Today is my last day in Israel and looking back, I can say that this has been one of the most amazing years of my life and I'm so happy that I got to share it with all of you! I have learned so much not only knowledge but also life skills. I remember first coming to Israel and wondering what was in store for me this year. I had no idea how much I would learn, how many places I would travel to, and how many new friends I would make. The people here at Harova are so amazing in each of their own different ways and I love them all for that. We are all going our own separate ways and living all around the world, but we will always be united by the year we spent together in Midreshet Harova. I love everything about this place. I love my friends, the teachers, my classes, the old city of Jerusalem, and everything else that made this an amazing year. I hope to take the things that I've learned with me for the rest of my life.
'Where did the time go?' my friends ask me. I reply that it went to hours of learning, a whole bunch of fun trips, and time to just hang out together. I have done so much this year and I've come so far. I really tried to take this year day by day.
I was re-reading some of my blog posts (which you should do too) and I just wanted to share with you a couple of my favorites.
My Schedule!
http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.co.il/2011/09/my-schedule.html
Kedma Medical Clowns!
http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.co.il/2011/11/kedma-medical-clowns.html
Eilat!
http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.co.il/2012/01/eilat.html
Yam L'Yam!
http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.co.il/2012/04/yam-l-yam.html
Yom Yerushalayim!
http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.co.il/2012/05/yom-yerushalayim.html
I would really love to hear from all of my readers what you thought of my blog. I know there are lots of you out there because Blogger tells me how many people look at my blog so please just send me an e-mail. My email address is saraej67550@gmail.com. I want to know, did my blog change your views on Israel, would you consider coming to visit, what do you think about taking a gap year before college?
Thank you once again to my parents for sending me to Israel. Thank you to all of my friends who made this year as amazing as it was. Thank you to my teachers and Rabbis for giving me so much knowledge and for always being there to help. Thank you to all of my readers for giving me the strength to write this blog and for always keeping me encouraged to continue writing even if it was late at night or if I had very little time because I was always so busy. Although this is my last blog post on this blog, it will hopefully not be the last of my experiences in Israel. Shalom!
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Last Tiyul and Last Shabbat
Here I am in my last few days in Israel, trying to make every moment count. After we finished classes, Harova took us on our last trip up North to the Galil. I sat next to Belle as we drove up for three hours until we got to Mount Meron, which we were on during Yam L' Yam. They took us to the most beautiful lookout point where you could see everything from Mount Hermon to Tzfat and many other places. Then we started out on a small hike that we actually hiked as part of Yam L' Yam and we reminisced about that crazy time that we hiked 75 km in 3 days. After the hike, they took us kayaking! We all organized rafts of six- eight people. We put on our life jackets, two people from each raft grabbed two paddles, and we were off. I took one of the paddles and sat at the back so I could steer down the narrow river. About 2 minutes in, there was a photographer who took pictures of us for us to see at the end. Right afterwards, everybody started jumping in to the river. Thoes who didn't jump in were 'helped' in with a little push from behind. Soon there were only two of us left controlling the raft. After a few minutes, someone switched with me so I could go in the water. I had such an amazing time just swimming in the river with everybody. I was splashing people and pulling them into the water from the rafts and overall we just had a great time. That night, after dinner, we went to the famous hot springs of Tiberias. There were three pools: two hot salt pools and one cold chlorine pool. I hung out in the hot pools for a while but then Hadassa and I decided to go into the cold pool. It was a really big pool and it was pretty empty because most people were in the hot pools so we started doing laps. Its been so long since I did laps in a pool and I found it very relaxing. Afterwards we went back to the hotel we were staying at and went to sleep.
The next morning, we woke up and started the day off with a hike. We went to the Banias national park which is one of the prettiest parks in Israel. There are beautiful waterfalls everywhere and if you're lucky, you'll get to see a destroyed Syrian tank. Then we went swimming in the Kineret Sea. It was so much fun to just hang out with everybody and be in the water. It was a long drive back to Jerusalem. Once we got back we had dinner and then some time to chill. Later that night, we had mishmar with Rav Milston and then the mishmar heads, Adi, Amy, Shira, and Tali spoke about what it means to have mishmar. They spoke about how important it is to always keep learning Torah and they ended the night off really nicely.
