The modern village of Bat Ayin (meaning “Daughter of the Eye” or “Apple of the Eye” in Hebrew) sits in the middle of the Judean hills, halfway between Jerusalem and Hebron. While constructing the first road to Bat Ayin, the builders came across ancient ruins and had to stop and give the archeologists a chance to excavate. The archeologists uncovered an ancient winery. The winery had plastered pools to collect the grape juice and large underground storage rooms, where the wine was fermented and stored.
The Judean Hills carry a special blessing for rich grape crops, and wine from these grapes was abundant here during the First and Second Jewish commonwealths. One of the offerings in the holy Temple in Jerusalem was wine. For it to be acceptable, it was subject to special rules concerning its ritual purity. The workers at the winery needed to immerse in a mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath, each morning before they started work to be ritually pure while handling the wine.
Alongside the ancient winery in Bat Ayin, the archeologists uncovered a mikvah. You can now walk down the steps and stand in the arched doorway looking down into the pool where our ancestors immersed before their work. The workers knew that this wine—grown on their land with their labor—might be raised up to God in the Temple in Jerusalem and bring down blessings to the whole world.
When I visit this spot, I like to look down into the dark pool and imagine that my ancestors who lived and worked and raised their families here are looking back at me from the darkness and that they’re smiling, recognizing me as their child and as proof of God’s faithfulness to them.
Part of the special joy of living as a Jew in Judea is connecting so deeply to our ancestral mothers and fathers—walking in their footsteps, carrying on with their mission, raising our families, building a nation, and bringing blessings to the Earth and knowledge of God to all humankind.
See the other articles in this series:
How I became a West Bank settler meme
Eating the fruit of the land of Israel
