A Whirlwind Northern Tour--Part 1

I’m going to attempt to relate the past five days to you as accurately as possible but I’m afraid my command for words is not really adequate enough to really convey just how incredibly amazing my Spring Break has been so far. So here goes nothing. (Also, we did so much and met so many ridiculous people that this is just going to be a sweeping overview, and you can ask for the ridiculous stories at a later date)

I, with two darling friends Dana and Cody, left Jerusalem early Thursday morning, cruising happily in our rented baby blue Hyundai aptly named Santiago. Despite having to wait a while at the rental place and having our vehicle checked at the checkpoint leaving the West Bank (we had to drive through it to get to our first destination), we arrived at our first stop close to on schedule. (We were actually somewhat happy that we had some glitches early on because that got the inevitable “hiccup in the plan” that must happen on every trip out of the way).

Our first stop was Bet She’an National Park, the most amazingly preserved ruins of a Roman town that I have ever seen. I remarked during our time there that the place was like an ancient playground. You can run through, stand amongst, climb on, nap on, and really in any way you desire interact with the crumbled walls, discarded stones, and fallen columns that lie all over the place. I never imagined being able to get so up close and personal with history anywhere, so I was just giddy with excitement the entire time. I was worried that since Bet She’an was just so cool everything else on the trip was going to be a disappointment. Not true.

From Beth She’an we continued north towards the Sea of Galilee. On the way we stopped at Belvoir Fortress, the ruins of a hilltop castle overlooking the Jordan Valley. Since it was a National Park we would have had to pay to get in and since we were only coming for a drive by we decided to skip the park itself and just go to a look out point. Here we caught our first glimpse of the Sea itself!! We could see for miles and miles in all directions and view of the Jordan Valley was absolutely stunning. This exclamation about beautiful views will be a recurring theme in this blog post.

We came upon the Galilee from the south and caught the road that goes completely around the entire sea, which we followed clockwise, stopping at strategic points along the way. Our first stop was Yardenit, a baptismal site on the Jordan River and supposedly where Jesus was baptized. Aside from the powerful religious significance the place is just absolutely stunning. The “mighty river Jordan” flows so peacefully though lush vegetation and they’ve turned this place into a beautiful little alcove. We saw tons of people getting baptized and even saw some wildlife (lots of fish and a pair of beavers). Probably the highlight though was the biblical passage from Mark translated into many languages. One was Hawaiian Pidgen, which, frankly, seemed unbelievably offensive. I’ll let you judge it for yourself though.

Stop #2 was Kibbutz Ginnosaur, the site of the Jesus Boat! During a time of really low water level in the Galilee in the 80s, two Kibbutzniks stumbled upon the remains of an old wooden boat. Through a lot of scientific testing and sophisticated technology in regards to transportation and preservation, the boat was moved to a museum and determined to be from the first century, essentially the time Jesus and his disciples were living in the area. There’s lots of speculation about who actually used the boat, but nonetheless, looking at a 2,000 year old wooden boat was pretty neat.

One of the cool things about this trip was that since we had our own car we could be spontaneous. If we saw a brown sign pointing to a site that sounded interesting we could check it out because we were very much on our own schedule. I’m so glad we did because I don’t think I ever would have stopped at the magical land that was the Greek Orthodox church on the northern shore of the Galilee. The first thing we saw when we walked into this church was a gigantic and gorgeous peacock, sitting in a tree! I, as Cody said, “Nearly laid an egg on the path” when I saw it, because let’s be real, who expects to see a peacock sitting in a tree in the middle of Israel? I certainly didn’t. There were actually 5 or 6 of these beautiful birds around the grounds of the church, as well as olive trees, lemon trees, hibiscus plants, and other beautiful shrubbery. Whoever did the landscape design for this place is amazing. There were even frogs in the little pond, sitting on lilypads. SO perfect. The church itself was, as all Greek Orthodox churches are, incredibly ornately decorated as well. We were also able to go down to the shore of the lake and get our first feel of the sea. I’m so glad we stumbled upon this church because it was such a hidden gem.

