Barbara’s Blog

Archive for February, 2009

Today- Core Unit 2 Test

Today we had our second unit test in core. This one was harder than the last one because I already knew a bunch of stuff from the last one because it was about the Tanach. But this test was all new material!!! Oh well. Last night all I did after school was study!!! I’m not kidding, these tests are huge. We learned stuff in class that day (No, we did not review!) and then Danny told us that we must prepare 4 essays for the next day. We don’t get to choose two like last time, we must prepare all four. But it wasn’t his idea, he was forced to make us prepare 4 essays, but still……So that night I studied for like 6 hours. MAybe 5 because I went to dinner and school ened at 5:15. It was horrible!!! And then today the test was pretty easy. (Because I studied!!) and then I got the essay I wanted!!! YAY! (Just like last time I got the one I wanted) And my essay about Masada was six pages! (Double spaced) So yup, then I had english and now i am done with classes for today. yay, but now i have to study for my hebrew and math tests tomorow. We never get a break!!!

Beit Shearim and Zippori

Today we went to Beit Shearim and Zippori. We are learning about the time period after the second temple was destroyed and how the Jews kept revolting every few years. They revolted once and it was called the Great Revolt and one and a half million Jews were killed either by the Romans or each other. Many Jews were scattered and so they went to different places like Masada and Yavneh. Yavneh was a one point the center of Jewish life and the San Hedren was there. Then after the Bar Kochvah revolt (where 1 million Jews died) the San Hedren and center of Jewish life was moved to Beit Shearim because lots of Jewish refugees and great rabbis moved there. So we were there today and we saw the ruins and stuff left there. (I picked up a few shards!) We sat in an 1800 year old Beit Midrash (Center of Jewish learning) and had a debate just like the San Hedren would do there. We debated a matter of National Security just like they would do. It was really nice and informative; we even had a few sources from the Tanach about the topic. (Just like the San Hedren would!) We debated what Israel should do about Gilad Shalit, a soldier who was captured by Hamas in May of 2006 and is still alive. Of course Israel wants to get him back but Hamas wants 400 Palestinians in exchange for Gilad Shalit. Lots of people had different views but I had the same view the whole time. Israel should do everything in its power to get him back. He is a hero who has served Israel for years and is alive and captive in Gaza. I can’t even imagine what he has gone through all these years. GET HIM OUT!!! Israel is built on the backs of their soldiers and everyone MUST serve. The moral in the army would be horrible if everyone went in knowing/thinking  that their country was not behind them and supporting them, and if they were captured they would not be rescued. If it was me I would want to KNOW that everyone was supporting me and cares about me. Also we are not being weak or soft by negotiating with the terrorists. Israel is built upon morals; all of our Jewish morals are what make Israel such a great country. If not for the morals, what would Israel be?? We must do the right thing and get him back! Some terrorists change in prison, and you REALLY CAN’T put a price on his life!!! It’s worth it to get him back. The chance that the terrorists will change is worth getting him back. People think that the terrorists will kill even more people once they get out but Israel takes care of its soldiers and citizens. Hamas will keep capturing as many soldiers as they can. Getting Gilad Shalit back will not affect those numbers at all!! Plus in the Torah it says save someone else’s life before your own. So we should save him and THEN take care of ourselves! That is my opinion on the issue. After we all debated, the almost 70 of us, (There are 70 people in the San Hedren plus the Nasi) took a vote and we decided that Israel SHOULD do the trade and get him back!! Yay!!

