I cannot believe this is my last week in Israel. Seriously, where did the time go? It doesn't feel like nine months ago that I was hiding out in air conditioned cafes from the Tel Aviv heat and my electricity-less apartment. Where did the time go?
Updates:
-Last weekend I was in Tzfat for Lag B'Omer. Why Tzfat? Tzfat is about fifteen minutes away from Har Meron, which is where the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai is located. For some reason, it's a tradition to visit his tomb on Lag B'Omer (amidst all the bonfires and haircuts), so we spent Shabbat close by so that we'd be able to easily get to Meron when Lag B'Omer began. Shabbat in Tzfat was beautiful, as always, but we were hosted by a Chabad organization, so I found myself frustrated with the gender inequality, and ended up skipping every activity other than mealtimes. Instead, I wandered around Tzfat, and discovered places I never knew existed. As Shabbat went out, I watched the sunset over Tzfat, Meron, the Kinneret, and the entire Galil from a citadel at the very top of the mountain. One of the best images in my mind from this entire year.
Later, we set out for Meron. We got there around midnight, but over the course of the night, over half a million people visited the mountain, mostly Charedim, and all with the objective of getting to the top of the mountain to pray at the Rashbi's tomb. It was WILD. Everyone there was dressed head to toe in black (I was completely frum, but I still stuck out like a sore thumb just because I was wearing colors), men and women were completely separate, and it was literally body to body people. Everyone was pushing and shoving and shouting... and inside the tomb (on the women's side, from which we couldn't even see the actual grave) people were davening furiously and crying and shouting out to HaShem. It was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. To be honest, though, I would never do it again. My friends and I got separated from each other multiple times, I was literally pushed to the ground by a Chassidic man, the women didn't get to dance (instead they watched the men dancing on a jumbotron), and I got yelled at for holding hands with a male friend in order not to lose him. I think really I just learned how much I dislike the ultra religious.
-On Tuesday of this week, during the time when we would normally be on some type of field trip around the city, we commemorated our last week together by going to a natural spring called Ein Fawwar. We hiked and swam and barbecued by the natural pool. It was gorgeous. A friend and I hiked way past everyone else in search of a mythical waterfall that everyone had been talking about. We didn't find it after about two hours, so we collapsed in this beautiful blue pool under the olive trees and cooled off before bushwhacking back (and getting horribly lost). I'm now covered in scratches and bug bites and terribly sunburned, but it was well worth it.
-On Wednesday of this week, when we were supposed to be cleaning, my roommate and I took off and went into the Christian Quarter to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Now this is totally against the rules of our program (and if the staff knew they would KILL us), but this Church is the largest building in the Old City and the holiest site in all of Christianity. How could we live here for a year and not see it? It ended up being one of the coolest things I've ever done in Jerusalem. This church is HUGE, with three floors and lots of winding secret passage ways. The whole thing is beautifully mosaic-ed, from the floors to the giant dome ceilings. The church is known in Christianity to be the place where Jesus was prepared for crucifixion, crucified, and buried, and then where he was resurrected. The Anointing Stone, the stone where Jesus was prepared for crucifixion by St. John the Baptist, is still there, and there were people kissing it and praying to it, and there was one woman who was cleaning it with wet wipes. Weird. There were paintings of Jesus EVERYWHERE, painted over centuries, and there were all sorts of different types of monks and nuns (the church today is home to seven different branches of Christianity, and they all fight over who gets what part of it). It was SO COOL. Totally worth breaking the rules for.
-This is my last weekend in Israel, and I really wanted to travel, but instead I'm sort of stuck in Jerusalem finishing up packing and cleaning, which sucks, because it's brutally hot and we don't have air conditioning. However, I woke up a couple hours ago and it was pouring rain and even thundering! Rain in Jerusalem at this time of year is something akin to snow in August, so this was a Shabbat miracle! Kind of a nice farewell from a country I'm so sad to leave.
Shabbat Shalom!
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