Unfortunately the rest of the sites around the Sea were closed by the time we finished with the Jesus Boat and Greek Orthodox church, so the rest of the day was spent just driving, finishing the Galilee loop. Yet this drive may have been one of the most breathtaking I’ve experienced. At one point we had to stop the car on the side of the road because Cody had a spazz attack saying “It’s just so beautiful we have to take a picture”. Dana could not stop saying “I just feel so lucky” and I must have uttered the most terrible cliches over and over again because of my loss for words. " Honestly we were all just so taken aback by the beauty of the lake, the surrounding hills, the sunset, the greenery—everything was amazing. We stopped at several lookout points to take pictures and enjoy the beauty, which my camera really inadequately captured. To finish off our first day, we explored a little bit of Tiberias, a pretty happening town on the western shore of the sea that treated us quite nicely.

On our way out of Tiberias the next morning we paid our respect to two big names of Judaism, visiting the tombs of Rabbi Akiva and Maimonides (aka the Rambam). My Orthodox Judaism professor will be proud. Moving from Judaism to Christianity we next drove through Migdal, the town where Mary Magdalene was from. There wasn’t really anything to see there but it was a beautiful little town so it was nice to drive through. Next was Capernaum (Kfar Nachum, in Hebrew), the town mentioned a few times in Matthew as the place Jesus settled and “called his own” during the portion of his life in the Galilee. This is also where Simon Peter was from, so there was the remains of an old church that was built on the site of another church, which was built on the remains of another church, which was built where Simon Peter’s house was. There was a modern church built on the same grounds. Next to the churches was the ruins of the town of Capernaum from the 4^th century and really impressively preserved remains of a synagogue from around the same time. Again, the grounds of this place were really beautiful and well kept, with a gorgeous beach and view of the sea. I feel like I must have said 8,000 times “This is unbelievable” or something along those lines referring to how spectacular the region is.

The church of the Primacy of Peter (above) and the church of the Multiplication were two other stops nearby Capernaum. The Church of the Multiplication commemorates the place where the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000 was supposed to have taken place. Our last church of the day was definitely my favorite: the Church of the Beatitudes atop the Mount of Beatitudes, overlooking the sea. I wont try to describe the church, I’ll just let you look at the pictures, because it’s just dazzling. I read the first part of the Sermon on the Mount out loud on the balcony of the church while Dana and Cody pretended to be disciples. It was pretty awesome.

Leaving the Galilee region to the north we next drove up to Tsfat, the birthplace of Kabbalah (the mystical form of Judaism). Tsfat is really high elevation-wise, so the views from the city are really beautiful. There are trees everywhere and it’s definitely greener than anywhere I’ve been in Israel. We spent most of our time in Tsfat in the artists colony, perusing galleries with amazing paintings, prints, jewelry, and other types of art. It reminded me a lot of Jaffa, where we went earlier in the semester. I even bought a little print (the only thing I could afford—oh how I wish I’ll one day have the disposable income to spend on art).

I'm going to leave it at that for now, and write Part 2 soon. As always, check out facebook for many more pictures, since this is just a sampling. Thanks for reading and I'll be back soon with more!! Chag Sameach to everyone :)

The Hopes and Fears of All the Years

Last Saturday I took a trip to Bethlehem. I hadn’t yet been, despite the little town being only a 20 or 30 minute trip from Jerusalem. We started with the Church of the Nativity (built over the cave where, as the name implies, Jesus was supposed to have been born). I have to say, I was underwhelmed with the place, despite the incredible religious significance. The church itself is really impossible to identify (no signage directing you there or marking the door or anything), the entrance was a door that could not have been more than 4 ½ feet tall. When I have to significantly bend over to get through a doorway you know it’s too small. The church opened up into a little entrance room with absolutely nothing in it whatsoever, just wooden beams on the roof (trying to look like a barn, perhaps?). The sanctuary was also very odd—it was huge but very plain. There was an altar and really ornate decoration in the front of the church, as you would expect out of any kind of cathedral, but the rest of it was very very plain. It was as if they were trying to make it super beautiful and threw in every possible holy or even remotely-religious sign into the altar and then lost interest and left the rest empty. Every square inch was either totally overdone or completely left alone. We had to go around the back and down some stairs to the shrine that marks the birthplace of Jesus. We waited in line to kneel down and see the star that marks the magic spot, and luckily it was pretty empty that day so we didn’t have to wait for long. Again, the whole area was just very strange. There was ugly cloth hanging everywhere and strange chandeliers that were only half lit and a bizarre cage around part of the wall—I was just very confused the whole time. We continued to follow the corridor and it opened up to a very beautiful sanctuary that was clearly much more modern. I liked that one a lot. We also followed a staircase down into “the grotto” which consisted of a cave with random tables, chairs, crucifixes, and latin phrases all over the place. Again, there was no signage or anything explaining what was going on. I decided to start making up a significance for everything. At that point the visit got a lot more fun.