                After our debate, we split up into our core classes and looked around a few Jewish graves/tombs that were in Beit Shearim. The tombs were HUGE and AMAZING!!! Very rich people were buried in there, however we had to find that out for ourselves. We were given a few questions and told to go in the tomb and find the answers. I don’t think you guys understand how big this place was, there were like thirty different rooms about the size of a normal classroom. Plus one huge room in the center. It was about twice the size of Shalhevet High School. Additionally, there were nice arches and huge stones. That basically answered the first question for me, rich people were buried there. Another question we had was it the tomb Jewish or not? It was Jewish because there was a menorah on the wall, ancient Hebrew writing on the sarcophagi, and a mikvah. We had other questions but you get the idea, it was like a scavenger hunt in a graveyard…..spooky. Plus it was really poorly lit so it was dark in there and I growled and scared some people. (Not too much!) After our scavenger hunt we got shown the main attraction in there, the grave site of Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi. He was the richest person in the town however he said that people should not spend a ton of money on being buried nicely, they should be buried simply. So he was just placed in the grave. However his bones are not there because a few years ago, a bunch of grave robbers took his bones and things and everyone else in there and sold them. So there were no bones or items in the tomb, just the graves and rocks left. However it was still very cool.

                After we were done learning about Beit Shearim we got on the buses and went to Zippori. After the Bar Kochvah revolt many people went to Beit Shearim, but when the great rabbi and Nasi there, Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi, got sick he was told that the air was better in Zippori. So he moved the San Hedren and center of Jewish life to Zippori. There had been Jews there for many years before the revolts but they learned how to get along with the Romans. They did not revolt, in fact before the revolts they were even on the city council! But they were taken off of it during the revolts because the Romans in Zippori did not want the Jews there to revolt.  So anyways, many Jews came to Zippori and made it the center of Jewish life. The difference there was that the Jews did not revolt about images and Roman stuff like that. They had images in their Beit Keneset and in public places (i.e. Market), plus they went to parties as long as there were no sacrifices to gods and stuff like that. So this raised a great question that our class debated nicely. Should the Jews have done what they did?? Should they all have revolted or been like the people in Zippori? Were the people in Zippori traitors?? And where do we draw the line and say enough is enough??

                I think that the Jews should NOT have revolted and should have done and been like the people in Zippori. Eventually everyone/most people were like that. Was it really worth the 2 ½ million Jewish lives?? I don’t think so. Eventually everyone became like them, so why not skip the step of dying and killing each other?? However I DO think the Jews in Zippori were traitors. In the Torah it says one should pray however the Jews in that synagogue are praying. I think this applies here too! The Jews in Zippori should have revolted or at least helped the Jews who were revolting. So many Jews were, so it was like a national Jewish thing; the congregation was revolting so the visiting people/ people who don’t go there all the time should too!! Lastly, I think that modern times are just like what was going on back then. People were changing and assimilating back then, was it worth it? Was it right? I think the answer is yes. If they had not done what they did, the Jewish people would not have survived! It’s because they can adapt and change that we are here.  But I think that people nowadays should be a lot stricter about where THEY cross/draw the line.

Beit Guvrin and Dig for a Day

Two days ago we went to Beit Guvrin. It was really fun. Want to know why???? Because there were barely any notes!!! Yay! It was awesome. The only notes we took was when we were in a cave that the Jews during the time of the Bar Kochvah revolt (and slightly before) made. They needed ways to communicate and travel between cities undetected so they made tunnels underground. These tunnels were very long but not very wide and big. We crawled through the tunnels and at some points we had to crawl on our sides or just turn around in a really small space. It was really fun; we were really crawling on our hands and knees (And at some point’s stomachs!!) It was so fun! We also got everyone to sit in a small room in the tunnel and we sang with all the lights out. (It seems that every time we go into a cave or tunnel we have to turn all the lights off and sing….whatever) So anyways Jews during the Bar Kochvah revolt, that’s about all we learned about them that day. After crawling through the tunnels, we went to this really cool thing called dig for a day. We went to a cave that is being excavated, and we got to go through and dig a little and sift through the dirt to find stuff. (We weren’t allowed to keep it) Some people found shards and a few found pieces of a person’s jawbone or something…DEAD PERSON!!!! Whatever, I didn’t find anything besides shards….oh well. Boring stuff!!! That was that, a short day.

