Home » Israel » Part 2- Go Galilee, its near the Sea

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

Displayed times (last time: )

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. Abuhav wanted to make it to Israel before he died, but he didn't make it. The story goes that after he died, all of his followers/best students had a dream about him telling them to go build a synagogue in Zfat, and what it was supposed to look like, so they came here, and this is his synagogue. The building itself was designed with very specific guidelines, based on a Hebrew "song" talking about the bible (for those of you who are Jewish, you would know this song as who knows 1, I know 1, one is Hashem). The site of this synagogue has been almost completely destroyed a few times, from major earthquakes in history, but the wall with the ark (where the Torah is kept) has never been destroyed. They believe that this is because the Torah inside was written by Abuhav himself, and is therefore blessed and sacred, and protects the ark.

Next was the Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue. The ark was built entirely of ceramics, something I had never seen before, and it was beautiful. At the bima, (the center of the synagogue where the person leading the service stands and leads the prayers), on one of the sides, there is a bullet hole. The story goes that a man was standing next to the bima, praying, and bowed down for one of the parts of the prayers, and at the exact moment he was bent over, ...