Touring Israel-Masada, Dead Sea and Qumran

Now that my classes have ended I'm spending a few days traveling around Israel. On Sunday I went to Masada, the Dead Sea and Qumran.
Masada (Hebrew מצדה, pronounced Metzada, from מצודה, metzuda, "fortress") is a site of ancient palaces and fortifications in the South District of Israel on top of an isolated rock plateau, or large mesa, on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea. Masada used to be used for military induction ceremonies, but today it is more often used as a Bar/Bat Mitzvah site for families who are visiting Israel. I was interested to learn that most of the physical damage to the buildings had been caused by earthquakes.
The Dead Sea (Hebrew: יָם הַמֶּלַח, Yām Ha-Melaḥ, "Sea of Salt" Arabic: البَحْر المَيّت, al-Baḥr El-Mayyit, "Dead Sea") is a salt lake with Jordan to the east and the West Bank and Israel to the west. Its surface and shores are 422 metres (1,385 ft) below sea level,[3] the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface on dry land. The Dead Sea is 378 m (1,240 ft) deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. It is also one of the world's saltiest bodies of water, with 33.7% salinity. It is 8.6 times as salty as the ocean. This salinity makes for a very harsh environment where animals are unable to live.
The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years. Biblically, it was a place of refuge for King David. It was one of the world's first health resorts (for Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from balms for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics and herbal sachets.
Blog Activity: Why do you think it's called the Dead Sea?
Qumran, חירבת קומראן, is located on a dry plateau about a mile inland from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank, just next to the Israeli kibbutz of Kalia. The site was most likely constructed sometime during or before the reign of John Hyrcanus, 134-104 BCE and saw various phases of occupation until, probably after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. It is best known as the settlement nearest to the hiding place of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves of the sheer desert cliffs.
Since the discovery in 1947 of nearly 900 scrolls in various states of completeness, mostly written on parchment, extensive excavations of the settlement have been undertaken. Cisterns, possibly a few Jewish ritual baths, and cemeteries have been found, along with a dining or assembly room and debris from an upper story alleged by some to have been a scriptorium as well as pottery kilns and a tower.
Blog Activity: Find the story of how the Dead Sea Scrolls were found and draw a picture illustrating the story.

Lunch Breaks 2

During three weeks of classes you get a lot of lunch breaks and I thought I would share some more pictures from our lunch breaks. One day I ran over to Mahaneh Yehuda with some friends. For those of you who have not been here this market is an integral part of Israeli culture and history.
Mahaneh Yehuda dates back to the end of the 19th century, when it was established on an empty lot owned by the Sephardi Valero family. Arab merchants sold goods to residents outside the Old City, saving them the long walk to the Old City food markets. Eventually, Jewish merchants opened stalls there. In the 1920s and 30s, the market was turned into a permanent facility by the British mandatory government. Today the market is still going strong and many people do the majority of their food shopping there as it is much less expensive than the supermarket.

Blog Activity: Do the pictures of Mahane Yehuda remind you of anything in our area? What would you buy if you were shopping at Mahane Yehuda?
Bonus Question-Can you guess what was used to make those towers?

Lunch Breaks

Since we are in classes all day our lunch breaks are often used as a time to run errands. I ran over to Yad L'kashish one day to pick out a new tallit and do some mitzvah shopping. I know I've told many families about this wonderful organization, but if you are not familiar with it, the organization was started by Myriam Mendilow because she was upset at how many elderly residents of Jerusalem she saw on the streets begging for food and money.
Refusing to accept this as "the way things are," she began a workshop designed to train a small group of elderly and indigent men in the art of bookbinding. Local schools would bring tattered books from their libraries to the workshop, and for a small fee, the elderly would rebind the books. In only a short period, the group of eight beggars rediscovered their dignity and pride and the 'experiment' took root.

Thus, Yad LaKashish (Lifeline for the Old) began. Still located at its original site in the Musrara neighborhood of Old Jerusalem, the small shack which was originally used as the bookbindery has grown into an impressive building complex. The ten workshops today employ 310 elderly and disabled artisans,newly trained craftsmen and women who have rediscovered their pride and productivity. I make it a point to visit their shop whenever I am in Israel as I think the work they are doing is very impressive and worthwhile. I picked up a beautiful new tallit there which you will be seeing at TI when I return to services.

Here are some pictures of the Yad LaKashish buildings.

Blog Activity: Look for the book about Myriam Mendilow in the Mollie Berch library.

Classes Part 2

Here, as promised, are pictures of the room in use. I am also posting a picture of one of my teachers, Rabbi Shlomo Zacharow, he is teaching the Contemporary Issues in Halakha class. Some of you might have read his article in the recent Conservative Judaism summer issue. All of the teachers have been excellent and extremely knowledgable.

Classes

As I mentioned in a previous blog I am in classes from 9 -5:30. I thought you might like to see some pictures of the Conservative Yeshiva campus and classrooms. I know I posted some photos but these include pictures of the בית מדרש.

Blog Activity: Look up the meaning of the Hebrew words typed above and draw a picture of what you would design for this type of structure.

This room is uniquely designed so that you can study in חברותה
pairs or small groups. That is the main type of learning that we do in our classes. We study text together in small groups or pairs and then get back together towards the end of class to share our thoughts and ideas and learn from the Rabbis as they help us to unpack the meanings. I am also posting picturs of my חברותה

Catching Up with Friends.

One of the nice things about being in Israel is the opportunity to see people who have made Aliyah. In addition to some of the people that I mentioned running into on Emek Refa'im, I also had the opportunity to catch up with Judy White and John Young and family. We got together for dinner one night and this past Saturday, Motzei Shabbat I attended a concert that Evie was performing in, the money that was raised went to the Hadassah Hospital here in Jerusalem. They will be coming to DC this month and hope to stop by Tifereth Israel for Shabbat while they are in town.

Blog Activity: What's the name of the restaurant where we had dinner? What type of food do you think we ate?