Toga Party/ Greek Olympic Games

So a few weeks ago we had a Greek toga party. We woke up at 7:50 and got a text saying class is going to start at 8:00. I remember it because it was HORRIBLE!! I had to rush and then I didn’t even have time to eat breakfast! We all had to start class at 8 because at 10 we were going to have a surprise!! (Usually class starts at 8:30 and ends at 10:30) But anyways I rushed to class and made it there on time. So we had class for two hours…..yay (In the most sarcastic way possible) and then at the end of class Danny told us that we had 15 minutes to go to our dorms and dress up in our best togas possible. Then go to the grassy area by the cafeteria. That was such a surprise. I ran back to the dorm and was like freaking out because not only did I not have a white sheet, but the ones I brought were pink with flowers!!! Not GREEK AT ALL!! Luckily, Aunt Judy gave me a nice plain blue sheet to use, so I put that one and tied a string around my waist like a toga.  Plus I put on flip flops and put two leafs in my hair….Ta Dah!!!! Yay, then we went to the grassy area and saw our core teachers dressed up really funny!!! Their costumes were so much better than ours because they had more time to prepare!!! (Also, since we had like no time at all, I couldn’t find my camera, so I don’t have any pictures from the toga party/Olympic games L) We also saw the HIS (High School in Israel) kids dressed up in togas. We then split up into our core classes and had an “authentic” Greek Olympic games. Firstly each class made a statue (Out of people), and Danny’s class won!!! Yay our class. Then there was a fight!!! (Each person stood on one leg, crossed their arms, and tried to knock everyone else over)In the boys competition we lost, but in the girls competition we won!!!! Yay Yarden! Then lastly there was a five person relay race. Our class lost that, but won in the overall competition!!! Woo Hoo!!! We rock! Then we all went back to our dorms, changed, and went to our next class. The End

Belly Dancing Night

So last night we had a GNO (Girls Night Out). Except we didn’t go out, and the boys had one too. But whatever! It was a belly dancing class. At first it wasn’t mandatory, but then like two days before it became mandatory. I wasn’t going to sign up but we had to go. There were two shifts of girls because there are so many of us. So at 7:15 one group went to the belly dancing and the other made natural facials and stuff. Then at like 8:30 we switched. The belly dancing teacher was from Milken!!! She was in the first 7^th grade class there!!! We were “dancing” for like one and a half hours! It was all right…..sort of……I didn’t like it. I would not have signed up for it had it not been mandatory. Dancing just isn’t my thing. I would much rather solve a few Sudoku puzzles….yeah. So that was that, and then we made natural facials and stuff. There was ingredients like avocado, honey, sour cream, eggs, salt, lemon, and olive oil. Plus there were lots of snacks! I didn’t want to put any masks on so I just painted my nails. There was only one color at first, Silver!!! So I painted my nails with it. But then someone brought a nice pink color but I already had silver on. So I put the pink on like a French manicure. It looks pretty weird…..oh well. That was the GNO. Pretty laid back, but nice. We sort of bonded, in two groups.  Then that night our broom disappeared!!! It is so annoying!!! Right now we are trying to clean our room but SOME PEOPLE  leave their stuff on the ground and SOME PEOPLE don’t pick up their dirty underwear off the ground….It doesn’t bother me that much, but it is pretty gross and annoying while we are trying to clean….Oh well.  Later alligator.