Our next stop was the Milk Grotto which, if you can believe it, was even stranger. The story of the Milk Grotto is that Mary and Joseph stayed there while they were fleeing from Herod’s slaying of the baby boys. While encamped there, a drop of milk fell from Mary (while she was feeling the baby) and turned the ground white. Now there is a convent and church on this ground. Our favorite part of this shrine was the plaque that said “Cryptus Lactus”. That was funny. There was also a pretty complex on the roof with a cemetery and a nice view of the city.

Aside from the disappointment of the religious sites, I really liked Bethlehem a lot. It’s a small and pretty city, with peaceful streets and a buzzing but not bustling local population. We walked through the market a little bit and got a good feel for the vibe of the place, which I enjoyed very much. We also checked out some of the olive wood carving shops, and I got a really nice ornament that I’m excited to add to our collection. I figured when Bethlehem, it’s pretty necessary to get a Christmas accessory. The trip also made me really excited for Christmas despite the 8 month wait…there were banners and Christmas lights everywhere. Christmas all year round doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me!

Now just to inform you of what’s to come: On Thursday my Spring Break commences!! I’m spending the first chunk of time up north, the Galilee, Nazareth, Akko, and Haifa are the big places I’ll be hitting. Then I go down south for the Passover Seder with my family (and RONI IS COMING) and I’ll spend a few days after with them as well. Then I’ll be back in Jerusalem for a few days Good Friday through Easter (potentially braving the crowds at the Church of the Holy Sepluchre for Easter?) and on the Monday after Easter I fly to Istanbul for 6 days!! It will be a busy 2 ½ weeks but I’m SO excited about what’s to come!! So stay tuned for what’s sure to be a plethora of stories and pictures from the next couple weeks!

Desert Adventures

I know you were all waiting in anxious anticipation for my newest blog post so I apologize for my delay. In doing so many fun things I’ve been really neglecting school work, so I had to catch up on some of that before I could justify doing things like blogging. But now I want to tell you about the exciting desert adventure I had this weekend!

Thursday night I, along with 4 friends, took a bus down to Masada with the plan of hiking the famous monument for the sunrise on Friday morning. Masada is a hilltop fotress located in the middle of the Negev (the Judean Desert), famous as the site of a Jewish revolt around the year 70. According to the most widely-accepted and archaologically corroborated version of the story, the Jewish Zealots fled to Masada after the destruction of the temple and were followed there by the Roman army. The Romans laid siege to the hilltop and after building an entirely new ramp to the top, broke through the walls built by the Zealots, conquering the fortress. However, the Jews decided that rather than allowing themselves to be conquered and committing themselves to a life of slavery under the Romans they decided to kill themselves. So around 960 Jews committed suicide on the mountain rather than submitting to the Romans. Because of this incredible story Masada has become a really important part of Israeli history and culture, both as a symbol of the strength of the Jewish people in the face of oppression and as a landmark to antiquity and heritage. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada) Aside from all the historical stuff, Masada is just an awesome experience in and of itself. The hike is very steep, about 350 meters basically straight up, and the view from the top is phenomenal. The Dead Sea is very close so from the path and the top of the mountain itself you can see a gorgeous view of the Sea, Jordan on the other side, and the surrounding desert. Since we made it up for the sunrise the view was even more spectacular. We had a little complication with daylight savings time starting that same morning and our phones not automatically changing but we powered up that hill and made it without missing the sun.

Atop the mountain there are pretty well-preserved ruins of the fortress as it was during Roman times. There is a church, a synagogue, two palaces, mosaics, a really neat water cistern, etc.

