From Masada to Jerusalem Hills
"I can't decide which hurts more-- going up or going down stairs" said Sanaz, as we walked
around Mt. Herzel this morning.
"Down," Nir and I said in unison.
Today my calves are protesting, but the pain makes me smile. It's a reminder of yesterday,
which was easily one of the most eventful days of this incredible and incredibly packed
trip. Yesterday we climbed a mountain before dawn and watched the sun rise from the top of
Masada. Our legs hurt because of the roughly 1400 steps we took-- more than 700 on our way
to the top and then coming back down again.The day started at 4am. We drank coffee and ate cake in near-silence and boarded the bus,
arriving at the base of the mountain in the dark, under a full moon. I think most of us were a little bit worried about the climb. I mean, it seems a little crazy if you think about it, and once we got on the Snake Path in the dark, it seemed crazier.
The Snake Path lives up to its name, winding back and forth up the side of the mountain. When we started the climb, the stairs seemed endless. People stopped at times to catch their breath, panting or off-balance from the rocks, and were encouraged by friends ahead,
or cheered on others who were behind. For a while, it seemed like reaching the top would be impossible-- and suddenly, it didn't. This is not the kind of thing I EVER do in my ordinary life, but I realized with a rush 2/3 of the way up that I actually was going to make it,grinned and surged on. At the top, our group claimed a tower, the highest point on the mountain. We panted, laughed, high-fived and cheered as everyone arrived. As the light strengthened, we were finally able to take in what we had just done. The rifts and valleys spread out below us, and the Dead Sea was visible to the East. We took pictures and put on every single one of the layers we had peeled off on our long sweaty hike up. The clouds on the horizon, which we thought might ruin our sunrise, did just the opposite: we watched the sun come up from behind them, a little at a time. First it was a band of light, then a half circle, then it was a perfect coin (a shekel!) in the haze, reflected on the Sea. With the wind whipping, we belted our our morning song-- though "don't wake the damn !" didn't ring as true, because we had been awake for hours. Then we linked arms in a circle and jumped up and down chanting for the second time: "Achim, achim, achim achim achim! Simcha, simcha, simcha simcha simcha!" When we were all together as a group for the first time at Ben Gurion airport a week before, we'd been taught that chant. We were exhausted after our travel and felt awkward jumping and chanting
in an airport with strangers. Now, after a week together that felt like a lifetime and after this epic mountain climb to this important Jewish place, we hung on to each other and jumped triumphantly, celebrating this "simcha" (which means happiness) with our "achim" (which means brothers and sisters).
That sounds like enough for a day, right? But this is Birthright! So of course not. We learned about Masada, then went to the Dead Sea to smear ourselves in mud and float, then headed to Jerusalem to the Shuk (a large market), then to visit the home of Nir, one of our Israeli participants, then had dinner and a discussion. As you can imagine, our early start made us kind of loopy. In fact, it resulted in what is possibly the best and most useful Hebrew term I've learned this whole trip: matsav kapit, or "teaspoon situation." This seems like a puzzling coinage at first, until it's explained. A teaspoon situation is one in which things that aren't funny seem incredibly funny. So, if someone says "teaspoon" to you and you just can't stop laughing, that would be a "teaspoon
situation." We giggle uncontrollably a lot on this trip...