Free Weekend 2

Hey, so last weekend I went to Aunt Judy’s again for my free weekend. It was SO FUN!!! I got picked up on Friday and it was gloomy and rainy but whatever. Friday night we had a really yummy meal!! So good!! And so much food!!! It was delicious! Then I went to bed pretty early (like 10) and slept!!! It was SO NICE!!!! I was so tired and I slept for like 10 ½ hours. It was heaven on earth. That morning and afternoon I played a bunch of games with Sarah, Batya, Ezra, Yosef and Amichai. The girls had gotten new Polly pockets so we played with those, and I learned a new card game from the boys!!! On Friday I had bought some candy from a small market near their house and I ate most of it by the time I got back to school. HAHAHA, oh well. So the afternoon was nice, but the weather was not!!! It was raining off and on like all day, and there was thunder and lighting and for like 2 minutes there was really intense hail. It was coming down so hard it bounced off the ground and it was like thousands of grasshoppers on the grass.  That night we went bowling and it was SO FUN!!! I hadn’t been bowling in a while and it was really cool. I did really well considering it was me, but Amichai won. He had like 140 points!!! (The bumpers were up though…..) He was really good. Both he and I got a few strikes in. It was really fun. And Uncle Aaron bowled so fast!!! It had a speedometer and my fastest was like 8 km/h but his was like 15!!! How did he do that??  After bowling we had dinner at Sbarros. KOSHER SBARROS!!! How cool is that??? I wish we had it in LA. Oh well, after that Amichai and Yosef tried out a few instrument in a music shop and Sarah and Batya played some really cool electric drums. THEN…I was taken home because it was late, but my camera charger hadn’t been working so Yosef said he would look at it. So I took him upstairs, plugged the battery in, and it worked!!!! I looked like such an idiot!! Not cool!! Then ok, it works, so I walked him to the front of the school and then I went back upstairs and it didn’t work!!! It had been plugged in the whole time!! It sucked, oh well. I will figure something out for my 4 year old camera….(I hope!)

Dead Sea

Hi again!! Sorry this post is so late but I have been really busy lately. This is about the Dead Sea, we went there after Masada. It was SSOOOO FUN!!! At first I was a little scared to go in because I didn’t want to have my whole body stung. We had a talk on the bus about open wounds and other stuff that would happen.  But I got in and it was so fun!!! We were floating, on our backs, sitting up, we could not sink!!! I got a few pictures of us floating. We also swam while trying not to splash each other. Quite the challenge! I ended up swimming backwards. There were also really cool salt rocks but I kept slipping and cutting my hands and feet!!! They bled and REALLY HURT!! Then later we went and found some mud and covered ourselves in it!!! It was so gross!!! It got all crusty and yucky, but then we went into the Dead Sea and my skin was so soft!!! It was awesome! Almost worth it. However, a few hours later my skin was really dry and yucky and my cloths and bathing suit smelled!!! Yucky salt! Plus, I had taken my watch in which was really dumb!!! It got ruined and I still don’t have a watch now. I feel like I might go insane because I don’t know what time it is or what the date is. It is highly annoying!!! More than you would expect. So that’s what happened at the Dead Sea.

Masada

This should be part of the other post because it was the same trip, but the other one was so long I decided to make this its own post. Yay! So Masada, where to begin…OH YEAH. It began pretty early, try like 4am early!! We all had to wake up at 4 am and be on the buses at 4:45 to go to Masada. The reason was because we hiked up the mountain and watched the sunrise from the top. So 4 am we all got up, I actually wasn’t that tired. Thank god, the hike would have sucked if I was. So we all got ready and had a very early breakfast which lead to everyone being hungry later (Before lunch) but of course we aren’t allowed to EAT on Masada. Shoot I’m getting side tracked. So we got to Masada and it was pitch black. I could barely see the path in front of me let alone the mountain! But luckily it got lighter while we were hiking. So we hiked, and walked, and climbed, and rested, and walked some more. It actually felt like a really short hike. (It was about 45 minutes long) And the whole time I was first! And I was the FIRST PERSON to make it to the top!!! (The teacher doesn’t count because we aren’t allowed to pass them!)  It was nice, I think only like the first 30 people up there got to see the whole sunrise from the top. It was really nice and pretty! Then we prayed a little. It would have been a better experience if we were allowed to go to the bathroom before that and if we could have prayed in the really old Shul there. It’s from 2,000 years ago when the Zealots (Zealous Jews) lived in Masada. But anyways, we prayed a little and then we got with our core classes and started to learn. Man was that place cool!! We learned like the whole history of it. How the Jews felt after the temple was destroyed, so they decided to flee to Masada, and they miraculously conquered it, and then they lived there and helped other Jews revolt all around the world. It was some pretty cool stuff. We also learned about King Herod, and how paranoid he was, and so he built up Masada, and had two really nice palaces there, and had food and water there. Pretty cool, it doesn’t sound as awesome on paper but it was amazing because we saw the places and things we were learning about. We saw the palaces and the amazing food storehouses Herod had. And we saw the water system he made, so when there was a flash flood the water could be used.

