After wrapping up surf lessons, history lessons and conversations about faith on Sunday, we began one of our most active and enriching days of the trip on Monday morning with a hike through the historic Golan Heights. Driving from Kibbutz Gadot through winding roads along the Jordan and Syrian borders, we received a history lesson on the Yom Kippur war and saw the signs warning passerbys of the 100 million anti-tank land mines dotting the historic landscape.
During this discussion, many birthrighters poured out their hearts and discussed very controversial topics. By the end, each one of us felt very emotional.
We were extremely excited to see our Israeli family dancing and singing to our arrival. We gathered in a big group circle and learned a pump up chant "achim simcha", or brothers-joy . This set such a great tone for the trip.
It was really interesting to see the many many uses for the olives that Israel is so well known for. Well, besides eating them of course!
As we brush away our nerves and butterflies for this new and exciting experience, we are welcomed to Israel and welcome our new found family (which also includes our seven Israelis we met at the airport!) with big and open arms.
Led by one of our Israeli participants, Ariel, we were taken to the place of his Bar Mitzvah at the sacred synagogue. After the synagogue, Or lead us to Abraham a Michigan born citizen currently residing Tsfat where he paints his mystical arts, inspired by teachings of the Kabbalah.
So far, it has been a splendid time meeting everyone from our bus from all around the US and the Israelis that are along for the ride as well. The Israelis help make our experience more authentic and memorable and are doing a great job of doing so.
We had the afternoon to spend time being outside, whether it was doing yoga, playing games in the Sea of Galilee, or getting some sun. It was a great day spent with each other and we really got to know one another better, while having with little to no technology as a distraction.
Today, we hiked and swam in a waterfall, went to see the lookout at Mount Bental, ate great lunch, and went rafting on the Jordan River.
Today, we got to explore and discuss the beauty and complicated political climate of the Golan in the north of Israel. We left the kibbutz in search of natural beauty which we found during our morning hike, Zavitan. We jumped over streams, scaled mountains and became breathless at a water overlook. We then drove and discovered more Israeli food during an independant lunch.
