Hold On To Each Other

Some of us took the injunction too literally, or just too far. What better place to carry on an illicit amour than against the colorful backdrop of Lake Kinesset - also known as the Sea of Galilee? Kiddish wine laid out on Shabbat banquet tables by the bottle were just too tempting for the sticky, oppressed fingers of an Arphod youngster, just as being half a world away from a waiting spouse presented an irrestible opportunity for the bored housewife who found an associate pastor all too appealing.

I wonder how many affairs were begun and perpetuated during Israel trips? I know of at least five without even trying to remember. A romantic place, it's true, so there was that to content with. But I also wonder how many affairs were begun by the simple following of that often repeated command: Hold on to each other.

The streets are slick, damp with camel piss as often as human, if one may judge by the effluvescent (made-up word!) aroma. Cobblestones are uneven, and hawkers employ fierce, often physical tactics to peddle their wares. The footing is treacherous almost everywhere you go, and in Jerusalem especially. So this bit of advice made sense, on one level.

It also made for quite a lot of contact between men and women; an easy excuse in an arena where "women love the women and men love the men" was de rigeur. I can't hug my male friend hello? Well then, I will cling ferociously to his arm as I totter down the steep, bumpy road leading to the Lion's Gate, and I will press my right breast constantly against him and pretend to slip so I get the full contact treatment now and then.

Also, repeated commands to stay in our rooms between services and touring so that we were properly "rested" probably did not always get quite the desired effect. It was just too easy.

Even easier was grabbing a couple bottles of sickly sweet wine from the buffet table and heading down with a friend down to the bottom of a stairwell and getting well into our cups while everyone else was at dinner. I know for a fact she got some play that night, meeting up with another 15 year old on the trip from some other church that was easy enough on the eyes. I bet he really held on to her.

And I can't forget the 36-year-old tour guide who had a thing for young girls, that ever-so-solicitously helped me watch my footing from midnight to around 2:00 A.M. one morning in Tiberius. More treacherous than the cobblestones was his 5 o'clock shadow that had left quite a rash on my face by the time I got back to my room.

I was put on house arrest for the rest of the trip, and he was fired, all because we were following a bit of sound advice, taken slightly out of context.

The real irony of the statement in question was that it was invariably followed by anecdotal evidence stating that 90% of all injuries sustained from falling occur in the bathroom.

Hold on to each other, indeed.