            So we learned about all the background and then we really started to learn about the Jews who lived there. Basically, a bunch of Jews managed to run away after the temple was destroyed and they took over Masada which was a roman garrison town. They came there and saw all the amazing things Herod had built there but felt conflicted because their Jewish brothers and sisters who were enslaved had built it. So they decided to only use the facilities there. They built their own houses, and schools, and a shul, and had mikvahs everywhere! They were normal Jews. They used the food from Herod’s store houses and had water and basically life was good for them. They were well defended too! On top of a huge mountain with only one way to get up it, or so they thought! They were up on the mountain and they were continuing the revolt. They sent letters to Jews all over the world and told them to revolt. Many Jewish towns did, and so the Romans got angry. The Romans don’t like revolts, so when there is one, they crush it!!! So they sent 1/3 of the roman army to take out 1,000 puny Jews on a mountain. The Jews saw the siege camps but were not afraid because they had everything they needed on top of the mountain. Then the Romans tried to come up the mountain but it was easy for the Jews to push rocks over the side and take them out. I know because we came up the snake path, which was the only path at that time. So the Jews stopped the Romans from coming up the mountain. However then the Romans decided to build their own ramp up the mountain. Well HAHA again all the Jews had to do is throw rocks over the side and the Romans were crushed. Then one day the Jews get ready to throw the rocks over the side and they look down and see their Jewish brothers and sisters crying as they are forced to build the ramp.

            What a dilemma!!! Should they throw rocks over the edge and kill the Jewish slaves to save themselves? Or should they wait for the Romans to come and kill and enslave them? They had no good choices. Every day they yelled to the Jews to revolt but they could not.  Finally the night before the ramp was done and the Romans invaded the Jews had a meeting and decided to kill themselves, kill their own families and then slit their own throats so that they would not be enslaved by the Romans and so Jews all over the world would see that they died for their fellow Jews. So that morning every man killed his whole family and then he was killed. The last person fell on his own sword. The fate of Masada was proven in one room of one of Herod’s palaces. There was a dead little girl with braided hair, being hugged by her mother and a man how had a sword in him. These people were probably the last people alive on Masada. Everything else was burnt down so the next morning the Romans came and found nothing but dead people, so they threw them over the mountain. We saw that mountain and valley. We then yelled what people who graduate from the army say there. It’s something like Masada will not fall again. It was amazing because when we yelled that there was some kind of echo that made it sound like a thousand voices were joining us. So from the valley that all the bodies were found, voices were joining us saying Masada will not fall again. It was THE MOST AMAZING THING on this trip. The voices of all the people from 2,000 years ago who were killed were with us and said Masada will not fall again. It really made everything we learned come alive. Plus we yelled “AM ISRAEL CHAI” and we heard the voices again. The Jews from back then were joining us in saying Israel is alive and will live on. So cool! (After some people tried to yell other things and it didn’t work…) So that is how Masada fell. It was such a tragedy.

