This morning, we were all woken up early with the pounding of thunder and the sound of torrential rain falling in the north of Israel. When you hear loud "booms" in Israel, especially when you are woken out of a deep sleep it takes a moment to realize what is happening. This is especially true after visiting the border with Syria. Opening up my window and looking out the sky looked angry, a dark, dark grey color moving and swirling. With storms like this it is easy to see how the earth could have been flooded during the story of Noah.
We enjoyed one more amazing breakfast at Kfar Blum, where each and every item is fresh and hand made, before boarding our bus and heading up, up the mountains to one of my very favorite places, Tsfat, a center of Jewish mysticism for hundreds of years and a contemporary artists' colony. When we arrived Ron sat us down in a public square to explain a little bit about mysticism and Kabbala.
While it is a beautiful tradition, mysticism is very hard to grasp, especially because everything has double and triple meanings, and some meanings are hidden deep within the texts or even in the space between the letters of words. People spend their whole lives studying this in order to gain deeper understanding. Mysticism is outside of language, and one works to ascend up through different levels towards infinity. Ron explained that mysticism is beautiful, rich and nonrational. According to the Mystics purity is non physical and sin is physical. We are living in a shattered world and our job is to collect the many pieces and try to put it back together again, finding the light and recreating the perfect state of being where sin is not possible. This is obviously a difficult idea to grasp in a five minute conversation with our educator, but there is something mystical about Tsfat. There is a feeling there that is indescribable, but it is recognizably different than at any other place on earth. There is a calm and serenity there, and a beauty that is not matched.
After our introduction to Kabbala and mysticism we went and spent a few minutes learning about the artwork of David Friedman, a Tsfat artist inspired by Kabbala. David share with us many of his pieces of art and explained the meaning behind his choices. He explained gematria, which is a system of numbers assigned to certain Hebrew letters that can link words to numbers. We loved his explanations so much that many of us bought artwork there following his presentation. Feel free to ask us for the interpretation of the art we purchased. We would love to share!
Following our art lecture by David Friedman we made our way to visit the Ari synagogue. On the way we were able to peek in and see these cute kids during their studies at a local yeshiva. They looked like mini rabbis, but acted just like kids from Thousand Oaks waving and yelling "shalom shalom" to us as we walked by. I think they were more interested in the strange looking Americans walking through their town than we were in these cute mini rabbis studying mysticism and Judaism.
The Ari synagogue is an important synagogue in Tsfat. It is also really beautiful to look at. We all went inside and were in awe of the Ark and Bima, and we couldn't wait to hear more about this important place from Ron, who seems to know everything about well, everything.
But just as Ron was getting into why this was such an important synagogue, we began to hear music. It got louder and louder and finally a large group of people came into the synagogue to celebrate the bar mitzvah of a young man. I noticed that the only people coming in were men... When I turned and looked up at the women's section and saw all of the women up there I knew we were in an orthodox synagogue, which posed a problem since all of the women touring with us were in the main sanctuary. We stayed and enjoyed the music, clapping and singing along as we carefully and respectfully exited the sanctuary.
We then had some time to walk around this amazing place and shop, shop, shop.
I think we supported the local economy in a big way!
As we were leaving Tsfat and heading down the mountain we all felt the same way, which is how everyone feels leaving this great place, that we just did not have enough time to spend there. Next time...
We went to a food court for lunch where we were dining with many special guests...
It's funny, in America the sight of a gun like this would give us pause and make us uncomfortable, especially when being held by a young man or woman. In Israel, it is part of the culture and actually is reassuring that we are being kept safe. Seeing all of these soldiers makes me feel so grateful for the sacrifice that every Israeli family makes, doing the unthinkable and sending their child, their most prized asset off to possible war. It is a sacrifice that I would have a terribly hard time making.
After lunch we all used the restrooms before going back on the bus. You may be king yourself Shyam talking about going to the restroom. Here is the door to the men's room at the food court...
It seems like every building has a safe room or bomb shelter, and the food court's bomb shelter just happens to include the men's restroom. I guess when you are locked in the safe room you still might have to use the restroom...