That afternoon we headed over to Ein Gedi, where there is a public beach and access to the Dead Sea! We all laughed at the sign on the beach instructing swimmers of how to enter the sea: “Wade until you can squat then lean back gently”. Despite our mockery though, this proved to be the most effective way to enter the water. This was my second time in the Dead Sea (that I can remember) and it was no less bizarre an experience than the first time. It’s pretty hard to not float, if you’re on your back and try to stand up it takes a lot of effort to force your legs under water. Flipping over onto your stomach is funny too because you don’t want to get your face anywhere close to the water because of the salt, so you end up flailing trying to float on your stomach while craining your neck back to protect your face. Just watching people’s reactions to the Dead Sea experience provides hours of entertainment. We swam/floated/drifted over to a cove nearby in order to access a pit of the famous dead sea mud which we slathered all over our bodies. After rinsing it off my skin felt softer than I ever thought possible. It was very cool. A downside to the Dead Sea experience is that even the smallest cut on your body stings terribly in the salt water, and because all the rocks on the beach and on the sea floor are encrusted with salt they’re super sharp. So someone as clumsy and injury prone as I am had a little bit of a rough time handling myself, but luckily everyone looks like a fool at the Dead Sea so I fit in quite well.

We spent Saturday at the Ein Gedi nature reserve, basically a tropical oasis in the middle of the desert. It’s mentioned in the book of 1 Samuel that David goes there when he’s running from Saul who is trying to kill him. Today it’s a popular destination both for tourists and for Israelis taking a day trip to do some hiking. There are water falls, caves, canyons, ancient ruins—it’s just a really beautiful places. We spent several hours hiking up onto the cliffs surrounding the preserve, and in doing so witnessed some absolutely stunning views of the Dead Sea and desert surrounding the preserve. My favorite place we hiked to was called Dudim's cave, but I prefer to refer to it as Dooms cave. Several of us commented that we felt like we were in Lost or something like that. It was really really cool.

As always, check out facebook for more pictures. What's here is just a sampling.

On Sunday, after spending the day working on a paper, I joined my friends for a birthday celebration. We went to Beit Ticho, which is a house turned museum in Jerusalem known for it’s delicious restauruant. We read about it in our Hebrew textbook so we’d been dying to try it. It certainly did not disappoint. If you’re looking for a nice meal in Jerusalem, Little Jerusalem Café in Beit Ticho (The Ticho House) is an excellent choice.

No Snakes, Just Awesome

Well, I look diseased as a result of the tie-dye tan-pink-white business going on on my shoulders and the colony of bug bites currently existing on my legs, but I’m extremely happy nonetheless. I just got back from an incredible weekend down in the very south of Israel, where I had the chance to hang out with camels, swim in the Red Sea, visit one of the “new” 7 wonders of the world, and get a whole lot of sun.

Last Sunday was Purim, which means we had a long weekend: Friday-Monday, so my friends and I took advantage of the break to take a long trip. We had some snafus getting down there but we eventually made it to Eilat Friday night just in time to walk to the beach and see the very very touristy resorty beachfront that Eilat has. It was interesting seeing the different sections of the beach: the first part was very “Jersey Shore/Santa Monica/beach fair” kind of place with huge fair-ride kind of contraptions, ice cream stands, kiosks selling sunglasses, flip flops, jewelry, clothes—you get the picture. Then we got to a section with a super fancy hotel and all of a sudden there were more high end stores, “gelaterias” rather than ice cream stands, and cafes rather than kiosks. Then we got to an even nicer hotel and everything changed again. We chose a random place for dinner since we were all starving and it looked reasonable/tasty enough and though our food looked amazing when it came out on plates, pretty much everyone was disappointed with it. So don’t go to “Hof Maman” if you ever eat in Eilat. Trust me.

