Under the Western Wall Enjoying a Dead Sea float
Under the spell of the Masada Story 
In the Hotel Lobby
In the Hotel Lobby
Today brings a new feature to this blog--photos!! Thanks to Steve Reisman, photographer and tech support par excellence, and to a much improved internet connection (thank you, Cafe Joe!), your blogging rabbi has been able to post just a few views of the past days' adventures. I hope they add some color to the Tikvah in Israel story!
We spent today (Monday) in Jerusalem, exploring the highs and lows, both figurative and literal, of Jewish history. We began the day underground, in the tunnel beneath the Western Wall. The Western wall tunnel is a relatively new tourist site--it opened officially in the early 1990's--and a visit here has completely changed the way I will view the Kotel forever. For, as becomes obvious when you are below it, that which we call the Western Wall is only a tiny fragment of the original wall that formed the outer perimeter of the Second Temple complex. The actual wall extends an additional 35 feet below ground! Here, below ground, it is possible to understand how the Temple complex was constructed, and what it looked like when it was standing. Here we had a chance to see and touch the largest known stone in the world (it's about the length of our tour bus!). And here we walked north beneath the Western wall to reach the point that is closest to where the actual Temple, and its inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies, stood. Underground, far closer to the center of Jewish history than at the Kotel itself, we joined our voices to those of our ancestors and sang out the Shema together.
From below ground we ascended the hills of Jerusalem to visit Yad Va'Shem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial and Museum. Those in our group who had visited Yad VaShem a decade or more before were in for a new experience. The museum has been significantly expanded and updated. Digital technology allows you to hear and see witnesses to the Holocaust throughout the Museum--along with the artifacts (an old pair of shoes, a necklace, a child's drawing, a strap of tefillin leather) that tell stories of their own. To say the obvious--this is not an easy place to visit. To view the exhibit, you have to zigzag back and forth through fairly narrow rooms--it is as if the architecture itself evokes futility and despair. However, that same architecture turns to hope and redemption at as the exhibit ends. The entire back wall of the building is one large picture window through which you can see the hills and dwellings of a thriving, vibrant Jerusalem below. Am Yisrael Chai!
Our last stop of the day was the Israel Museum, where we viewed the Shrine of the Book. In this temperature-controlled building are housed many of the fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran (which we visited yesterday). It is mind-boggling that the words of Jewish scripture that we read today in books and from our own Torah scrolls can be found, with only a few and minor variations, on these pieces of parchment written in the First Century C. E. by a devoted scribe. What an enduring and precious legacy we have inherited!
We spent today (Monday) in Jerusalem, exploring the highs and lows, both figurative and literal, of Jewish history. We began the day underground, in the tunnel beneath the Western Wall. The Western wall tunnel is a relatively new tourist site--it opened officially in the early 1990's--and a visit here has completely changed the way I will view the Kotel forever. For, as becomes obvious when you are below it, that which we call the Western Wall is only a tiny fragment of the original wall that formed the outer perimeter of the Second Temple complex. The actual wall extends an additional 35 feet below ground! Here, below ground, it is possible to understand how the Temple complex was constructed, and what it looked like when it was standing. Here we had a chance to see and touch the largest known stone in the world (it's about the length of our tour bus!). And here we walked north beneath the Western wall to reach the point that is closest to where the actual Temple, and its inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies, stood. Underground, far closer to the center of Jewish history than at the Kotel itself, we joined our voices to those of our ancestors and sang out the Shema together.
From below ground we ascended the hills of Jerusalem to visit Yad Va'Shem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial and Museum. Those in our group who had visited Yad VaShem a decade or more before were in for a new experience. The museum has been significantly expanded and updated. Digital technology allows you to hear and see witnesses to the Holocaust throughout the Museum--along with the artifacts (an old pair of shoes, a necklace, a child's drawing, a strap of tefillin leather) that tell stories of their own. To say the obvious--this is not an easy place to visit. To view the exhibit, you have to zigzag back and forth through fairly narrow rooms--it is as if the architecture itself evokes futility and despair. However, that same architecture turns to hope and redemption at as the exhibit ends. The entire back wall of the building is one large picture window through which you can see the hills and dwellings of a thriving, vibrant Jerusalem below. Am Yisrael Chai!
Our last stop of the day was the Israel Museum, where we viewed the Shrine of the Book. In this temperature-controlled building are housed many of the fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran (which we visited yesterday). It is mind-boggling that the words of Jewish scripture that we read today in books and from our own Torah scrolls can be found, with only a few and minor variations, on these pieces of parchment written in the First Century C. E. by a devoted scribe. What an enduring and precious legacy we have inherited!
Tomorrow surely will bring more discoveries---stay tuned….
The pictures and the commentary were wonderful. They are bringing back memories. By reading these blogs and seeing these photos it is bringing back a little of the magic I experienced 3 years ago. And I have no doubt there is a kind of magic over there. Enjoy. Jack Z.
ReplyDeleteawwww, i miss israel! i had so much fun on this trip!!
ReplyDelete-yaelf