Our Journey down South

Hi everybody, sorry we were out of touch, last night we returned from a two day Tiyul. We had an awesome time, lets start at the beginning.

The first stop, Ein Gedi/Nachal David.

Yoni and Ilan acted out the story of Shaul Hamelech(the king) and David(he had red hair). Shaul did not want David to be king and wanted to kill him. David ran away to the caves in Ein Gedi. Shaul and his army came to find David. Shaul went into the cave where David was hiding. David saw Shaul and cut the corner of his clothes, letting Shaul know that he was close enough to kill him, but he didn't.

We hiked up Ein Gedi and cooled off in the water fall. After Ein Gedi we enjoyed a delicious hot lunch at a youth hostel.

Next stop MASADA. We watched a short film about the history of Masada and took the cable car up. While up on top we we walked around and saw different locations and areas. In the times of the Romans the Jews escaped up here (built by king Hordus-Herod). The Jews built a mikvah in the bath house and used one of the rooms as a shul. The Romans surrounded the bottom of the mountain so no Jews were able to get out. The Jews were able to survive here for a long time; there were store houses of food and plenty of water, which Hordus built but never used. After many Roman soldiers died trying to make it up the mountain they eventually succeeded. But when they arrived at the top all the Jews were dead. The Jews saw that the Romans were about to get in, instead of becoming slaves to the Romans they decided to kill themselves, dying freely as Jews. Even though this story ends in death, we discussed that today we don't hear about the Romans anymore, but we Jews are still around today, we will always survive.

On the way down most of us took the snake path, it was a long tough trek and we were very excited when we reached the bottom.

Our last stop for the night was the Yam Hamelach(dead sea). We waded in and relaxed our aching feet from our hard walk down Masada.

That night we slept in a "million star hotel" (we were able to see all the stars from the Bedouin tent). We went to Mamshit, and stayed in a Bedouin village, we learnt all about Bedouin customs and ate dinner Bedouin style, siting on the floor.

Later that night we had a bonfire. We roasted marshmallows and Naama demonstrated how to make smores YUM. Naama told us a chizbat (scary story) around the fire. We ended the night with singing and guitar playing. Thank you Naama for a great fun filled day.