SH-26-252's blog

When our counselors told us that we will be waking up at 4 am my first thought was eek! How will we do this? Well needless to say, we did definitely do it! At 4 am we met in the lobby of the youth hostile for some coffee and cake and onto to the bus we went to take a short drive to the Masada mountain. That 20 minute bus ride was probably the quietest we have been all week long. Before starting the hike we gathered in a circle arm in arm singing the chant that we learned on the first day "achim, achim, achim, achim, achim, simcha, simcha, simcha, simcha, simcha".

Blog - 7/2/2012

Day-5

Day 4-

Day 3-

We started our day with another early wake up and Israeli breakfast, followed by a lively bus ride to the city of Tzfat; one of Israel's four holy cities. We toured the very hilly city, visiting an Ashkenazi temple, and walking through a marketplace where participants bought t-shirts, candles, and of course, ice cream. We then visited Avram, an eccentric artist from Detroit who englightened us on the teachings of the Kabbalah- which is the spiritual inner teachings of Judaism.

I'm convinced there's nothing more boring than waiting on a plane that sits at its gate for an hour past it's departure time, but this time it was different. With 38 other young Jewish adults around me waiting for the opportunity of a lifetime to begin we sat and talked. We introduced ourselves to one another and just tried to get to know the people we would be spending the next 10 days with.