Thrones of Israel

One of the blessings/curses of working on this project is that I have come to see toilets wherever I go. A great case in point was my trip with BBYO’s Kallah program to Philadelphia earlier this week.

My love for American History predates my passion for the history of Israel, honestly, and was ignited by a visit to Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C. I specifically remember standing at the doorway to the Presidential box thinking, “this is what John Wilkes Booth saw right before he shot Lincoln and changed history.” Since that trip in high school, I’ve been fascinated by physical history and visiting the settings of great events. This proclivity reached its apex when we moved to Israel and I fell in love with the Land via biblical sites of all sorts. There’s nothing like standing on a hill that served as the Israelite camp when David fought Goliath while learning the text of Samuel 17.

One offshoot of this passion has been my toilet fixation. But sometimes, I don’t go looking for sanitation information, yet it just seems to find me anyways. I’ve been going to Kallah for seven years and love everything about it. This was our first trip to “civilization,” if you can call Philadelphia “civilized.” I was stationed outside Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were debated and signed. Around the grounds there are strange wooden structures with conical roofs that look as if they could fit one person at a time.

I want to make clear that when I approached a park ranger, I did not mention wash or bathrooms. Probably due to experience, she responded that the structures in question were sentry posts, not privies. Much to my delight, she continued by pointing out a patch of dirt in the grass next to the hall itself. “That,” she proudly declared, “is where the privy actually was.”

It seems the cesspit, which was used from roughly 1760-1810 (according to her), was capped to avoid contamination. Over time, the cap eroded and in the last several years degraded completely. While they have tried to re-cap the area, the parks service has yet to succeed in containing it. “It belongs to the squirrels now,” the Ranger concluded. No, I’m not certain what that means and disliking squirrels generally, I was not inclined to ask any questions.

So, completely unintentionally, the cesspit used, at least in theory, by such luminaries as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton was revealed to me. I’m not sure if I’m excited about the fact that we’ve gotten to the point where fecal remains seem to be seeking me out, but it was still a pretty cool moment, and I am quite sure I am one of the few who would get excited about the park ranger’s revelation.

So without further adieu, the Independance Hall privy: