The US Embassy and the Israeli Ministry of Defense guided our Rome Laboratory delegation in developing cooperative research and development in 1993. This trip was "my Jerusalem experience," my participation in the secular world, just as Jesus’ visit to Jerusalem was his final confrontation with the "Kingdom of this World." In 1997, I went on a Gordon College Pilgrimage to religious sites and ancient cities, Megido, Beth-Shean, Jericho, and Jerusalem, which go back to the beginning of civilization, 10,000 years ago. This pilgrimage was my "Galilian Experience," along the shores of the large blue, mountain-surrounded Lake of Galilee, the site of Jesus ministry. The March flowers were breathlessly beautiful.
SCIENCE, MY JERUSALEM EXPERIENCE:
The US Embassy and the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Directorate of Defense R & D, guided our Rome Laboratory Delegation in developing cooperative research and development with industry and universities in February 1993. In Haifa, I made contact with scientists at the Rafael Co. They were familiar with my research on Surface Acoustic Waves (SAW) from papers that I had presented at the International Ultrasonics Symposium in the US. I also visited Prof. Koren, at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. He described his world-class research on high-temperature superconducting diodes. This visit resulted in a cooperative research program with my Component Technology Branch. In 1995, we published a jointly authored paper in the Journal of Superconducivity.
In 1993, at the Elta Electronic Industries LTD, Ashdod, I met an antenna engineer, who is the daughter of Walter Rotman of my laboratory. He is the inventor of the "Rotman Lens," which is used in many microwave systems. His daughter works an antenna engineer on an advanced AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System.) I also visited the Soreq Research Center, the Weizmann Institute of Science, and the El-Op and Elbit Companies. Our Rome Laboratory Delegation was ably led by Dr. Harold Roth, then head of the Solid-State Sciences Directorate. He learned Hebrew as a boy and had visited Israel with his family before. I also met Brig. General (Dr.) Isaac Ben-Israel, Director of Israel’s Defense Research and Development, at a reception held at US Air Attachee, Lt. Col. Kemp’s home north of Tel Aviv. After he escorted Brig. General Ben-Israel to the door at the end of the evening, Kemp exclaimed: "He had a gun in the pocket of his jacket!"
Israeli science is indeed world-class. Israeli scientists visit US and European laboratories and study and teach in our universities. They serve as hosts for reciprocal visits. Israelis own many American small businesses. Israel is also the site of international scientific meetings, such as the International Conference on High-Power Electromagnetics: EUROM ’98, Tel Aviv, June 14-19, 1998. These international meetings symbolize the global nature of the scientific quest of knowledge and truth, which transcend barriers of nation, culture, tradition, and religion.
As a scientist, I participate in a discipline that arose in the West, rather than the East. The reason for this modern development may well be traceable to an affirmation of the Genesis Chapter 1 statement that the creation is good. Its goodness implies that it is worth studying.
THE SACRED, MY GALILIAN EXERIENCE:
My March 1997 Gordon College Pilgrimage, followed the path of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem. In Galilee, I walked where Jesus walked, sailed on and was inspired by beautiful sunrises over the Sea of Galilee. I visited Capernaum on the lake near the place were Jesus called fishermen to be his disciples, healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and preached in the synagogue. I stood among the remaining columns of the synagogue which was built over the one in which He taught. I was moved by singing in the church at nearby Tabgha, which has a beautiful mosaic commemorating the miracle of Jesus feeding the Multitude of Five Thousand Men. At the Mount of the Beatitudes, I could envision Jesus teaching the crowds from the steep hillsides that form a natural amphitheater above the lake. As I saw abundant fields of yellow mustard blowing in the wind, I could hear Jesus saying (Math. 6:28:) "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." The climax of our Pilgrimage was a communion service held among the blooming flowers and shrubs of the Garden Tomb, which is a beautiful setting for the resurrection stories we commemorate at Easter. The Bible Stories seemed more real they ever did before.
