Yom Kippur

I experienced an amazing two days in Jerusalem for Yom Kippur. During the day on Wednesday, our group got to listen to different speakers that were very inspiring. The first was an old rabbi in his 80s. He spoke to us about his life journey and about how he was still making choices, not knowing if he was picking the right path/ doing the right things, but taking chances none-the-less, all of which was relevant to everything I question daily and it was so cool to hear this out of someone who was so much older than me, yet still processing information like I do.

OTZMA set up our group in a hostel right in the heart of Jerusalem. We ate a big dinner together around 4 and we got maps of the city and were different synagogues with explanation of what kind of service they had. A few of my friends and I went to a reform service right down the road.The area where it was held was so beautiful. There were windows that over looked all of Jerusalem, so as the service was going, we watched the sun set. Continued... This was wonderful; the service itself though was not that great. There was a choir that sang most of the songs in beautiful tones I don’t think my throat has ever made before so I couldn’t sing along. And the service was so long. Like 3 hours for reform and I am quite a fidgety girl. It really made me miss services from my congregation back home, no cantor, just the rabbi and his guitar.

After the service though, I had a few really neat experiences. First my friends and I walked to the German area of town where many people just walk or bike up and down the street. More so then any Shabbat, the city was completely shut down. There was absolutely not a car on the busiest streets, so everyone just walks on them. We chatted to several random people along the way. Everyone we met was so friendly and wanted to know how our travels and experiences had been.

We walked for some time and then turned around to go to the Kotel, the Western Wall. It was about 10 at night at this point. We finally got there and it was quite amazing. Tons of people were praying still. A lot of people were actually camped out and had sleeping bags and pads all lain out for the night. Like they were waiting in line over night for tickets!

The next day I woke up in dire need of a latte. Oh well! I ended up fasting the whole time. It was easier then it has been before for me because I felt like the whole country was right with me. And although I was a little weak and crabby, I was really proud of myself for sticking with it. Later that night we did some celebrating and later spent the night at my friend’s place in the Hebrew U.

For the rest of the weekend, my friends and I traveled to a Kibbutz on the Galilee. One of my friends has a brother that is in the army and he lives on this Kibbutz with other soldiers who don’t have any family in Israel. The place was great! We hung out with his army friends, ate dinner at the dining hall, hung out at the pool the next day – which over looked the Jordan border and you could see so far from it. The whole place was like a mini paradise in the north. Everything was very green and there were many palm trees all over. Much nicer than the desert of Be’er Sheva where we have been spending most of our time. At night we got to watch the sunset from a top of the bomb shelter in the middle of a circle of houses. A weird thing about this country is the amount of bomb shelters everywhere. Most of the people’s homes I have visited have a room that is a bomb shelter and here at the Kibbutz, they were all over the place because it was so close to the border. It is a weird reality to have in your backyard.