be beautiful except for that dead guy.” I could not have taken one more encounter with the man suffering on the cross, and I was filled with loathing for the religion and the culture which had made him the obsessive focus of so much devoted gazing.
One night during our ten days in the mountains, we sat down to dinner in the Coldai Rifugio, and found ourselves seated with a group of young Italians. They greeted us warmly and returned to playing the Italian card game Scopa. When the food came we asked their names and how they knew each other. They explained that one of their group, was a priest and had been the parish priest of the others when they were in youth group. Now ten years later they were still friends and were hiking together in the mountains. When I told them that I was a rabbi, the conversation turned serious and exciting. This young priest had been sent by his bishop to Rome, to study for a doctorate and then return home to Verona to teach candidates for the priesthood. He was brilliant and warm and he and his friends were intensely interested in us, and in Judaism. The conversation unfolded and we shared with each other our concerns about the future, and what is happening to our faith communities. This young priest and I have exactly the same questions and the same deep uncertainty about what will become of the religion that we love….his Catholicism and my Judaism. Will they survive and be around fifty years, one hundred years from now? I have rarely found such a kindred spirit.
Meeting this young priest and feeling such a sense of kinship made me curious, and specifically, curious about the crucifix and the crucifixion. Never in my life have I wanted to really learn about Christianity. And especially never about Jesus’ death on the cross. I have been happy and proud to teach and to represent our marvelous Jewish religion, with its emphasis on choosing life. But my conversation high in the mountains with that young priest opened a window in my mind. Could it be possible to wonder, with curiosity and without fear, about the image of Jesus on the cross? What is that image about? What human experience does it express and how does it bring meaning to a human life?
For me….for this Jew, this rabbi….tonight, having just returned from a journey into the Dolomite mountains, full of grandeur and some heart pounding moments of fear and vulnerability, exposed to the abyss, on narrow trails suspended over dizzying heights, it comes to me that perhaps the crucifix is an image of…..exposure. In the most literal, heartbreaking way, Jesus on the cross is exposed.
He was one of us, by the way. Even at the end, even on the cross, Jesus was still a Jew, who taught the people of his time to love each other, and to love God. There is no reason for us to look away, as though to see his suffering is to betray our ancestors and our God. Whatever horrors have been inflicted on our people in his name, there is no reason for us to turn away. The crucifix is not our sacred image, but it is a deeply human image, and with courage and compassion, we can see it and be moved.
Exposure is our human condition, on the mountain trails of the Dolomites and in our offices and bedrooms. This is what Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav taught in his famous dictum Kol haolam kulo gesher tzar m’od. V’ha-ikar lo l’fached klal. The entire world is a very narrow bridge. A very narrow path, over a yawning abyss. And the only thing that matters is not to be afraid. Ken yehi ratzon. May this be God’s will. Shabat shalom.