Excavations from "tels" or mounds next to ancient cities like Megido, (above the plains of Armageddon), Beth-Shean, and Jericho go back about 10,000 years to the beginning of civilization. These cities were strategically located along trade routes, had sources of water, were defensible, and had fertile fields for the emergence of agriculture. Recent excavations near "Tel Dan," at the base of snow-capped Mt. Herman in Northern Israel, reveal the gate of an ancient city walled with mud bricks. Abraham may well have entered the "Promised Land" in about 1700 BC through this gate. We later visited the Jerusalem Mosque of Omar, known as the "Dome of the Rock," built (691 AD) over the rock where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Ishmael (Muslim) or Isaac (Jews). In the tunnel along the Western Wall at the site closest to this rock, our young Jewish guide spoke reverently about which she believed was the "Holy of Holies" of Herod’s Temple. This was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans as they quelled the Zealot revolt. The conflicts between the Jews and the Palestinians, which make the front page of our newspapers, is a daily reminder of the continuing need of reconciliation between Jews, Moslems, and Christians. They all acknowledge Abraham as their father.
St. Paul (II Cor. 5:19) states: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself."
Even though Jesus’ Kingdom was not "of this world," it is noteworthy that he was closest to, or had the greatest dialogue with, the Pharisees. Indeed, St. Paul himself was a Pharisee, who had a conversion experience on the road to Damascus where he intended to arrest Christians! The Pharisees took a middle position in reacting to the Roman rule. The Sadducees cooperated with the Romans, and gained worldly wealth and power thereby. The "flight" and "fight" response was expressed by the Essenes and the Zealots respectively. The former withdrew to the monastic solitude of Qumran on the Dead Sea, while the latter lead the unsuccessful revolt of 70 AD, which ended with the Roman capture of Herod’s fortress of Masada. Bridges for Peace, led by Clarence H. Wagner, Jr., is carrying on the work of Christian reconciliation with "care packages" for new Jewish immigrants to Israel.
Our Pilgrimage was ably led by Profs. Roger Green and Marvin Wilson. The latter authored: "Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith." As we passed from Israel to areas controlled by the new Palestinian Authority, such as Jericho and Bethlehem, I was glad to have such experienced and knowledgeable leaders as well as our guide, Halvor Ronning. He is a scholar in the Hebraic background of the Scripture. He and his wife, Mirja, a Bible translator into Finnish, host a home for Bible translators in Jerusalem. His reading of Bible passages at the places where they happened was most meaningful and inspiring. His reading of "the Lord is my Shepherd," Psalm 23, as we watched the Bedouins graze their sheep and goats, gave it a deeper meaning. The Pilgrimage also included Masada and the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran in 1947. Israel is indeed a land of contrast between science and the sacred; Jerusalem and Galilee; modern and ancient, beauty and terror.
CONCLUSION: Science and the Sacred
The world needs the global quest for truth symbolized by international scientific meetings, which transcend barriers of nation, culture, tradition, and religion. Science has its changing paradigms and revolutions, but at least they have been bloodless. Nevertheless, as funding for research and development is "downsized," the scientific community has become more sensitive to the political activity of the creationists and of pseudoscientists. This is expressed in Carl Sagan’s recent book: The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark.
The threat of demons is not new. The first Chapter of Mark (verses 23-27), written about 70 AD, describes the following encounter that occurred in Capernaum, on the shores of Lake Galilee, as Jesus was teaching in the synagogue:
"Just then a man with an evil spirit in him came into the synagogue and screamed:
‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Are you here to destroy us? I know who your are: you are God’s holy messenger!’
Jesus commanded the spirit, ‘Be quiet, and come out of the man!’
The evil spirit shook the man, gave a loud scream, and come out of him.
The people were all so amazed....."
Healing stories such as this are difficult to understand to terms of modern science. They are paradoxical, not what is expected in ordinary human experience. It is easier for me to relate to theologian Paul Tillich’s definition the demonic as "creativity turned negative." Tillich himself encountered the power of the demonic in 1933, when the Nazis dismissed him from his position as dean of the philosophical faculty in Frankfort, Germany. Tillich’s Systematic Theology , written in America, describes the basic Christian message as paradoxical. His obituary in 1965 read: "love is stronger than death (or the demonic.)" Truth can be paradoxical and multidimensional. We can still be open to amazement!