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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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We all came with a common goal, a common purpose, and the program, and our time living in Israel took us all to different places, on different journeys, and it was really cool to see us all at the end of it. We may not be able to see the change in ourselves, but we could see it in our friends.

Day 4- Our last day was beautiful, sad, and stressful. We left our comfy hotel and drove back to the Galilee, to Tiberias. We first went up Mt Arbel. Mt Arbel overlooks the whole Galilee, Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), and Zfat to the north. It was really breathtaking, and a great place to sum up our trip. I say to sum up or trip, but we didn't really talk about it, it was a feeling of culmination. The sun was finally shining for us and we all lingered there for a long time, not wanting to leave.

Our last stop was the grave of Rambam, otherwise known as Rabbi Moshe Maimonides. Rambam, other than being a brilliant doctor, and doctor to the Sultan in Egypt in the 16th century (I think), also was a brilliant Jewish scholar and wrote the 14 principles(categories) of mitzvot, and the Mishnah Torah, and many other important books. Rambam, didn't live in Israel, he lived in Egypt. When he died, he had written that he wanted to be buried in Israel, but he didn't say where. So, they put his body on a camel, once across the border into Israel, and decided that wherever the camel stopped, is where he would be buried. So the camel made it all the way to Tiberias, and the exact spot he stopped is where he is currently buried. It is
also the same area where another very famous Rabbi Ben Zakkai had or yeshiva. His story goes, during the time that Jerusalem was being taken over by the Romans (about 68 AD), Zakkai was snuck out of the city in a coffin, so he could continue Judaism. At some point, he met a Roman, and predicted that he would be the next emperor of Rome. Soon afterwards, the Emperor died, and the man became the new Emperor, as Zakkia had predicted. He ...