From the Spiritual City to the City that does Not Stop (*)

Day 3 After two nights in Kibbutz Hukuk, Albert, our dedicated bus driver, took us north to Tzvat, which is an old, religious city on a hill. It is one of the four holy cities of Israel. The color blue, which mirrors the sky and the heavens and is just one visual indication of the city’s overwhelming spirituality. Our first treat of the day was a private concert by two talented musicians. We were all mesmerized by how quickly one of the musicians was able to flutter over the strings of the “Od,“ (Middle Eastern harp-like instrument) with the little instrumental hammers. Afterwards, one of our Israeli friends invited her cousin to tell us about his life as a scribe of Torah scrolls (“Sofer Sta’m“). He showed us one of the passages of Torah he had written in perfect letters on a traditional paper made of cow’s hide. After being exposed to such profound spirituality and religious involvement, we made our way over to Tel Aviv, one of Israel’s most secular and diverse cities. The contrast was apparent as soon as we arrived. Tel Aviv is tight-knit and alive with activity. On-route, we stopped at the outskirts of Har Carmel (Mt. Carmel),we learned about the devastating fires that took place in Mt. Carmel on December 2010. It was disturbing to hear that the fire took the lives of forty something individuals including those of a sixteen year old teenager who volunteered at the fire department, an high ranking, and first female police officer in charge of the northern region and a group of cadets who raced through the burning slopes to rescue Palestinian terrorists who were jailed on one of the Carmel mountain slopes. The prisoners were rescued (the cadets were not saved) from the wrath of the fire. Beyond the human toll, over 6 million trees were burned, hundreds of animals as well as several communities in the region suffered from damage to property. An interesting fact we learned that day is that it takes over two generations for a tree to become fully matured. During the fires and immediate following it the Jewish National Fund opened an emergency campaign - “Operation Carmel Renewal” to raise funds for forest restoration and fire fighting equipment, We ended our day with a at Tel Aviv visiting the Independence Hall. We learned about Tel Aviv’s history and more important about the historical events that led to David Ben-Gurion’s proclamation of the Israeli state under imminent war on May 14, 1948.

(*) Tel Aviv crowns itself “Ier le’lo ha’fsakah” as in the city that whose social life does not stop day or night; similar to New York City!