Our last Shabbat in Israel was similar to many other Shabbats because there was the usual singing, praying, and hanging out with friends, but this time it was also accompanied with a lot of crying. Rav Milston was with us for Shabbat just like he was with us for our first one. He spoke about how he watched us throughout the year and he has seen what we've done and how we progressed. Many girls also spoke about how they felt the year had gone and they spoke about many things that they learned. These last few days are precious. It is a time for finishing up things that I need to do, reflecting on things that I did this year, and spending time with the friends I made this year. Shalom V'lehitraot!
The next morning, we woke up and started the day off with a hike. We went to the Banias national park which is one of the prettiest parks in Israel. There are beautiful waterfalls everywhere and if you're lucky, you'll get to see a destroyed Syrian tank. Then we went swimming in the Kineret Sea. It was so much fun to just hang out with everybody and be in the water. It was a long drive back to Jerusalem. Once we got back we had dinner and then some time to chill. Later that night, we had mishmar with Rav Milston and then the mishmar heads, Adi, Amy, Shira, and Tali spoke about what it means to have mishmar. They spoke about how important it is to always keep learning Torah and they ended the night off really nicely.
Our last Shabbat in Israel was similar to many other Shabbats because there was the usual singing, praying, and hanging out with friends, but this time it was also accompanied with a lot of crying. Rav Milston was with us for Shabbat just like he was with us for our first one. He spoke about how he watched us throughout the year and he has seen what we've done and how we progressed. Many girls also spoke about how they felt the year had gone and they spoke about many things that they learned. These last few days are precious. It is a time for finishing up things that I need to do, reflecting on things that I did this year, and spending time with the friends I made this year. Shalom V'lehitraot!
Monday, June 4, 2012
Last day of classes :(
Remember all of those 'firsts' in the beginning of the year? Unfortunately, it's coming time for all the 'lasts.'
I've come a really long way since then. http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.co.il/2011/09/first-day-of-classes.html
Last night we had a party for Rav Yonatan, one of the teachers that we were closest with. We bought him a salmon fillet for dinner from Cafe Rimon because on Sundays and Thursdays he always eats dinner with us and he always tells us that he hopes there will be "steak and chips." He also told us that his favorite food was salmon so once we asked him which he liked better, steak or salmon, and he said salmon, so that's why we got him salmon and French fries. Our Chumash BeIyun class were the ones closest to him because we had a three hour class with him twice a week and we all had at least one other class with him. We set up a nice table and then laid out the food so it would look all pretty. When he came in, he was so surprised and so happy! We reminisced about memories that we had and people who came and left the class. The survivors of the class were me, Amy, Sharona, Adi, Esther, Eliana, and Rinat.Today was our last class with him. We learned for a little bit and then he gave us lemon squares that he baked which were really yummy. We then talked about things that we enjoyed learning and what we got out of the class and things that he might be able to do that would be better for next year.
During lunch, Jane made an announcement that at 1:30 we would all meet in the main square where we would be doing a flash mob to one of our favorite Harova songs that we all knew that words and movements to. At 1:30, we were all standing around with our Israeli flags waiting to start but nothing was happening. I found out that they were frantically looking for a place to plug in the speakers and eventually they found a place. The flash mob started but it wasn't very well organized so our entrances didn't work out so well and then our flash mob was crashed by a group of random Asians! Anyway, it was still a lot of fun.
Tonight, a whole bunch of us went to a party at Chani's house. We started off the night with a talk from Chani's dad who is really cool. Then came the food because what's a party without the food! We had really yummy crepes with lots of different toppings. Then we just talked about funny memories that we had from this year.
I'm writing this just as I came back from cleaning out the school building from all of my books, notebooks, papers, and other stuff. It was really sad to see it emptying out and carrying all of my stuff to be packed away. I also took out my suitcases and am going to start packing tomorrow. Don't worry, I've still got a little bit more to write. Shalom V'lehitraot!
