Home Sweet Israel
I hope everyone gets a chance to go to Israel at some
point. It is an amazing country. I love to learn about the history etc., but I
also love that it is clean, safe, and pretty.
The food is safe to eat, people speak English, there are rubbish bins
everywhere, the men are HOT (seriously – you need more proof that Israelis are
Gods chosen people – look at how hot the men are J
)
There was much more security getting into Haifa than in
other ports we’ve been in. Last year my
camera card was lost/stolen and I lost all the pictures I took in Israel so I
tried to go back to some of the important places. Today I went on a tour of Nazareth and the Sea
of Galilee. We drove through the
Jezre’el Valley to Nazareth. We went to
the Church of Annunciation (said to be where Mary lived and the angel came to
her telling her she was pregnant) It is
a very large, beautiful church. The
doors are huge with amazing carvings depicting the life of Jesus. The guide told us that the biggest doors were
gifts from America – I was the only American in the tour group which is weird,
but people thanked me for the doors J Nearby is the Church of St. Joseph – where
his carpentry shop was. It was a much
smaller church. Mary’s well is nearby –
some say the Angel came to her there, not at her house, but really they are
meters apart from each other! It doesn’t
really matter. We drove through Cana but
didn’t get to stop. I didn’t even pass
anything that said Cana to take a picture.
Last year I remember seeing tons of wine shops declaring to be the place
where Jesus turned water into wine. We
went down into the Jordan Valley to the Sea of Galilee. Last year I got to go on a boat ride on the
sea and it was amazingly bright, clear, and pretty. This year I just got to see it from the shore
and it was hazy so you can’t really tell the sea from the sky in my
pictures. We ate lunch at a Kibbutz overlooking
the Sea. There are many Kibbutz(I don’t
know how to spell the plural) in Israel – they aren’t as socialist as they used
to be. People used to work as much as
they could and take what they needed. If
you needed money, the group would take a vote as to whether or not it was
actually needed. They don’t run exactly
that way anymore but people do live on there and work and live kind of like a
commune.
We went to Tagbha and visited the Church of Multiplication –
where they fed the crowd with the loaves and fishes. It is a beautiful church with lovely
mosaics.
We went to Capernaum – St. Peter’s village and saw the
remains of the 1st century synagogue where Jesus taught. There are also remains of more recent
synagogues. There is a octagonal church
(which delights me as a math teacher) over St. Peter’s mother – in – law’s
house said to be where the four men lowered their crippled friend through the
roof.
There are remains of the original
octagonal church underneath a beautiful new church. It is literally a few meters to the Sea of
Galilee and has gorgeous views. It is
easy to see why fisherman lived here.
This was the area Jesus “collected” his disciples. This was a border between several tribes and
Matthew was the customs agent. He is
always called a tax collector which he was but he also was the customs agent and
collected taxes from foreigners.
The Sea of Galilee provides 25% of the water for
Israel. It is a desert nation and it is
miraculous the way they have built up the country considering there are pretty
much NO natural resources. The Sea is in
the northern part of Israel near the borders of Syria and Lebenon. The borders are well guarded because if
either country were to take control of the Sea of Galillee… well it would be
disastrous for Israel. After Capernaum
we went to the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus gave his Sermon on the
Mount. I remember thinking last year
that it was the most beautiful place I’d ever been. Gorgeous gardens, beautiful churches, amazing
views of the sea. And it is beautiful
but due to the haze we couldn’t see much.
The Golan heights are right there and we could barely see them. They are a contested border area – Israel is
willing to give some of them back to Syria, but Syria wants the border to be 10
meters from the Sea. Um. Israel will
never agree to that. They need the water!
The last place we visited today was Yardenit, the site where
Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river.
This is one place where everyone agrees that it is not the actual place
where he was baptized it is just a nice place to commemorate it.
 |
| Jordan river baptismal site |
Last year I went on a 2 week tour of this area and I was with
the same people every day so it was easy to make friends. Here I am with people for just one day at a
time and they are all with other people so talking to me is not a
priority. Which is fine – it makes it
easier for me to enjoy the holiness of places.
But it is nice to have a little conversation at lunch. I met a woman today who lives in Mumbai –
Andheri – which is very close to the part I live in. A lot of people hate tour groups. I’m ok with them most of the time – I get a
little impatient with people who don’t know how to be in a tour group! But it is fun to listen to people’s
observations. For example people
complained that we had to pay to use the toilet and that they weren’t that
clean. UM. Considering thousands upon thousands use
those bathrooms every day – they were pristine.
Mall bathrooms in America are far worse.
And every single bathroom we went to had soap, running water, AND toilet
paper (that is rare outside of America).
And all western toilets. Those
bathrooms are fabulous. I’d like to see
these people use an Indian squat toilet.
I heard people say they expected to see more military. It was weird – I saw very few soldiers
whereas last year they were everywhere.
Maybe it’s the places we went to?
I don’t know. But we did see very
few soldiers.
Tomorrow I will get to go to Jerusalem – one of my favorite
places on Earth!
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