Today, we lunch at a small roadside restaurant just outside Jerusalem. Our waiter, who looks strikingly like the Eurocentric Jesus pictured in the Baltimore Catechism back when I was a believer, approaches our table with a basket of bread and a stoneware pitcher. He places the bread on the table and asks: “Water, gentlemen?”
“Please,” my companion says, licking his parched lips as the waiter pours the inviting clear liquid into his glass.
“And you, sir?”
“Make mine wine,” I quip.
Unwavering, he tilts the pitcher over my glass and fills it nearly to the brim with a deep garnet liquid.