Cultures... west and east and places inbetween

Our second semester started two weeks ago and we have jumped in and are already busy with papers and reading and studying Hebrew.

I am excited for the classes I get to take. This semester history and archaeology (both looking at the second temple period), Parable of Jesus, Hebrew 2, and Cultural backgrounds.
I'm finding cultural backgrounds to be a very interesting class so far. Seeing the different cultures at play in this area is fascinating. Today we were talking about surface culture and deep culture. Surface culture being the things that culture have and do visible to everyone. We see the cloth that people groups wear and the food that is available and eaten. And then there is deep culture. This is the underlying values and currents that run beneath a culture. This is the culture that doesn't change as easily.

Coming back from my break where I spent some time in another part of the Arab world, it stands out now how western Israel really has become.  There are still values that seem to come from deep, but it seems the modern culture is shifting the way that it does things. There are shopping malls and materialistic trends. The impact of immigration and tourism means that there are a lot of people from different backgrounds and to some degree there is a great tolerance and adaptations to that.

It is easy to recognize that there is a difference between east and west and label them as such, but I think that there is more to cultures that just east and west. There is a lot of in between. Places where the east meets the west, (or maybe meet something completely different) and the change slightly.

I find whenever I start looking at other cultures it is almost impossible not to think of the cultures and I grew up in and around. I don't think it is possible not to, we all have a way of viewing the world and that is what makes up a large part of our culture. Even from region to region there seems to be a shift in values and culture within the people who live there.

Jesus lived in a place where 'the east' met 'the west'. God placed his people along a route that carried people from all over the world and in it his covenant with Abraham his told them that through him all peoples would be blessed.  There is something beautiful about the place where cultures meet and the fact that God seems to use them.

Understanding and navigating cultures is something I am not near close to having accomplished. Taking modern Hebrew this semester is showing me how much a language reflects a culture.  Someone asked how to say particular phrase politely, only to receive the answer that there wasn't a particular way to say it, but just to say it.

I'm excited to see all that this class will explore and how it all works together, but in the meantime, I probably should get back to studying  :)