Ahhh! Too much to post!

The last few days have been crazy cool. So much has happened because we went on an overnight tiyul (field trip). I will try to summarize but it would take too long to fully describe the experience so forgive my tendancy to be brief.

To start off we got up on Tuesday morning and drove to Mt Gilboa. This is were King Saul, the first king of Israel, had his last battle. Also, this is were Gideon,one of the judges of Israel, attacked the Midianites with only 300 men. They surrounded the camp in the night and smashed jars with torches inside then blew their horns. The Midianites went into chaos and began fighting each other and fleeing. Gideon chased them down and eventually won.

Then we headed off to northern Israel eventually driving along the fence that parallels the mine field that is between Israel and Jordan. We went to a spa type place that has a large pool with jets in different places. The cool part, however, was that this water comes from natural hot springs. The water was sooo warm as I swam through the pool enjoying the view of the hills of the country of Jordan. There was also a small zoo here and we saw some animals.

Next stop was the place were David slew goliath with a stone and a sling. But first we stopped at an Israeli tank museum were we used the restroom and some got food at a little resturant. Here we saw Avictor Kalani (I hope that is spelt right). He was a man who led a tank brigade on the golan heights and saved Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippor War. Mr. Calani took a break from his meal to come outside and talk to the group for a few minutes. It was cool to see a real Israeli war hero, and I found out that in Israel celebrities are not bombarded like in the states.

Once we got to the David and Goliath place we sat down next to the spot were it is thought that David gathered his stones to go against Goliath. The battle would have taken place in the field we were looking at. We read the account of the event in the Bible but not only did we read it, we acted it out. Certain people were chosen for different parts and were they had lines in the Bible they spoke. There was a narrator with a British accent for the other verses. This was entertaining and fun. We went back to the bus and headed off to a hostile outside of Jerusalem. For the next day we would see the holy city for the first time on our trip. This I will write more about tomorrow as it is getting late and I need to study, shower, pray, study more for the unit test tomorrow, probably pray again for about 5 minutes, and then go to bed. I think once I go to bed I will stop praying but this cannot be promised as apparently Judaism involves a great deal of praying. However, I am pretty sure that I can stop when I go to sleep but I'd be better to consult a rabbi before I make any final statements.

Stay tuned for "Excursions in Jerusalem"