I've come a really long way since then. http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.co.il/2011/09/first-day-of-classes.html
Last night we had a party for Rav Yonatan, one of the teachers that we were closest with. We bought him a salmon fillet for dinner from Cafe Rimon because on Sundays and Thursdays he always eats dinner with us and he always tells us that he hopes there will be "steak and chips." He also told us that his favorite food was salmon so once we asked him which he liked better, steak or salmon, and he said salmon, so that's why we got him salmon and French fries. Our Chumash BeIyun class were the ones closest to him because we had a three hour class with him twice a week and we all had at least one other class with him. We set up a nice table and then laid out the food so it would look all pretty. When he came in, he was so surprised and so happy! We reminisced about memories that we had and people who came and left the class. The survivors of the class were me, Amy, Sharona, Adi, Esther, Eliana, and Rinat.Today was our last class with him. We learned for a little bit and then he gave us lemon squares that he baked which were really yummy. We then talked about things that we enjoyed learning and what we got out of the class and things that he might be able to do that would be better for next year.
During lunch, Jane made an announcement that at 1:30 we would all meet in the main square where we would be doing a flash mob to one of our favorite Harova songs that we all knew that words and movements to. At 1:30, we were all standing around with our Israeli flags waiting to start but nothing was happening. I found out that they were frantically looking for a place to plug in the speakers and eventually they found a place. The flash mob started but it wasn't very well organized so our entrances didn't work out so well and then our flash mob was crashed by a group of random Asians! Anyway, it was still a lot of fun.
Tonight, a whole bunch of us went to a party at Chani's house. We started off the night with a talk from Chani's dad who is really cool. Then came the food because what's a party without the food! We had really yummy crepes with lots of different toppings. Then we just talked about funny memories that we had from this year.
I'm writing this just as I came back from cleaning out the school building from all of my books, notebooks, papers, and other stuff. It was really sad to see it emptying out and carrying all of my stuff to be packed away. I also took out my suitcases and am going to start packing tomorrow. Don't worry, I've still got a little bit more to write. Shalom V'lehitraot!
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Birthdays and Holidays and People- Oh My!
As my days in Israel come near the end, so many fun things are still going on every single day.
If you don't read any of this, at least watch the video towards the end.
Wednesday night
My roommate, Hadassa's birthday was slowly approaching and since she always goes all out on everyone else's birthday, we decided to do as much as we could with as little money as possible for her birthday. At about 10:00 I walked into the kitchen where the preparations had already started happening. I got there just in time to save the cookies. We decided to make the cookies that they usually make on Tuesdays for Hadassa's birthday but nobody who was helping in the preparations really knew what they were doing so they kinda just made it up until I came along and showed them how to do it. They came out a little bit differently than usual, but they were still super yummy. We also made fruit salad, guacamole, cholent, and cheese cakes for birthday cakes. At one point Hadassa actually came into the kitchen and saw everything that was meant to be a surprise. We just told her that it was for something going on the next night. We cleaned up at around 1:00 and I finally dragged myself up to bed.
Thursday Night
The next day was fairly normal.
At night, after classes, we all went up to the roof of Sarah and Eve's apartment. We put out the fruit salad, the cholent, and guacamole and chips. At midnight, we all gathered around and we brought out cheesecake and balloons and sang happy. In honor of her own birthday, Hadassa prepared a really nice lesson for us about Megillat Ruth that we were about to read on the upcoming holiday Shavuot.
Friday
I woke up at around 8:00 as usual and did a few errands around the Rova that I needed to get done. At 11:00, I went to Sarah and Eve's apartment to pick up stuff for the picnic. We packed some blankets and a tablecloth and the rest of the food that we didn't eat from the night before. We went to Salati to get salads for lunch and then we went to Independence Park. We set everything up and then waited for Hadassa to get there. Reva took her to get a fish manicure where cleaner fish eat the dead skin off your feet leaving them nice and smooth, and then they walked over to the park. When she got to the park we all began singing Happy Birthday. Then we just sat out in the park eating and talking and having a good time. Eventually, we decided that it was time to go. When we got back to the dorms, I took a nap because of all the late nights that I've been having and the late night to come. I woke up a couple of hours later and by then, it was time to get ready for Shabbat.
Shabbat was just a normal in-shabbat with all of my Harova friends.
