Day 1: Jerusalem.
What a wonderful and eventful day, full of experiences that seem to happen only in this most magical of cities.
Our day began at an overview of Jerusalem from the Mt. of Olives.
From there we traveled first to the Hebrew Union College where we visited a small but very important archaeological museum and received a guided tour of the campus from Shaul Feinberg whose tenure began at HUC Jerusalem during my year in Jerusalem. We heard about the critical role that the College has played over the years both in the training of Reform rabbis, cantors and educators. And about the central role the college has played in the archaeological understanding of the history of the middle east. (We saw a copy of a 9th century BCE inscription talking about the Kingdom of David – the only existing historical record of King David’s reign.)
This was followed by a surprise anniversary cake for Debbie and me – that was most appreciated and shared by all.
Then it was on to the Old City of Jerusalem, where we spent the rest of the day discovering its many, many historical layers and complex historical, religious and political foundations. We walked under the streets and plazas of the Old City where we saw the many ancient layers of the city being unearthed. We visited the Western Wall where we had the opportunity to both offer our own prayers and, following long standing Jewish tradition, inserting the notes of our TAS students, written at our recent Israel Independence Day celebration.
Finally, there are those encounters that happen only in Israel. There is the K.C. rabbi that I met on the plane to Jerusalem. He was a rabbi in K.C. when I was a high school NFTY student. I haven’t seem him in years, but there he was, leading a tour of his own to the holy land. There were the two colleagues from northern California, one from Sta. Monica and one from West Hollywood who I ran into during breakfast. And Debbie’s first cousin who is leading a six week teen mission of 250 adolescents. (Boy are we glad not to be here.)
We are all still dealing with jet lag from a looooong journey here, but we are all so excited to be here. Tomorrow: Tel Aviv.
As always your thoughts and questions are welcome.
Have a great day, Rabbi Barry Lutz
