This week, I was doing some work in the local public library when a fellow crossed in front of me with a tzitzit (tassel) showing from beneath his jacket, not the sort of thing you see in our neck of the Nashville woods. These slender compositions of knotted white strings come in fours, hanging from the left & right/front & back corners of an Orthodox Jewish man’s special undershirt. They’re meant to remind the wearer of Torah commandments.  I saw a fair number of them on the North Shore of Chicago, where we lived in the early 2000s, especially down the Lakefront on Devon Avenue. There you’d also see Jews on their way to Sabbath services sporting earlocks. In this case, I couldn’t resist a conversation, so I followed him into the stacks and asked if we might talk. He readily agreed, and we headed toward the privacy of an unoccupied study room. 

Interesting guy. I wasn’t able to sort out much of his orientation and mission in America, but I got the drift. He said he was from Tel Aviv and is trying to get into court houses to warn us that our nation is going to hell and that time is short. Somehow he’s tying it in Jubilee. I assured him that many of us shared his conviction that things were very dire, and I pressed him to say how he thought he’d make a difference by talking to municipal and country officials. He wasn’t evasive; just muddled I think. Oh, and when I told him I was a Baptist minister, he said he’d been visiting and even speaking a bit in churches, including one in Antioch, a few miles east of the library.

I told him of my love for Israel, ignited on my first visit in 1966 and strengthened by my 2012 visit with a group from the FIDF (Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces), a trip which included a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, a tour of the Iron Dome radar and launch sites near Rehoboth, and a look down into Syria from an IDF listening post atop Mount Hermon. I told him I’d learned a little Hebrew in seminary, and quoted Genesis 1:1 (Bereshit bara Elohim . . .) as best I could.

In the course of our conversation, he said that he was some sort of Nazarite (think Samson) and I glanced at his hair. Assuming that I knew the “Don’t cut your hair” rule in Numbers 6:5, he immediately offered an explanation for its shortness. Somehow he’s figured out a consecrated (i.e., Nazarite) approach to grooming. I think he said that once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th month, he trimmed 3.5 inches from the bottom (which would mean 7” inches in a year and a day—again with the sacred 7). Maybe that’s close enough.

I asked for a side photo, and, as he turned, I saw some Hebrew on the back of his shirt. I was pretty sure the first letter was a chet, but I was having trouble going on from there with a recognizable expression. He took pity on me and explained that he’d run out of paint in rendering a taw, so it was missing its jots or tittles as the case may be. (I started to wonder if he’d really mastered his Hebrew, but I’ll go with the paint-shortage story.)

Anyway, he said it read Tel Aviv, and I could see that. And then I was surprised to hear that this meant “hill of spring.” Not sure why I’d never figured that out, especially since I well knew that Tel meant a small hill or mound, especially in archaeological circles. I’d been to Tel Dan (on the Golan Heights) and Tel Megiddo (in the Jezreel Valley), but it hadn’t occurred to me to ask about the Aviv modifying the Tel just north of Joppa on the Mediterranean coast. Oh, well. And then he said that was why he particularly loved the town of Spring Hill, just south of Franklin, the town that had the Saturn plant, but now built Cadillac and GMC SUVs. How about that! Hill of Spring/Spring Hill. 

I didn’t ask him name and didn’t offer mine. Wasn’t looking for follow-ups and entanglements in this instance. You never know. But we enjoyed our time together. I’m telling you, folks are interesting.