The elemental heights of the Golan

This weekend, the stars aligned in a particular fashion. It was the weekend before my birthday; we had arranged far in advance a cottage in the Golan Heights to celebrate it; it had rained and snowed throughout the week leading the weekend; the storm broke on Thursday night; and the next weather front only appeared on Sunday afternoon. The meaning of these circumstances is that my wife and I enjoyed an amazing weekend in the Golan Heights.  I do not mean fighting the traffic jams and lines to Mount Hermon, Israeli's only ski site, not to mention the sheer density of people there.  I am referring to the amazing pleasure of the most basic elements of the Golan Heights experience: its rocks, water and wind.

Only an hour away from the Galilee where I live, the Golan Heights are immediately distinguishable by its rocks, mostly created by its volcanic past. The grounds are liberally sprinkled with basalt rocks of various sizes as if they had been dumped there by trucks.  The wall of old buildings, whether from the ancient Talmudic period or the more modern Syrian period, are made from basalt. The Avital Volcanic Park, an artfully adopted quarry site, provides an amazing inside view of the volcanic forces that shaped the area. Finally, we never got tired of looking at the white shiny peak of Mt. Hermon, covered in snow and glowing in the winter sun. Each view was better than the previous.

Accompanying the solidness of the rock was the omnipresence of water. Created by the heavy rains and sustained by the almost solid rock below, almost every field had one or more blue pond, often with a happy-looking cow or horse enjoying the green grass around it. All along the roads, streams were noisily flowing. Where ever nature had created the proper conditions, waterfalls, big and small, played their music. The water created a sight and sound concert.

However, the unsung hero of the Golan heights was the wind. On the one hand, where we had to stand unprotected by any breaking feature, it was cold, lowering the temperature by several degrees. However, as we were properly dressed, I cannot say that we suffered from the cold. On the other hand, the wind carried the sounds of nature: flowing water, birds and singing leaves. The sounds of the mass movement of people, roar of vehicles and general noise of civilization were almost never be heard. The result was a magnificent and peaceful, albeit a bit lonely, feeling.

Together, these elements, not to mention some great food, made for a wonderful weekend and created a taste of “od” as they say in Hebrew, meaning the desire to do it again. While some people go the Golan for its skiing, I enjoy its more fundamental pleasures.

Wintery language thoughts

As I sit writing in my home of Karmiel in the Galilee with the unfamiliar sight of snow covered the hills around me and a crispy temperature of 2 degrees centigrade, just slightly above freezing for those living in Fahrenheit countries, my thoughts wander off to weather terms.  Specifically, I consider how each language expresses those common or not-so-common winter phenomena that have to be expressed in words, especially by the news media.

English, being a root-rich language, prefers the precise single word.  It is cold, note the verb to be, but most other terms have their own specific verb form: it snows; it rains; it hails. English weather needs no help.

Nor does French. “Il fait froid”, this time using the verb faire, to have, but il neige; il pleut; il grēle.  This one-verb form makes leaning the terms much easier, eliminating the mistaken helping verb.  Of course, Americans will often say “Il est froid”, the literal translation of the English construction, but the French will understand that if they so chose.

Aside from the cold term, the Russian language goes places. The single term  [holodno] expresses the three word English phrase.  By contrast, in the Russian winter, идет снег [idyot sneg]; идет джодь [idyot djod]; идет град [idyot grad].   In all the cases, the weather, whether it is snow, rain, or hail, goes, presumably downwards.

In Israel, these phenomena clearly travel towards the ground.  When זה קר [ze kar], meaning it is cold, and ורד שלג  [yored sheleg],  יורד גשם][yored geshem], or  יורד ברד [yored barad], the snow, rain and hail literally drop.  Since we don’t know get enough of the first two, it makes sense they can be called “drop in the bucket”. 

So, if you are lucky enough to be watching the weather from the warmth of your home (with the electricity working), think about how your language expresses the complex act of precipitation.