Yet, there are few things a little ice cream can’t fix and we went to bed happy to be in Eilat. The next morning we woke up early to go to Petra, the ancient city in Jordan that is carved into stone, one of the seven wonders of the world, and (most importantly) the site of the climax of Indiana Jones The Last Crusade, and also where they filmed said scene. Needless to say, we were all pretty stoked about this trip. We opted to take an official tour because of the complexities of crossing the border (it was a lengthy, complicated, multi-step process), which was a great decision because we had a series of awesome people carting us around. The first was our driver from the border to Petra. He stopped on the side of the road at one point so we could say hello to some Bedouins and their camels. This was probably the highlight of the morning since I totally bonded with the little Bedouin boy. I (very ashamedly because of the disgustingly American touristy-ness of the action) took a picture with him and his camel and he put his arm around me with a huge smile and said “say cheese”. Then I asked him his name and he responded “Sagran, what is your name?” so I told him and we shook hands. Then after everyone else had had a chance to get a picture with the camel, I went back over and was petting the camel, marveling at the interesting feeling of its fur when Sagran poked me and held out a rubber band bracelet contraption thing. I looked at it and said something like “Oh that’s cool” and he motioned for me to hold my hand out, so I did, and he put it on my wrist and said “For you”, and patted my arm. I thanked him profusely and we had a little moment, then the most brilliant idea occurred to me. I was wearing three silly bands (I always wear them, for times like these) and I thought, “hey, maybe he will think they’re cool”. So I took one off to show him the shape (it was a pink sparkly crown—probably not the best for an 11 year old boy, but it was what I had) but before I got very far he started to pull the yellow one off my wrist too. So I took it off and gave it to him, and he tied them together the same way the rubber bands he gave me were tied. He was struggling a little with it, so I helped him out and then he tried to put it back on my arm, and I told him no, and motioned for him to put his arm out. Then I put the bracelet on his wrist and he looked at me very confused. I said “for you” and he got this huge smile on his face and took my hand and said “Thank you. Thank you very much”. Then a guy came over requesting a camel ride so Sagran said “goodbye” and I told him the same and we parted ways. But, I still have my bracelet and don’t think I’m ever going to take it off because the whole encounter was just that cool.

Eventually we made it to Petra and embarked on our tour with Ali, the local Arab fellow who was the most succinct yet informative tour guide I have ever had the privilege of experiencing. My favorite part of Ali was the fact that he told our group “I have decided to call our group B1. I cannot remember all your names so I will call us B1. When I say B1, that means you.” Then he proceeded to say many times throughout the tour “Okay B1, look here”, “So we know, B1, that the Nabateans were an ancient people”, or “Are we all here B1. Okay B1”. It was hysterical (because he had a super thick accent as well so it made things even funnier). I’m not conveying this well in narrative form, but I promise it was funny. Petra itself, by the way, is even more incredible than pictures, National Geographic articles, and Discovery Channel specials can describe. The city was carved right out of the sandstone cliffs by the Nabatean people in ancient times, then taken over by the Romans and eventually the Byzantines, so there’s influence from all the time periods within the area. You walk into the city through a narrow canyon called the Siq, with super super high walls. The Siq opens up to the most famous site, the Treasury (the home of the Holy Grail, where I was earnestly searching for Harrison Ford and Sean Connery…I didn’t find them). The beauty, legends, stories, and history of the place are just unbelievable. There are other really awesome sites as well including tombs, a theater, columns, etc. and we spent several hours both with the tour guide and on our own afterwards. There’s so much to see in Petra that you could spend a good 3 days there, but our afternoon showed us the highlights and most famous sites, so I was certainly satisfied. Also included in our tour was lunch at this incredible buffet called the Magic Restaurant with the most delicious traditional Jordanian food. I gorged myself. It was, faithful to it’s name, truly magical.

Before crossing the border back to Israel our driver took us on a little driving tour of Aqaba, the border city on the Jordanian side. In the past few years the government, seeing its potential for tourism, has put millions and millions of dollars into the city building hotels and cleaning it up and making the streets nice, etc. I must say they’ve done an incredible job, because it was pretty beautiful.

The border crossing on the way back took another hour and a half or so, most of which was spent analyzing this one Israeli gentleman whose purpose was very ambiguous (much to Cody’s frustration—he was wearing a badge and looked official but was not in uniform, and frankly did absolutely nothing other than stand around, open a window, talk to a security person, stand around, etc for the entire hour we were in the security line. Whatever). We FINALLY got back to Eilat and went out to eat dinner and met a whole host of new characters (which remains a story for another day).

The next day was spent exactly the way a day in Eilat should be: exclusively at the beach. I and two friends took a glass bottom boat tour in the morning: two hours cruising the gulf, looking into four different countries (Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia), and seeing some really beautiful fish and reefs (a kid dropped a cheetoh onto the window on the floor of the boat through which we were looking at reefs, so all my pictures have a cheetoh in the middle. Cute.) It was sweltering so I spent a lot of time in the water (much saltier and warmer than the pacific) and relaxing on the beach with pleasure reading. It was a glorious day, and excellent topper to a beautiful weekend.