            While we were up there we also learned about other things that were found there. For instance there were Mikvahs found there and they are the same measurements we have today. So we know that our traditions were passed on correctly. Plus a Genizah was found there. When a document has God’s name on it, it cannot be thrown away, it must be buried. So they found where the Jews from Masada buried their documents. The most amazing thing they found there was a letter we had learned about previously. It was a letter from Yechezkel to the Jews who were living in Babylon. It talked about a prophecy about a valley of dry bones where the bones come back to life. It symbolizes spiritual resurrection for the Jews, or the Jews will be brought back spiritually. It’s in the Tanach and it was found in Masada. This proves that it was real. So cool!!! Plus, an ostricon (Shard with writing on it) with a Tough (last letter in the Hebrew alphabet) was found near some food. It was for Truma, the food set aside to sacrifice at the temple. This shows that the Jews there thought they would go back to the temple soon and they still had hope shown through the valley of dry bones document. Additionally, there were scrolls and a Bet Midrash that were found, and these both support education. Those Jewish mothers and their obsession with education never ends!!! Hahaha

So basically there were tons of cool things at Masada. Plus, we weren’t allowed to eat up there right??But EVERYONE was STARVING by like 9 am. So we decided to sneak some food but RIGHT THEN the guy who empties the trash and gives tickets for eating walks by. It was horrible, but luckily he didn’t give us a ticket. Phew!!!Then a few minutes later we were still hungry!! Shocker! So we decided we would hold the food (The madrichim brought snacks for all of us) by the bathroom and we would take turns getting some. However the SAME GUY was cleaning the bathrooms!!! REALLY??? NO!!! So again no food. Oh well. It was like one hour until we finally had a chance to eat. We were joking that since we were in a room by the side of the cliff he would scale the Cliffside and look in the window at us eating food!! It was so funny! Anyways like at 11:20 am we were done learning and it was time to hike down. However Rona’s class was not done yet, so Danny and Phil’s classes hiked down. Plus, our group had two tickets for the gondola. JUST TWO…three would have come in handy. (On the way up two people got to ride in the gondola because they could not do the hike…but that was part of the fun!!) So anyways I hiked down and was FIRST to the bottom!! Then like 20 minutes later Rona’s class made it down the mountain. The LAST person was Hanna, so I asked her what happened because she is a good hiker! She replied saying, “I puked on the way down…..four times!!!”

 

 

 

 

I felt so bad!! (However it was a bit funny…) She looked red and there were no adults with her. The only adult with Rona’s class was David Mitchell, but he ran down the mountain and did not see the people in the back. One girl fell down and scraped her knees, (VERY bloody!) and Hanna had puked four times with no one there to offer a helping hand (Except for the other students, everyone here is so sweet and we are a really tight group) So another ticket on the gondola would have been nice for Hanna. So once we were at the bottom, we bought ice cream and went shopping. I didn’t buy anything but a few people did, and with every purchase people got free samples of Ahava products. Like mud masks and exfoliation. So of course that night everyone was having like a mud mask party!! It was really funny! J

Jerusalem and Ein Boqeq

Again that was a great trip! I think that was the best trip so far!! I hope I can do it justice in this blog. I feel bad, we learn such cool stuff and then I TRY to put the best things in the little blog posts but really that’s like nothing compared to what we learn.

