In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus referred to His people as a light that cannot be hidden. Galileans only had to look up in the night sky to see another light. It was the ancient city of Safed, a town to the north, perched on a mountaintop. Safed has regained its fame since Madonna made her foray into the Jewish mystical practice of Kabbalah. The Bohemian art colony is now the home of a 16th century Abuhav synagogue where an ancient scroll of the Torah is kept locked in one of three Arks on the south wall and is removed only three times a year (Yom Kippur, Shavuot, and Rosh Hashanah) for reading.


Kabbalah, which holds to deep superstitions
that stray from the Hebrew Bible, is followed by even some Orthodox Jews today. Jesus made mention of what would become of this bastion of mysticism when He turned his back to those in that mountaintop city and spoke to those gathered around Him below it. “You who are mine,” he said, “are the light of the world. Your light must not be hidden under a bowl.” Jesus, the Light that is not hidden,
eradicates darkness.