Saturday Night
The next part of the adventure started once Shabbat was over and the holiday of Shavuot started. Shavuot is the holiday of the receiving of the Torah.
After we prayed, we learned the laws about staying up all night which I was planning to do. It is customary to stay up all night learning on Shavuot because there is a story that tells us that we have to "fix" the fact that the Jews overslept on the day that they were supposed to receive the Torah which is why it's called "Tikun Leil Shavuot." For dinner, we had an amazing dairy meal with chocolate milk and pasta and an interesting new invention of tuna balls which dipped in cream cheese tasted very good. Then we went to the school building to learn all night which surprisingly wasn't that hard since we didn't finish dinner until about 11:00 at night.
Sunday
4:30 we went to the nearby Yeshivah where we heard Megillat Ruth. Afterwards was one of the longest prayers I've ever been to in Israel, almost as long as Rosh Hashana. It was about three hours or until 7:30 until we finished, and remember that we had all just stayed up all night. Right afterwards, I went to my room and I was in bed by 8:00. I slept until 1:00 in the afternoon when I woke up for lunch. It was a normal lunch but afterwards we started singing. One of the windows to our lunchroom was open and it was on the street level. People began looking in and they were listening to us singing and I think that we made some people really happy. I went back to sleep for another couple of hours and then the rest of the night we had some nice Harova activities.
Monday
This day was the second day of holiday for some, half a holiday for others, and for some people it wasn't a holiday at all. This happens because there is an argument about whether people living outside of Israel that are in Israel for the holiday, should they keep one or two days of the holiday? So it was really interesting to see different people relating to the day in different ways. For the entire morning we had seminars about going back home and going to college. In the afternoon, we had our Drama and Tanakh Presentations. For over half a year 7 of us have been working on monologues of characters in Tanakh. We first picked a character, then we did a ton of research. Next we had to start writing our monologues and once we were done with that, we then memorized and rehearsed them until they were amazing. We each had very different characters with very different styles. Tali was Chava, Abigail was Noach, Shana was Sarah, Kayla was Hagar, I was Dinah, Daniella was Delilah, and Leah was Devorah. Raquel video taped mine, but the beginning got cut off. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tHXDEzbh7A You have to watch this! If you have any questions, please let me know because it is a very heavy topic with lots of research put into it and there may be things that you didn't quite get. We were all amazing and I'm very proud of everyone in the class.
Tuesday Night
Sarah and Sara have a night in the Beis...
What a crazy amazing week! I'm exhausted! Don't forget to watch the video! Shalom V'lehitraot!
If you don't read any of this, at least watch the video towards the end.
Wednesday night
My roommate, Hadassa's birthday was slowly approaching and since she always goes all out on everyone else's birthday, we decided to do as much as we could with as little money as possible for her birthday. At about 10:00 I walked into the kitchen where the preparations had already started happening. I got there just in time to save the cookies. We decided to make the cookies that they usually make on Tuesdays for Hadassa's birthday but nobody who was helping in the preparations really knew what they were doing so they kinda just made it up until I came along and showed them how to do it. They came out a little bit differently than usual, but they were still super yummy. We also made fruit salad, guacamole, cholent, and cheese cakes for birthday cakes. At one point Hadassa actually came into the kitchen and saw everything that was meant to be a surprise. We just told her that it was for something going on the next night. We cleaned up at around 1:00 and I finally dragged myself up to bed.
Thursday Night
The next day was fairly normal.
At night, after classes, we all went up to the roof of Sarah and Eve's apartment. We put out the fruit salad, the cholent, and guacamole and chips. At midnight, we all gathered around and we brought out cheesecake and balloons and sang happy. In honor of her own birthday, Hadassa prepared a really nice lesson for us about Megillat Ruth that we were about to read on the upcoming holiday Shavuot.