So firstly, we went to a bunch of places in Jerusalem. We went and saw the Dead Sea scroll and other cool old scrolls and books. I felt really cool because I was the only kid who recognized that one book was opened to the first page of Megilate Esther. I am very Jewish, YAY! We also learned about the people who lived in that time and how all the books they had were exactly the same as what we have in modern times.  Pretty cool, us Jews don’t change that much! Haha, just kidding. We also saw a few really old tefillin, they were tiny because people used to wear them all day long. It was nice. I really liked the Dead Sea scrolls because it’s just so amazing that the torah has survived this long. After the scrolls we went to a little miniature of Jerusalem. But not modern day Jerusalem, a to scale model of what Jerusalem was like in the time of the second temple and after king Herod built it and made the city beautiful. The model was amazing!! The Bet Hamikdash was so…so….oh I can’t even describe it!! It made me so sad to see it and know that it was destroyed and hasn’t stood for thousands of years. It had the outer walls then the courtyard where anyone could go. Then it had a courtyard for Jewish women and a separate one for Jewish men. Then they had the buildings and the Kodesh Ha Kedoshim inside the main building. Plus we saw the amazing Jerusalem of Gold that was on top the Temple. It probably would have been the prettiest building ever if it still stood. We also saw the different sections in Jerusalem for rich people and poor people. And we saw a model of the king’s palace and the city of David. It was very nice and helped me picture what Jerusalem used to look like. After that, we went to a place that I didn’t even know existed!! It was an archeological park next to the kotel, like right next to it! We saw such cool things there!! I highly recommend it. We saw the corner of the outer wall (Where the western wall and southern wall meet) and we saw an old roman road/street. There used to be a market there and people could buy food and stuff to sacrifice there. Plus there used to be a bridge that went up to the top but when the Romans destroyed the temple the bridge fell. It was a HUGE bridge with enormous rocks! So when it fell it must have made the loudest noise ever!! And we saw the place where they fell. The street was dented, like it was broken and sunken. Plus we saw the rocks that fell, they were huge! God knows how Herod built that place. We also learned about how every week 40 minutes before Shabbat, a Cohen would go on top of that bridge and blow the shofar to announce that Shabbat was coming. So every week 40 minutes before Shabbat in Jerusalem, a siren goes off to announce Shabbat is coming. All that is left of the bridge now is a little ledge coming out of the western wall. Also, we saw the sewage they had there, basically Herod built the place really well. It has survived more than 2,000 years!! Plus we saw some amazing graffiti. I know that sounds weird but it is very old graffiti. Someone climbed up the fallen bridge when it was still where it had fallen and wrote a passage from the Tanah there. It was a message of hope, it said that the Jews will return to Jerusalem and flourish. What an amazing thing that was. People were dying everywhere, Jews were killing other Jews, the different kinds of Jews were fighting, and the Romans were mad at the Jews!! I don’t know how he still had hope but he did and everything he said came true!! We are back, we are in Jerusalem. That was the first time I really connected with Jerusalem, it just hit me. The steps we were on were the exact same ones that our brothers and sisters ran down to escape the Romans. 2,000 years ago!! And they were running for their lives, from their homes!! They lived in Jerusalem and went to the Temple and then had to run away from it all. I can’t imagine what it was like! The bridge falling down and the market going away. The people running away and getting killed, the food being burned, the screams of terror, and the temple being destroyed. It was like the holocaust, but everyone lost the temple and everyone suffered. I am truly amazed that the Jewish people survived! There were coins minted in the Roman Empire that said Judea is captured and Judea is no more. They were wrong, I felt so connected with our past while we were there. Our class just comes alive and makes me think and grow more than I ever thought it would. Plus, I got a few pretty holy shards while I was there! J I would type more but my head hurts so the blog will be continued tomorrow. Sorry!

I’m BACK!! So where did I leave off?? Right! Bet Hamikdash two getting destroyed. There were four different kinds of Jews back then who were all mad at each other. (Pharisees, Sagasees, Zealots, and Essences) Destruction, death, horror, blood, pain, suffering, and bad stuff happening. So it was very nice and our class pretended that we were experiencing it. We ran away from the romans, down the stairs and we had a debate about what to do. It was cool! So after Jerusalem we had LOTS. Its not dinner on the streets, it LUNCH ON THE STREETS!! YAY! It was fun but our class was the last to finish. So we had like 15 minutes. So i just got some shwarmah. (Yummy!) and then I went back to the buses. (Fun Fact: we passed a street called Tiferet Israel Street! Look on facebook for a picture of it by Hanna Port) So we all got on the buses and drove to a place called Ein Boqeq. The group was late in general so we did not have time for the hike that was planned. However since there were two full medics people had the option to do the real (HARD!) hike quickly with David Mitchell. So I volunteered to hike, and then Ariela and Sofia (my roommates) volunteered and then Hanna and Cassie came too!! So it was room 81 doing the hard hike. We are so cool and close! J So we started hiking and it was really pretty. It was in the desert but there was a nice stream. We had to walk around it and some people got their feet wet. Oh well. Then it got really STEEP!! The hill was like straight up! Bradley joined our group right before we left everyone else at the bottom. The hike was like 15 minutes long….15 minutes of PURE TORTURE!!! It was so hard!! But then we got to the top and it was so worth it! We saw the sunset and had an amazing view of the Dead Sea and Jordan. It was pretty nice!! We sat and meditated for like 10 minutes, it was nice and relaxing. Then we took pictures of the super six! (Room 81….and Bradley) The hike down was much easier. So yeah, that was our experience at Ein Boqeq.

