Roman Pipedream: Letting Ideas Flow

This weekend we joined one of the tour groups on a day tour to the Alona reserve near Zichron Yaakov in Israel. It is the site of 2000 year old Roman ruins, the remains of an aqueduct system that brought water to enable the expansion in the port city Ceaseria.

At a certain point the water was transferred in underground passageways. The Romans dug piers, and connected them with caves. They calculated the angle carefully and the water ran down hill.

This is a fun little trail. We walked through cool underground caves, water up to our waist and everybody marveled at the ingenuity of Roman engineers.  After all it was a time when people believed in pagan gods and prayed to idol statues, and there in the midst of all this, mathematicians and engineers were constructing complex structures and putting the laws of physics to use for mankind.

Being students of history, we have to remind ourselves constantly that ancient people were not dumber, or primitive necessarily. In almost every possible sense, Ancient Romans, Cananites, Israelites, Babylonians and Egyptian were like us. The brain had not significantly evolved over 3 millenniums.  However, the norms, concepts, beliefs and way of life predominant in the time of the ancients were completely different in comparison with that of modern western societies. Most of the ancients, like most of us were unable to transcend their time, their world.

Looking at the current events throughout the world and specifically in Israel, We always try to keep this in mind. Israel is a micro-cosmos of a world debate about ideas on religion, society, human rights, culture and nationality. It is the kind of debate we encourage in our Educational tour.

In order to have a civilized fruitful debate it is important to remember that different societies have taken different paths and over generations had nurtured different ideas and that those ideas have become the reality for them. Yes our society is no different, and we also find it hard to transcend our "facts of life".

If we avoid labeling societies as primitive or people as evil, we can have a true exchange of ideas, a true debate and perhaps we could nurture a more collective inclusive culture. If we are not afraid to let ideas flow between us  we may be able to connect the peelers of our society like the arches of the aqueduct.  Then we may find that other people aren't all that different from us.