Friday
I woke up at around 8:00 as usual and did a few errands around the Rova that I needed to get done. At 11:00, I went to Sarah and Eve's apartment to pick up stuff for the picnic. We packed some blankets and a tablecloth and the rest of the food that we didn't eat from the night before. We went to Salati to get salads for lunch and then we went to Independence Park. We set everything up and then waited for Hadassa to get there. Reva took her to get a fish manicure where cleaner fish eat the dead skin off your feet leaving them nice and smooth, and then they walked over to the park. When she got to the park we all began singing Happy Birthday. Then we just sat out in the park eating and talking and having a good time. Eventually, we decided that it was time to go. When we got back to the dorms, I took a nap because of all the late nights that I've been having and the late night to come. I woke up a couple of hours later and by then, it was time to get ready for Shabbat.
Shabbat was just a normal in-shabbat with all of my Harova friends.
Saturday Night
The next part of the adventure started once Shabbat was over and the holiday of Shavuot started. Shavuot is the holiday of the receiving of the Torah.
After we prayed, we learned the laws about staying up all night which I was planning to do. It is customary to stay up all night learning on Shavuot because there is a story that tells us that we have to "fix" the fact that the Jews overslept on the day that they were supposed to receive the Torah which is why it's called "Tikun Leil Shavuot." For dinner, we had an amazing dairy meal with chocolate milk and pasta and an interesting new invention of tuna balls which dipped in cream cheese tasted very good. Then we went to the school building to learn all night which surprisingly wasn't that hard since we didn't finish dinner until about 11:00 at night.
Sunday
4:30 we went to the nearby Yeshivah where we heard Megillat Ruth. Afterwards was one of the longest prayers I've ever been to in Israel, almost as long as Rosh Hashana. It was about three hours or until 7:30 until we finished, and remember that we had all just stayed up all night. Right afterwards, I went to my room and I was in bed by 8:00. I slept until 1:00 in the afternoon when I woke up for lunch. It was a normal lunch but afterwards we started singing. One of the windows to our lunchroom was open and it was on the street level. People began looking in and they were listening to us singing and I think that we made some people really happy. I went back to sleep for another couple of hours and then the rest of the night we had some nice Harova activities.
Monday
This day was the second day of holiday for some, half a holiday for others, and for some people it wasn't a holiday at all. This happens because there is an argument about whether people living outside of Israel that are in Israel for the holiday, should they keep one or two days of the holiday? So it was really interesting to see different people relating to the day in different ways. For the entire morning we had seminars about going back home and going to college. In the afternoon, we had our Drama and Tanakh Presentations. For over half a year 7 of us have been working on monologues of characters in Tanakh. We first picked a character, then we did a ton of research. Next we had to start writing our monologues and once we were done with that, we then memorized and rehearsed them until they were amazing. We each had very different characters with very different styles. Tali was Chava, Abigail was Noach, Shana was Sarah, Kayla was Hagar, I was Dinah, Daniella was Delilah, and Leah was Devorah. Raquel video taped mine, but the beginning got cut off. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tHXDEzbh7A You have to watch this! If you have any questions, please let me know because it is a very heavy topic with lots of research put into it and there may be things that you didn't quite get. We were all amazing and I'm very proud of everyone in the class.
Tuesday Night
Sarah and Sara have a night in the Beis...
What a crazy amazing week! I'm exhausted! Don't forget to watch the video! Shalom V'lehitraot!
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Yom Yerushalayim!
Part 1: Shabbat in Chevron
My crazy weekend started out with a nice quiet bike ride on Friday morning. Well it wasn't so quiet because Jerusalem was packed with people and it wasn't really that nice because I didn't realize that I was absolutely exhausted. Anyway, when I got back I had to pack for Shabbat. We left for Chevron at about 4:00. This was going to be my second time in Chevron for Shabbat but this time it was going to have a very different atmosphere. http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.com/2011/11/shabbat-in-chevron.html
We stayed again in Kiryat Arba in caravans that are part of a girl's high school. There was six of us staying in our little caravan but there were two bunk beds and one single. I opted to take a mattress and sleep on the floor of the other room, that way I wouldn't have to deal with any snoring people. We started off Shabbat by going down to Me'arat Ha'machpela with six guards where there was a beautiful davening. At about 10:00, we walked back and ate dinner and then went to sleep. Before we went to sleep we sang Happy Birthday to Esther and Dominique. The next morning we went through the usual routine of davening and eating lunch. I didn't take a nap this week, although maybe I should have, and instead I just hung out with people. At 3:00 we went down to Chevron for a tour. We visited the three Jewish neighborhoods which have about 90 families in them. We also visited Hadassa Hospital and the Abraham shul. We ended the night with a quick dinner, where there wasn't even enough food, we packed our stuff and left to get back to Jerusalem.