 

First Free Weekend!

            WOW that was really fun!! I just got back from our first free weekend, but first I will give a summary of my week.

            So we had a lot of school which was pretty boring. We had our core test on Thursday! (I got a 96 on one part of it! That counts for one third of the grade, the essay counts for two thirds) and it was nice because I got to being my laptop in to write the essay. I think I wrote a really good one. (I hope!) Our teacher gave us six prompts, we chose two and had to write outlines for each, and then he flipped a coin. I got the one I wanted…YAY!

            I was pretty sick last week. At first I felt a little bad and then my nose was running, but the nurse said everyone was feeling bad so she didn’t give me anything. Then the next day my nose was running like crazy, my eyes were watering, I felt really weak, and just all around bad. I could have stayed in bed but I went to school. Plus I went to the nurse’s office 8 times that day but she was never there!! It sucked! She is only there for like half an hour every day. I think I am pretty independent, (I had tissues, my own medicine, I didn’t eat dairy, made myself some toast etc.) but I was hoping she could give me something that would not make me tired. Oh well, then the next few days I got better, then worse, then better over the weekend, but now I am feeling a little worse..Oh well. Life goes on.

            What else happened this week.. Oh, Hanna, Jeremy, and I went out with a bunch of Israeli friends!! It was really fun! They go to the other school on campus. At first there were 8 of us, but by the end 17 people had hung out with us. We met up with a few, a few left early, a few came late, we bumped into some people ….It was really fun! We had pizza and ice cream. Yummy. Plus we talked a lot! I learned that one of my friends Avihai has had a pet dog, parrot, chicken, hen, duck, goat, 2 ferrets, a bunny, hamsters, fish, and others that I can’t remember!! It was insane!! Hahaha

            So the highlight of my week was definitely the free weekend. I went to my Aunt Judy’s house in Ranaana. It was so fun! I met their dog Tasha for the first time. She is so big and cute and sweet and friendly! I love her. She’s the perfect dog. Plus I got to hang out with all my cousins! Amichai, Yosef, Ezra, Sarah, and Batya and my aunt Judy and Uncle Aaron. On Friday afternoon I got to their house and helped make chocolate covered strawberries!! So yummy! J Then Shabbat started and I went to Shul with Uncle Aaron, Sarah, Batya, and Ezra. It was nice and I got to see my friend from my old schools Talia Hofstadter!! She moved here from LA 6 months ago and so we talked for like an hour!! She says she likes it here. I’m glad she is having a good time, and now that I am here I understand why everyone likes to live in Israel! So after shul we went home and had the BEST AND YUMMIEST MEAL!!!! There was so much food! And it was all so good! I was stuffed after it. Then we talked and played games for a while and went to bed. I slept so well!! It was so comfortable. It was very nice! The next morning I woke up at 8:30 and went to shul at like ten. Shul was nice and I saw my chemistry teacher there!! Haha, school is everywhere. Then we had another delicious meal for lunch and basically hung out for the rest of the day. It was nice and laid back. Then I got driven back to school at like 8:45 and unpacked and did my homework. It was very fun and a welcome change of pace.