Shalom parents! We have now been
in Israel for 2 days, and we have already seen and done so much. Yesterday when
we arrived at the airport our friend, Noa, met us before making our way to the lookout from Mount Scopus. There were way
more Jewish-Jewish-Jewish people there than we usually come across at home. You
know the Jewish-Jewish-Jewish with the hats with no logos? We took the group
picture and it’s crazy to think that after 10 years at TT, here is our class in
front of Jerusalem…
We came back to the hotel and, after a long-awaited
shower, made our way to the Old City. We went to the Kotel, where each person
put a note in, and we then talked about what the Kotel means to us, and how the
experience impacted us.
This morning we walked to the
Great Synagogue of Jerusalem, an Orthodox synagogue (the largest one in
Jerusalem), and observed the service. The service was very similar to the way a
service at Beth Israel is conducted. We played some games and ice breakers at a
nearby park. During one of the activities we participated in, we picked cards
with things that were related to Israel and Judaism, that we either connected
with, or found interesting. I picked the Yom Kippur war. Some other things that
were picked were Jerusalem, the Kotel, Hannah Senesh, and Hatikva.
We just
came from the Israel museum, where we saw so many cool things. Our tour guide,
Michal, took us to an area with a model of Jerusalem during the Second Temple
period. She explained how it was laid out, and which wall is currently the
Western Wall. She then took us to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, parts of the Allepo
Codex, and an exhibit showing different Israeli painting and sculptures about
Jesus. There were lots of interesting painting and sculptures spread out around
the museum. Sadly, the museum was closing, so we didn’t get to see everything.
After struggling to get inside the letters, we had a short photoshoot at the
ahava sculpture, to get the famous picture that so many before us have gotten.
Lauren
went on a family visit this morning, and met us at the museum. She had one of
the Calgary chaperones bring her bag, so of course we distributed all the
things from her backpack into ours, and put in water bottles to replace the weight
of the missing items. After leaving the museum, she still had not noticed. We
then stopped for a snack, and to play a few games, and she still did not
notice. Everybody passed around her hairbrush and started brushing their hair,
and she still didn’t notice. It wasn’t until she noticed her journal on the
floor, that she opened her bag and realized all of her stuff was gone. One
prank at a time we’re clearly bonding as a group of Albertans!
We’ve
just come back to the hotel for a short chofesh, and from here we plan to make
our way to Ben Yehuda Street. This will be our first chance to fulfill the
dreams of Homer Simpson: “I came to eat some strange foreign food and spread
some shekels on my Carolina Panthers credit card.”
Hoping
you had a great Shabbat! Ours was amazing and I can’t believe we’ve only been
here 2 days!
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