A RIFT IN TIME

Then the Lord said to Moses: “This is the land that I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I promised: ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have shown it to you with your own eyes....” Deu 34:4.

The Jordan Valley

I’m standing in an external courtyard of the Franciscan monastery that sits atop Mount Nebo in Jordan. Tradition says this is where God showed Moses the promised land while, at the same time, denying him entry. While I’m sure I’m not standing on the exact spot as Moses, I am sure that I am seeing the same geography he saw long ago. In front of me, though obscured by a heavy haze, lies Jerusalem, Jericho, and Bethlehem. 1200 meters below lies the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea.

The Edge of the African Continent

The Jordan Valley is part of a much larger geologic system, called the Great Rift Valley, which extends from Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley in the north to Mozambique, 6,000 kilometers to the south. Hundreds of millions of years ago, an upwelling in the Earth’s mantle began to stress the solid crust above it. As the pressure increased the crust began to thin and deform. When the pressure became too great the crust cracked and separated into the two continents of Africa and Asia. As the continents continued to drift apart, the land between them subsided (and continues to subside) into the Great Rift Valley. On the summit of Mount Nebo I am standing on the Asian continent. Across the Jordan Valley from me lies Israel which is part of the African continent. The Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth, lies between the two in the Jordan Valley. 

The Great Rift Valley has been the nexus of humanity, connecting us across millions of years of geologic time. The story begins in the Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania at the southern end of the Valley. Roughly 3.5 million years ago, a small animal emerged from its forest home and took its first tentative steps into the grasslands of the Rift Valley.  Life in the Valley was very different from life in the forest. The animal needed to be able see over the tall savanna grasses to gather food and guard against predators, so it began to stand and move on two of its legs. Bipedalism freed the animal’s hands for other tasks. Using its hands the animal learned to alter the physical environment to its own advantage. It learned to shape stones into tools that could be used for cutting and hammering. It learned to fashion shelter for protection from wind and rain and cold. It learned to control fire. The animal discovered that by cooperating with other similar animals its ability to survive was enhanced greatly. Cooperative efforts necessitated a means to communicate between individuals and a social structure to organize cooperative efforts. Language and social structure required ccomplex behaviors and the brain of the animal grew to support these activities. Social structures evolved into culture, defined as the learned ways of man, through which adults passed on skills and knowledge to their offspring, allowing them to build on a body of knowledge accumulated across generations. Then, after untold generations, the animal crossed a threshold and became what we define as human. Across the generations, the Rift Valley nurtured the nascent human species. Humans proved to be extraordinarily well adapted to their environment, and wave after wave of humans migrated up the Rift Valley and out of Africa. Roughly 200,000 years ago, the last wave, our direct ancestors, emerged from their African home and colonized the earth. 

And all this leads to a question; what is it that makes humans different than other animals? Is it the size of our brains? Whales and Dolphins have larger brains than humans. Is it our “intelligence”? That’s hard to say since we don’t have a way to assess accurately any intelligence but our own. Is it our ability to communicate? Again, whales and dolphins communicate over vast distances. How about living in complex social structures? Whales and dolphins exhibit complex social behaviors. What about our ability to make and use tools? Research and observation tells us that the great apes have this ability.  Is it our ability to pass knowledge to the next generation? Again, the great apes teach their offspring how to use the tools they have discovered. 

So just what is it that makes us uniquely human?

I assert that humanity is unique because we have grown to understand that we are more than the sum of our physical form and intelligence. Humanity discovered that we are part of a world, a spiritual world, that we can neither see, touch, or hear. We sense it around us. We feel it at the core of our being. The world religions, and all expressions of “spirituality”, are attempts to connect with and comprehend that which we feel but cannot articulate. 

The Great Rift Valley has been at the center of our evolution from physical being, to intellectual being, to spiritual being. It was with us from the beginning. Millions of years ago it enticed our ancestors out of the forest with its siren song. It sustained them and challenged them in ways that forced them to adapt and grow, both physically and intellectually. At the same time, it nurtured humanity’s growing awareness of a dimension that transcends the physical world, a spiritual connection to the infinite, an awareness that led, ultimately, to the birth of the three great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, at the Valley's northern extent

Humanity has outgrown the Rift Valley, but we will carry it with us forever. 

It's encoded in our DNA. 

It's imprinted on our minds. 

It drives our spirit.