Part 2: Yom Yerushalayim
I hope you don't mind if I give a bit of a history lesson now. The crazy stories that come after it are worth it.
In 1976, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan all attacked Israel. In the span of six days, the Israeli Defense Forces destroyed the Egyptian air force, beat the Syrians and Jordanians, and they conquered a large amount of land. They conquered the Sinai Peninsula, which was given back to the Egyptians in an attempt to make peace, the Gaza Strip which was also given back, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank which included the Old City of Jerusalem, Chevron, and Gush Etziyon.
After we came back from an amazing Shabbat in Chevron, we all met up at 11:00 dressed in blue and white with Israeli flags tied on to us like capes. We were going to go around the old city walls. Led by Rav Shames and Rav Yonatan, all of the Harova girls were walking and dancing, skipping and running, and singing through the streets of Jerusalem. We made a few stops to talk about the history of Jerusalem beginning with our forefathers Abraham and Isaac who walked in exactly the same spot that we were standing in. We walked out of Zion gate, past Dung gate, and the Lion's gate. The second half of our late night walk involved going up to Mount Olives. We were escorted up by police as we hiked up the steep incline. We stopped at one particular spot where you could see directly below all of the graves of great people and if you looked out you could see the Old City and right in the middle, Temple Mount. It was an amazing sight to see as we sat there in the middle of the night singing our hearts out. This was one of my favorite nights of the year. We took a bus back at about 3:00 in the morning and a bunch of us decided to go to the kotel. We sat in circle right outside of the kotel area and began to sing again. (If you couldn't figure it out, Harova girls like singing... a lot!) I hung out till about 5:30 when we went to pray at the kotel. At this point it was still pretty empty but we knew that it would be full later in the day.
I slept from 6:30 in the morning until 12:30 in the afternoon. I woke up, ate lunch, and then chilled out until the next part of the day began. At 3:30, all of us in blue and white with out flags wrapped around us went to once again walk the streets of Jerusalem, but this time we were meeting up thousands of other Jews who were doing the same thing. As we walked through Mamilla mall, we began to sing and dance and the people around us stopped to watch and take pictures. We walked to the place where everyone was meeting up on King George Street. It was amazing to see how many thousands of people were there. It was also amazing that they had two separate streets for boys and girls. For about an hour we stayed on the same street where there was like a concert and everybody was singing and dancing and proudly waving their Israeli flags. Then, we began to move towards the Old City. There was one point where all the Harova girls just sat down in the middle of the street and began to sing. When we went through Jaffa Gate, the roads were extremely congested with people, so much so that you couldn't move because there were people pressed onto all sides of you. Eventually, I got out of the crowd and was able to make my way to my dorm. It was already about 8:30 and I ate a quick dinner and then a few of us decided to go down to the kotel. Chani, Sarah, Shira, Belle, and I all held hands as we went down to the kotel to make sure that we wouldn't lose each other in the crazy crowds. Once we got down to the kotel and the music began playing, everybody was dancing like crazy.
At around 10:00, I was tired of dancing so I went back. I was really excited because I saw Noga and a few of my other friends so we hung out for a while and then I decided that it was time to go home, write my blog, and go to sleep. So here's the blog post and now I'm going to sleep. It's been an amazing, yet exhausting day and I'm not sure how well I'll function tomorrow but I'm sure I'll get through it somehow. Shalom V'lehitraot!