Not the post I was planning to write

I had planned on spending my free afternoon writing all about my incredible weekend in Eilat and Petra and all the fun I've been having. But then yesterday happened and I feel like I owe a blog post to the situation. For those of you who are not aware, a package was left on the street near the central bus station in Jerusalem yesterday afternoon. It exploded and one person was killed while over 30 others were wounded. I was on Mount Scopus in class and in the library all day so I was nowhere near the site of the bombing. Neither were any of my friends. However I got to class this morning and found out from my teacher that the one person killed in the attack was a woman named Mary, who was in our class. This news, as you can imagine, hit hard. All of sudden this attack that I was beginning to cope with and get past, took on a whole new meaning. Now it's personal, close to my heart, and much more of a reality. I'll write a little more about Mary in a bit, but first I want to say a bit about what I've observed and felt since this all happened.

Naturally I was a little shaken up when I first heard about the bombing itself, if for no other reason than the thought that I ride buses and go through that station all the time. Of course I knew coming here that there's a history of violence in Jerusalem, but never once have I felt unsafe. I've ridden the bus with no hesitation and traveled all over with no second thoughts. While I still don't think I'm in any kind of real danger, having this happen so close and in a place so familiar is a chilling experience.

Seeing the reaction of everyone to the incident was almost a cultural experience in and of itself. Yesterday afternoon the university immediately sent a mass text message to all the students asking us to get in touch with certain people to confirm that we were okay, administrators came into classrooms to call roll and see that everyone was accounted for, and all throughout campus you could hear students on the phone talking to loved ones, explaining what happened, confirming their safety. I had class pretty soon after the incident happened and almost as if nothing happened, my professor went on with his lecture as normal. When administrators came into talk to my Hebrew class this morning they emphasized the importance of going forth with your routine, not letting acts of terror knock you off your normal day-to-day life. The best way to cope, everyone has been telling us, is to keep going as normal. That must be how this country has been able to endure despite everything it has gone through. It knows how to deal with tragedy and as unfortunate as it is, this kind of thing happens often enough that the country just automatically goes into crisis mode, deals with the situation, and emerges stronger. That's not to say that each time an attack happens there aren't fresh wounds, unique mourning, and new grief, but this way of reacting is just a testament to what a special place Israel is.

Additionally, people have been coming together in beautiful ways. Last night my friend Andrew organized a multi-faith prayer group for anyone and everyone who wanted to join. There were about 15-20 students there, each praying or reciting verses or singing in multiple languages from multiple traditions. A lot of people shared words of comfort, offered insight putting politics aside, and united as one, pledging to respond to the tragedy in a way that comes out positively. Praying for peace and stability amidst this turmoil. It was a really moving and impacting time and I know similar types of events were going on all across the country.

Now I want to say a little bit about Mary, to attempt as best I can to memorialize her. As I can imagine always happens to those who lose an acquaintance, it breaks my heart to think that I didn't get to know her as well as I could have. There is so much about her I never learned--her last name for instance. But here's what I do know about her:

She is from Scotland originally but has lived for the past several years in Togo, working with missionaries to teach English. She told our Ulpan class about the many many places all over the world where she traveled and worked, which only makes me think of how many lives she touched. I know she had a huge impact in her 59 years of life and am so thankful for all the good she did literally all over the world. I don't know much about her family, but I do remember that she had a lot of siblings, all of whom were also spread all across the planet. She loved travel books and Jane Austen, always wore a ribbon on her ponytail, and I cannot remember seeing her without a smile on her face. She also told us during Ulpan that she once met JK Rowling just as she was becoming famous :) She was studying here learning Hebrew as part of a bible translation program, working until the last second of her life to make the word of God accessible to people everywhere. She certainly brought a special light to our Hebrew class and it's going to be quite difficult walking into class on Monday, and every day after, only to see an empty seat.

Thanks for reading, and keep the city of Jerusalem in your thoughts and prayers. I'll conclude with a passage that was the inspiration for my blog title and has always been a favorite of mine, but now takes on a whole new meaning.

