Shabbat in Jerusalem

Torrential downpours...that pretty much sums up Shabbat in Jerusalem. It was bittersweet: sweet in the sense that Israel really needs the rain right now, and bitter because it's not a whole lot of fun to do things in the rain!

We took this Shabbat as a true day of rest. It was a bit strange for me to not attend Shabbat services at all this week. My intentions were to take Shara and Daphne to a (liberal) synagogue here in Jerusalem, but a mixture of the weather and us being thoroughly exhausted after a solid week of travel, we needed the rest. We slept in fairly late, had a relaxed breakfast with my kibbutz family, and then we eventually got out to see some more of the city.

One of my closest friends, (who also happened to be a rabbinic school classmate of mine - we met here in Jerusalem during our first year of study at HUC) Rabbi Dan Treiser had arrived in the country the night before. We swung by his hotel (which will also be our hotel tomorrow evening) to pick him up so that he could join us for our "Shabbat adventure."

Our first stop was the Israel Museum. Unfortunately, the museum has been undergoing a complete renovation, so the only exhibits available were the Second Temple Jerusalem Model (which used to be housed at the old Holyland Hotel, and was one of my favorite tourist sites to guide), the Shrine of the Book (home of the Dead Sea Scrolls), the sculpture garden (which we saw very little of due to the inclimate weather), and some temporary exhibits housed in the Children's Building. We made the most of our experience, and we even ran into a few more colleagues from southern California at the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit.

Then we hopped in the car for a driving tour of East Jerusalem and the Mountain of Olives, which is home to several churches and an enormous amount of Jewish graves (more traditional Jews believe that this is the best place to be buried because they will be the closest they can possibly be to Jerusalem and the Temple when the Messiah comes). After snapping a few photos, we drove Dan back to his hotel and returned to the kibbutz, where we spent the rest of the evening.

We enjoyed dinner with the Romano family - all of the kids dropped in at one point or another - and we spent the evening relaxing and schmoozing. Cornel and I stayed up late chatting over a bottle of wine or two...it was really nice just hang out on my kibbutz and be in the presence of family. (A common theme is develo