Here is the view of the Kinerret as we were coming down the mountain. Just beautiful, especially after a rain shower.
Our next stop was Yemin Orde, a youth village which is one of Israel's most innovative educational institutions, specializing in integrating new immigrant youth into Israeli society. While on the way we got caught in terrible traffic, virtually at a stand still for an hour as we waited for workers to blow up part of the mountain where they are expanding the road we were driving on. This made us extremely late for our time at Yemin Orde. To be quite honest, I really wanted to get to Jerusalem, and I was considering calling and cancelling our stop at Yemin Orde in order to get to Jerusalem at a reasonable time.
Boy am I glad that Ron kept this stop on our itinerary.
Here, we crowded in a small hut, reminiscent of the huts some of the Ethopian immigrants would have lived in before getting to Israel. We heard the story of an immigrant who came to Israel. She very honestly share with us her journey and the difficulties coming to Israel with a skin color that is different than "normal" Israelis. Immediately I thought back to our time in Poland where we learned that Jews were always treated as others and different. She explained how now, after many years she feels like an Israeli and at home. Her sense of pride in being an Israeli was inspiring to all of us, and many in our group left this talk with tears running down our faces.
Yemin Orde takes kids who are in need and have no means of being taken care of and gives them what they deserve, a great education, a place to learn about life and a place to call home. Racheli, the woman who guided us through the faciility put it best when she said that all Yemin Orde does is to show the kids that they aren't needy, but needed. WOW! They aren't needy, they are needed. She said that when she gives a graduate a hug, she could be hugging the next prime minister, or chief of staff. Yemin Orde allows their students to reach their potential, or even reach beyond their potential. It is a very powerful and important place, one that we need to support. We shared some klezmer music with a group of graduates who were having a reunion of sorts in order to act as mentors to the current class of seniors. Our music led to a spontaneous hora where our travelers and the graduates of Yemin Orde joined together in a pure expression of joy.
There are so many lessons from this experience, one being how lucky we all are to have Israel, and her loving arms opened wide to us whenever we need her. That at a moment's notice we can come here and be home. While this is not such a big deal for us in the United States where we are given our freedom, for people like this young lady we met today, Israel is truly the promised land, paradise, the land of milk and honey. If only there were a place like this to accept immigrants before the madness of World War 2 broke out, perhaps that story would have ended differently. Perhaps Sophia would have been able to find her home in Israel. Another lesson for us all is to be sure that we are caring for the strangers in our world, both in our community and beyond, to be sure that we are not making anyone feel other again. A huge challenge, and a huge responsibility.
We boarded our bus and began our ride home to Jerusalem. On the way we were greeted by a motorcade of Prime Minister Netenyahu's vehicles as well as two Palestinian ambulances. We think that perhaps they were transporting the brother of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas who was being treated in an Israeli hospital. Think about that for a moment... The brother of the Palestinian leader was being treated in an Israeli hospital... Was this reported in the news in the United States? This could be a huge building block towards trust and peace...
We sang our traditional Shehechianu prayer as we entered Jerusalem for the first time and toasted with a kiddush. Even the grape juice in Jerusalem is sweeter.
Upon arriving in Jerusalem, Marcia and Harold Gordon and I had the pleasure of dining with Rachel Dubowe, currently in her first year of her masters degree program at HUC in Jerusalem. It was so terrific to get to dine with her and hear all about her adventures. She truly is a remarkable young woman who has made and will make a significant difference in our world... Like mother, like daughter I guess!
In front of our hotel is the BIG welcome sign...
We have done some amazing things on this trip so far, but without question my favorite place in Israel is Jerusalem. I cannot wait to share my love for the Old City with our travelers and watch as they experience all Jerusalem has to offer. We are going to interact with 4000 years of history, climb through ancient tunnels along the extension of the Western Wall, sit on the southern steps of the ancient Temple, lay our hands on the stones that we face during each and every service we do and explore the Jewish Quarter. I would love to share this city with you, too. TAE is starting to plan our next Israel adventure in June of 2017, and you should be a part of it. Come home to Israel with your communal family and discover a connection deeper than anything you could have ever imagined.
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