Psalm 122:
A Song of Ascents of David

¹ I rejoiced with those who said to me,

“Let us go to the house of the LORD.”
² Our feet are standing
in your gates, Jerusalem.

³ Jerusalem is built like a city
that is closely compacted together.
⁴ That is where the tribes go up—
the tribes of the LORD—
to praise the name of the LORD
according to the statute given to Israel.
⁵ There stand the thrones for judgment,
the thrones of the house of David.

⁶ Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May those who love you be secure.
⁷ May there be peace within your walls
and security within your citadels.”
⁸ For the sake of my family and friends,
I will say, “Peace be within you.”
⁹ For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
I will seek your prosperity.

A Very Holy Day

I promised a continuation of the stuff I did last weekend, so here’s a quick update before I get into my Eilat trip. On Saturday I caught up on most of the touristy/obligatory Jerusalem things to do that I have not yet visited this trip, almost all of which are Christian holy sites. My friend Cody had two friends visiting so I tagged along with them to first the Mount of Olives. This is the site of Jesus’ resurrection and where Jews believe the Messiah will come. That’s why there’s a huge Jewish cemetery on the hill—Jews believe that when the Messiah comes, those who are buried there will be resurrected first because they are actually physically present. We were able to walk from Mount Scopus (where campus is) to the Mount of Olives since they’re actually on the same ridge. Our first top was the Church of the Ascension, which is actually a relatively new Lutheran church with a very high bell tower. We climbed the tower (or Kircheturm as the sign said, much to my german delight) several hundred steps and witnessed an incredible view of Jerusalem to one side and the West Bank to the other. Our next stop was a sort of hut that houses the spot from where it is said Jesus ascended into Heaven. It’s now controlled by Muslims because it’s within the grounds of a mosque. There’s this stone inside where supposedly you can see Jesus’ footprint. Frankly it was kind of a bizarre, boring place, but oh well.

From there we went to the Church of the Our Father. This is supposedly where Jesus learned the Our Father and where he taught the disciples the prayer. I don’t know how people chose this specific place for these things to have occurred, but whatever. The church was beautiful. It was a small chapel with very beautiful grounds, but the coolest part was that they had translated the Our Father/Lord’s Prayer (if you’re Catholic or Protestant) into what had to have been every single language on earth. There were tiles with the prayer all over the walls of the grounds and it was really fun walking around seeing all the different types of scripts and alphabets and even just the huge number of languages that exist. Naturally I took pictures of/with the languages of significance to me. They even had the prayer in Braille in several different languages. It was very very cool.

Next we walked through the huge cemetery a bit, making our way down to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus went to pray on the night before he was crucified. That’s one of my favorite place in Jerusalem because it’s beautiful and subtle as opposed to so many of the other churches and holy sites that are super gaudy and ostentatious. Unfortunately, though, I was kind of disappointed with this visit because there were so many people and huge tour groups that I felt like I couldn’t really enjoy it and soak it in and be at peace. But I can always go back, and I’m actually interested to see what the place is like during Holy Week. I bet it’s crazy.

(The Mount of Olives also affords the most beautiful view of the Old City of Jerusalem)

After delicious humus in the Old City (there’s a place called Chumus Lina that I went to three times in three days this weekend…it’s that good—and people just kept wanting to go when I was with them, so I went three times with three groups of people. Not my choosing, but I didn’t complain) we went to Mount Zion, which lies right outside the Zion Gate of the Old City. Mount Zion is the site of Dormition Abbey (a gorgeous building), the room where the Last Supper was supposed to be held, and the Tomb of King David. There is also a cemetery on Mount Zion where Oskar Schindler is buried, so we naturally payed him a little visit. On the other side of Mount Zion is the valley of Gehenna, which is widely considered to be biblically connected to the place of Hell. So I gazed into Hell for a bit and decided I was alright staying up on Mount Zion for the time being.

(Last Supper room)

All in all, it was a very full and productive day of site seeing. I’m still checking things off my to do in Jerusalem list and getting to the end, surprisingly enough! It’s time to start exploring more outside of Jerusalem, which brings me to this weekend in Eilat!!! I’ll have that post up soon (pictures are on facebook though already if you want a preview of what’s to come). Thanks, as always, for reading!!