My crazy weekend started out with a nice quiet bike ride on Friday morning. Well it wasn't so quiet because Jerusalem was packed with people and it wasn't really that nice because I didn't realize that I was absolutely exhausted. Anyway, when I got back I had to pack for Shabbat. We left for Chevron at about 4:00. This was going to be my second time in Chevron for Shabbat but this time it was going to have a very different atmosphere. http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.com/2011/11/shabbat-in-chevron.html
We stayed again in Kiryat Arba in caravans that are part of a girl's high school. There was six of us staying in our little caravan but there were two bunk beds and one single. I opted to take a mattress and sleep on the floor of the other room, that way I wouldn't have to deal with any snoring people. We started off Shabbat by going down to Me'arat Ha'machpela with six guards where there was a beautiful davening. At about 10:00, we walked back and ate dinner and then went to sleep. Before we went to sleep we sang Happy Birthday to Esther and Dominique. The next morning we went through the usual routine of davening and eating lunch. I didn't take a nap this week, although maybe I should have, and instead I just hung out with people. At 3:00 we went down to Chevron for a tour. We visited the three Jewish neighborhoods which have about 90 families in them. We also visited Hadassa Hospital and the Abraham shul. We ended the night with a quick dinner, where there wasn't even enough food, we packed our stuff and left to get back to Jerusalem.
Part 2: Yom Yerushalayim
I hope you don't mind if I give a bit of a history lesson now. The crazy stories that come after it are worth it.
In 1976, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan all attacked Israel. In the span of six days, the Israeli Defense Forces destroyed the Egyptian air force, beat the Syrians and Jordanians, and they conquered a large amount of land. They conquered the Sinai Peninsula, which was given back to the Egyptians in an attempt to make peace, the Gaza Strip which was also given back, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank which included the Old City of Jerusalem, Chevron, and Gush Etziyon.
After we came back from an amazing Shabbat in Chevron, we all met up at 11:00 dressed in blue and white with Israeli flags tied on to us like capes. We were going to go around the old city walls. Led by Rav Shames and Rav Yonatan, all of the Harova girls were walking and dancing, skipping and running, and singing through the streets of Jerusalem. We made a few stops to talk about the history of Jerusalem beginning with our forefathers Abraham and Isaac who walked in exactly the same spot that we were standing in. We walked out of Zion gate, past Dung gate, and the Lion's gate. The second half of our late night walk involved going up to Mount Olives. We were escorted up by police as we hiked up the steep incline. We stopped at one particular spot where you could see directly below all of the graves of great people and if you looked out you could see the Old City and right in the middle, Temple Mount. It was an amazing sight to see as we sat there in the middle of the night singing our hearts out. This was one of my favorite nights of the year. We took a bus back at about 3:00 in the morning and a bunch of us decided to go to the kotel. We sat in circle right outside of the kotel area and began to sing again. (If you couldn't figure it out, Harova girls like singing... a lot!) I hung out till about 5:30 when we went to pray at the kotel. At this point it was still pretty empty but we knew that it would be full later in the day.
I slept from 6:30 in the morning until 12:30 in the afternoon. I woke up, ate lunch, and then chilled out until the next part of the day began. At 3:30, all of us in blue and white with out flags wrapped around us went to once again walk the streets of Jerusalem, but this time we were meeting up thousands of other Jews who were doing the same thing. As we walked through Mamilla mall, we began to sing and dance and the people around us stopped to watch and take pictures. We walked to the place where everyone was meeting up on King George Street. It was amazing to see how many thousands of people were there. It was also amazing that they had two separate streets for boys and girls. For about an hour we stayed on the same street where there was like a concert and everybody was singing and dancing and proudly waving their Israeli flags. Then, we began to move towards the Old City. There was one point where all the Harova girls just sat down in the middle of the street and began to sing. When we went through Jaffa Gate, the roads were extremely congested with people, so much so that you couldn't move because there were people pressed onto all sides of you. Eventually, I got out of the crowd and was able to make my way to my dorm. It was already about 8:30 and I ate a quick dinner and then a few of us decided to go down to the kotel. Chani, Sarah, Shira, Belle, and I all held hands as we went down to the kotel to make sure that we wouldn't lose each other in the crazy crowds. Once we got down to the kotel and the music began playing, everybody was dancing like crazy.
At around 10:00, I was tired of dancing so I went back. I was really excited because I saw Noga and a few of my other friends so we hung out for a while and then I decided that it was time to go home, write my blog, and go to sleep. So here's the blog post and now I'm going to sleep. It's been an amazing, yet exhausting day and I'm not sure how well I'll function tomorrow but I'm sure I'll get through it somehow. Shalom V'lehitraot!
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