Birthday week in Israel

Well this has been a birthday week—52!!!! I had a lovely day. 

One of the pictures is my lemon bar squares birthday cake that one of the sisters made for me. She had invited me over for lunch, but didn't tell me that she had invited all of the sisters in the center. It was quite a surprise and I really enjoyed hanging out with the girls!!!! I have to say that my students were also lovely. They came early and decorated my classroom with a hand-crafted banner, signs, and balloons, and then both classes came and sang Happy Birthday to me. I wasn't expecting that, and I certainly wasn't expecting the other class to come in. Then they gave me chocolates and a pair of earrings!!!!!! (I had lost one of the earrings that I always wear). That was so lovely of them, and I was very touched. Then in the afternoon one of the service couples had invited Tawfic (one of the administrators) and his wife to come to a potluck dinner to talk about life as a Palestinian Christian growing up in Jerusalem. It was a lovely day.

There were three big events this week. The first was on Sunday where our Judaism teacher, Ophir Yardin, took us to Yad Vashem—the Holocaust museum.

 I must say that I had been there once before as a student and I was not excited to return. It is such a horrible reminder of the absolute worst of humanity. But I did enjoy (if that’s the right word) having Ophir took to us about the developing consciousness of the Holocaust in Jewish discourse. It took some time for Holocaust victims to be able to come to a point where they could talk about it and it also took time for society to develop to where they were willing to listen. We first walked down the path of the righteous, where trees have been planted to recognize those people who put themselves and their families in danger to try and hide and thus save Jews from the Nazi roundups. I’ve included a picture of a sculpture that stands outside the hall of children. It depicts Janusz Korczak, a Polish-Jewish educator who worked for years as a director of an orphanage in Warsaw and who refused to abandon his children when they were sent from the Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp in 1942. I can’t put in words the feelings I had. As we went through the museum (which is impossible to complete in a few hours), I just went from exhibit to exhibit watching the videos of the survivors. Then on Wednesday night we had a 97 year old survivor come and speak with the students about his experiences in Poland and Germany. He was incarcerated in 9 different camps including Aushwitz and Dachau. He was the only survivor in his family. Fortunately his mother had a family portrait taken of the parents and 7 children and she sent it to her brother living in Guatemala. That’s all that he has left of his family. Even at 97 he loves life and hangs on to every minute of it!

The second big event was on Monday. It was time to harvest all of the olives that are growing in the center grounds! This is a major event that only in the Fall semester get to participate in. So I’ve included a photo of some of the students up in the trees picking the fruit.

 Tomorrow the students will be able to process the olives into olive oil and bring home a small bottle. Of course olives are an important industry in the Mediterranean region. They are used for food, usually at breakfast lunch and dinner; and their oil is also important for cooking, medicinal uses, and in antiquity it was the purest of flames for lamps, and it was also used as part of bathing. Of course, it also has important implications for the atonement as well. We learned by experience that if you score the fruit and taste the juice it has a very bitter taste. I am sure that there are some parallels here that we could relate to the atonement! I’ll finish the discussion next week after we have pressed the olives :o)

Our field trip this week took us to the city of David. We toured the archaeological ruins of the large stone structure dating from about 1000 BC which may be the remains of David’s palace. Then we went down and saw the “Millo” mentioned numerous times in 1 & 2 Kings. It is a large stepped structure that was placed to reinforce the hill are and stop the monumental architecture—David’ palace—from sliding down the hill. We saw homes dating from the 6th-7th century that show evidence of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. We saw Jerusalem city walls that date back to the time of Melchizedek! Then we went and saw the massive fortifications that were built to protect the water supply of the Gihon spring. 

The highlight of the trip, without doubt, was going through Hezekiah’s tunnel, which he built to take the spring water into the city to supply the growing needs of the western city and also when he decided to rebel against Nebuchadnezza, knowing that it would result in him coming and laying siege to the city. The tunnel was an engineering masterpiece of two teams starting at opposite ends and digging through rock for 1770 feet and then meeting up in the middle. I’ve included a photo of me in the tunnel. It was pitch black except for our flash lights. The initial step was into water up to my thigh, but for the most part it was up to the middle of my calf. I was a little nervous about whether I would be claustrophobic, but I led out at the front and one my students helped me take that first step into the water. It was a LOT of fun. 

We came out and went to the pool of Siloam and I took some time to teach about the man born blind in (John 9) because Jesus directed him to wash clay off his eyes in this pool. Then we walked back to the temple mount through the ancient sewerage tunnel!! Josephus tells us that when the Romans were sacking Jerusalem in 70 AD that many Jews fled to this tunnel to try and escape. In the drainage system archaeologists found a small gold pomegranate bell which they believe came off one of the priest’s robes and fell into the drainage system. The bell still rings 2000 years later!!!!! Here is a link to Youtube which has a photo of it and where you can hear the sound of the bell ringing :o) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjx9tP3yTRI

I have to say that all of this makes me very happy! I’m living the dream!