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Part 2...

Day 3- Today we drove to Zfat, in the Galilee. Zfat is one of the holiest cities in Judaism, after Jerusalem and Hebron. It is a beautiful little town on the top of a mountain, and is home to the Jewish mystics of Kabbalah. It also happens to be my most favorite place in all of Israel. You can just feel these special, spiritual, mystical powers flowing all around you. As a very religious city, where Kabbalah was developed in the 16th century, there are dozens of small synagogues, mostly after specific rabbis. We went to a few of the more important ones. First was the Abuhav Synagogue, named for Rabbi Yitzhak Abuhav, a famous rabbi from Spain who lived in the 15th century.

Part 2- Go Galilee, its near the Sea

Leah Schneier
2007-04-21 21:43:36

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some reason I don't remember, is specially connected to helping find a husband or wife. You go to his tomb, and pray for g-d to send you a husband or wife, with whichever qualities you want. Then you walk around the tomb 7 times (7 is a very significant number in Judaism), which also happens to be the number of times the bride walks around the groom at a Jewish wedding. After your 7 circles, you go light a candle in memorial of Rabbi Yonatan. Me and all my friends did this, so I am expecting a husband any day now! Hehe.

After our fun little detour, we went to Lake Agmon and the Hula Valley. This was a very interesting place. So, many years ago, there was a lake here. The Jewish National Fund, which before Israel became a state, had been purchasing land for Jews and developing, found itself without much to do once Israel actually became a state, so it started working on agricultural things. They decided to drain the lake here, for agriculture. But the agriculture didn't' work out very well, and caused thousands of birds who used to pass through during their migration on the way to Africa, stop coming. So, at some point, they realized that they messed up, and started to rebuild the lake. Now, I don't think its quite what it used to be, it is a lake again, and the birds have returned. Oh boy have they returned. There were thousands and thousands of birds sitting on or around the lake, and beavers too! I swear, you could have been anywhere, at any nature reserve park in the US, but here I was in Israel. It was a beautiful spot, and great to see the birds returning to Israel.

That night, we had our final dinner and party, and our program director even drove up for the night to see us. We had long talks about the program, about the experience, good and bad things. I think our tour guide said it best though. We all went in really different directions on our program, and we all became different people than when we started. And its really true. ...