More Israel fun

So its been a while since I last updated this. I'm not too good at this blogging thing. Last Sunday we went to Eilat, the Israeli port on the Red Sea, which was 4 hours away and went swimming and snorkeling. It was fun. Monday October 18, we went to Yad Vashem the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem for our field trip. It is the best Holocaust Museum in the world. It was quite the day going to the museum and Mount Herzl but the museum was not as graphic as I thought it was going to be. The last room in the museum hit me the hardest. There were pictures of people who had died in the Holocaust on the dome ceiling above and then there were rows and rows of bookshelves with binders which contained the names of people who had died in the Holocaust. There were also a couple shelves that were empty symbolizing the 2 million people that had died that they did not have the names of. 5 to 6 million people died in the Holocaust. It hit me how big that number really was when I was looking at those bookshelves of binders. We also through a separate part of the museum that was dedicated to the children that died in the Holocaust. It was a room with lit candles and mirrors that made it look like the candles were without number.

Tuesday we got to participate in pressing olives. Last week I got to pick olives off the trees at the center. It was fun. The center has old contraptions that were used to press olives in Old and New Testament times. The center has a beam press, and a screw press (invented after New Testament times.) I will have to put up pictures of them because they are hard to explain.

Wednesday we had a forum. Our speaker was a Palestinian Peace Activist. I learned so much from his lecture. The issue here has many dimensions and will take effort to obtain a compromise on all the different issues.

Thursday my Hebrew teacher brought in a Torah scroll from before WWII to show us. It was pretty cool to see. The Hebrew characters written in calligraphy were beautiful. My teacher said that it can take up to 6 years for a scribe to write one copy of the Torah because the scribe must go to a ritual bath every time he writes the name of God.

Friday we learned some Israeli dances. It was fun. We learned lots of different dances. Some with religious symbolism and others were line dances. It was a workout but fantastic.

So I was called as a seminary teacher last week. Amberlea and I teach my Old Testament teacher's daughter. We had our first lesson today. It was great.

Well its been a busy week. I'll try to keep more up to date in the future and I will put up pictures within the next couple of days.