Hey everyone!
Long time, no update! (again!)
I apologize for my long delay, but I believe that I have a pretty good excuse for why I’ve been so busy that I haven’t been able to blog.
I’ll start where we left off. Ashley came to Israel! I had such a great time hanging out with her. Some highlights of the trip included her coming out with my friends and I, spending Shabbat at Shira Hadasha, and hanging out, just relaxing! Hopefully, we can get her to guest blog and tell you all about her trip (HINT HINT, ASHLEY!)
After Ashley and Mom left, it was close to finals at Hebrew University, so it became time cramp down and write some papers and study for some tests. I wrote 5 papers, and took one test. My test was in my Holocaust class, wrote a paper about the redemption of papers for my Talmud class, and wrote four papers for my Modern Jewish History Class. These papers ranged from the history of Jews to my opinion on intermarriage between a Jew and a non-Jew. I really felt like I did well and I can’t wait to find out how I did!
On Thursday (A week ago today), I spent the entire day packing up my entire Jerusalem life and preparing for the next month of adventures. That day, I packed up my life into 4 different sections. The first section of stuff was a bunch of clothes and random items that I put into storage and will pull out of storage when I go to Yeruham. The second section was clothes and other random items (electronics and such) that will be taken with me to my Israel Experience Week. The third section is the stuff I am bringing with me to Italy for break, and the fourth is for the Israel Today Seminar that I will be going on when I get back from break, before Yeruham.
Our last Shabbat in Israel was really special. It was a closed Shabbat and it was absolutely amazing. The seniors at Chicagoland Jewish High School are on their annual trip to Israel for three weeks, and they stayed at Beit Nativ for the week! On Shabbat, I got to lead Friday Night Ma’ariv in front of not only my Nativ friends, but also my CJHS friends! It was so fun to see so many people that I knew from home all at the same time! After a great dinner, I hung out with a bunch of friends in a room, and enjoyed the rest of Shabbat relaxing, going to Kol Rina, and having a great time with all of my friends.
Sunday morning, we woke up really early, put our stuff on the bus and went on our way for Israel experience week. There are 4 different trips that you could go for the week. The first tri[, which left a week before was a trip to Poland, where you could get guided tours and stuff of camps and other significant places. I did this on pilgrimage, so I decided to pass on this opportunity and do something new. The second option was you could do a weeklong Army training program, called Gadna, with the highlight being you get to fire a M-16 machine gun at the end of the week. As cool as that sounded, I couldn’t picture myself going through a week of army, so I decided to pass. The third option was to go to Haifa and volunteer in the community there. While volunteering, you could work at a zoo and do other things, which seemed cool, but not as cool as what I chose, which was an Archeological Dig in Tiberias!
When we got off the bus after a 2.5 hour ride, we found ourselves on the shores of the Kineret, Israel’s largest (and only!) freshwater lake. We were at an amphitheatre that was from the roman times, almost 700 years BC! It was mostly excavated, and actually really beautiful. You can see it in pictures in the link below! It was here where we got associated with the site, had our introduction to the tools and learned what we were going to be doing! After we left the excavation site, we wound up back at our hostel! It was absolutely beautiful!
We went straight out to the back of the hostel, and started to play in the Kineret. It was so fun to play in the water, and hang out with a bunch of other Nativers. I wound up getting into my boxers and shirt because I didn’t want to get my pants wet, and completely submerged myself. It was great to escape the 83 degree (!) heat! It was hands down the hottest January 10th I’ve ever had in my life!
The next morning, we woke up early, as we did every day that week, and went to work! I was in a group with Adina, Joey and Seffi and we wound up digging in a room that was about 8 feet by 8 feet, and about 4 feet down. After 4 days of intense work, the room was 8 feet by 8 feet, about 7 feet down. It was truly astonishing to see the progress that we were making! We found pottery, bones, and a lot of rocks! It was so fun, and we had a lot of laughs!
Alright, im sorry to wrap this up so quickly, but I am about to walk out the door to go to the airport to depart for my 2 week vacation in Italy!
I will be sure to update you when I get back!
Here are some pictures from the Archeological Dig!
Until next time!
Seth
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