Here You Can See A Pile of Rocks

Michal pulled us over to the side, allowed other groups to pass, and said “ok guys” as we crowded around eagerly anticipating what she might have to tell us about the current pile of rocks before which we stood. Many times thus far we have gathered around piles of rocks which have come alive with tales of biblical heroes and cruel destruction. So we gathered around the quarry at Masada and talked about how Jewish slaves used to dig for piles of rocks, and now there’s no Roman Empire, and we just stand around and look at their rocks.

Traveling with a group this small has been a blessing. We are very lucky to be traveling with an energetic crew from Calgary, an experienced and talented tour guide, and a minibus! If we were 14 people on a 50 seat bus, we certainly would have taken longer to build this family atmosphere we’ve come to treasure.

Daniella’s post was our last chametz-free post. We have since eaten more than enough pita to make up for lost time. We started on Ben Yehuda street where chametz consumption resumed through shwarma, hamburgers, and pizza. There was shopping and ice cream and a good shluff before a really tough Tuesday.

We spent the day at Yad Vashem and Har Herzel. If you look at the pictures, you can see that at the entrance to Yad L'Yeled is a silver sculpture of a hand holding up 6 torches. There's just unlimited things to look at and learn at Yad Vashem and for some reason the sculpture never caught my eye before. Or else it's new.

The entire campus is full of symbols of coming out of the ashes but the sculpture struck a chord for me. The people who have given their lives or have had them taken from them pass the torch to us. By learning and visiting we accept it, and it is up to us to keep the flames lit when we leave this place.

This reminder came back at us repeatedly as we heard the stories of Michael Levin and Yoni Netanyahu, Channah Senesh, and the Jews at Masada.

Being at the bridge of the museum, watching the sun rise over Masada, and standing at Herzl's grave, you can't help but be inspired by the courage and sacrifice it has taken to get us here and how much life has come from these depths. Hopefully this will hit home when we meet up with the Israelis next week.

Now, interspersed there with all that heaviness was an awesome camel ride, Bedouin feasts, mud-slathering, and floating. On Wednesday, we watched the sun rise in the Judean Desert while everyone at home got ready to go back to school. While they were eating lunch we watched it set in the Negev. But then our guys got to work. They were cutting and gluing, coloring, drawing, and the photographs today got real interesting.

The day started at Maktesh Ramon snapping a few genius panoramas before hiking Ein Avdat and visiting Ben Gurion’s grave.

Ben Gurion was a guy who liked a good pile of rocks. He came from the pogroms and looked at the pile of rocks that is the Negev Desert and said “here will do, we accept the Partition Plan.” He looked at the pile of rocks that was Sde Boker and said “here will do, I’d like to take a break from being prime minister and live here for a while.” He looked at the pile of rocks on the cliffs and said “here will do,” and he’s still there.

The last stop for the day was in the village of Lakia. We were going to visit the Huria Bedouin Villa and it definitely didn’t stand out. When we parked in front of a pile of garbage and broken down cars I thought this was quite the downgrade from the previous piles of rocks… And then we met Amal. 

Amal took us from the pile into the 200 year old villa mostly to help drive home her story. Amal was born into a prestigious family who owned the Huria Villa. While Bedouin women were not forbidden to study in university when she was 20, they were exclusively allowed to be teachers. When Amal announced she would be a nurse, her family endured threats, violence, and ostracism in support of her dream. When trauma forced her from her career as a pediatric oncology nurse she started an organization to support Bedouin women seeking opportunities and proper health education. Daniella played a little dress-up, and we took off for the big city.

Tomorrow we will tour in Tel Aviv. This name is derived from Herzl's dream of turning the ancient land into a modern country. His "Old-New Country" was called in German "Altneuland" and in Hebrew "Tel Aviv." 

Aviv is the Hebrew word for the season of Spring. The name Tel Aviv, miles of sand dunes a mere century ago, denotes rebirth, like Altneuland. Like the sunrise at Masada. Like the Jerusalem panorama observed from Yad Vashem and from Herzl's tomb. 

"Tel" is defined as a mound that has been created by the repeated destruction and rebuilding of settlements on a specific plot of land. Or: a pile of rocks.

Chametz, anyone?

I promise to write something meaningful soon, but for now enjoy these pictures and your last day of matza!

Almost time for pita! - Daniella's pre-Chag blog

If you like rocks and tunnels, you wish you were with us today! We saw the excavations of the Kotel, the Southern Wall, the Cardo, AND the City of David! We walked about 10 km and drank about 3 litres of water (meaning we visited about half the washrooms in the Old City) and went through a crazy whirlwind tour of Ancient Jerusalem.

I'll let Daniella tell you about it all...

We started off with a bright and earlier morning to discover some Kotel tunnels.  Underground in the tunnels we learned all about the history of the land where the Temple was. We talked a lot about Mount Moriah and everything that led up to the destruction of the Second Temple.

After, we got to explore the ancient City of David. I got a great picture of the city. My favourite part of today was what came next when we went to Hezekiah's tunnel. The tunnel started off dry, then we went into a part of the tunnel that was dark and filled with water. I was really scared to go into the watery part of the tunnel, but it ended up being really fun. The water wasn't that cold or deep, it was just right.

We went through one more tunnel, a dry one, to reach the Davidson Center Archaeological Gardens. It was a really cool part of the Temple ruins.  I found the most interesting part of today was the tour of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.

The reason I was so fascinated was because out of the four quarters in Jerusalem, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Armenian, the Jewish quarter was the smallest. I always thought that Jews had so much of the land in Jerusalem. I was surprised to learn that Jews had the least land in Jerusalem. For our last activity in Jerusalem, we went to the Western Wall. It was way more crowded then yesterday, but it was nice to see it one last time.

"There are way more Jews here than at home!" - Sasha

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!

Group Photo

Here we are in Jerusalem! It's dinner time on my schedule but shluffy time in my body, so I'm not gonna say much, but we're here safe and excited. I'll try to get students to do lots of writing and take lots of photos. Enjoy the weekend as we will and Shabbat Shalom!