I was able to download a whole hour of James White this morning and had a good time listening to it on the bus ride.
The main event for the day is Neot Kedumim. However you spell that. I saw at least three spellings. One on the itinerary, one on the map and another on the street sign. No matter. At the biblical garden as it is called we learnt a few things about the time of the Bible. Did you know that there are seven native plant kinds in Israel. Olive, fig, grape, pomegranate, date, barley and wheat. Did you know that there are some interesting similarities to the dress of the high priest in the temple and the coverings and related paraphanalia associated with the Torah scrolls in the synagogue? We were shown how threshing, sifting and all these processes of getting the wheat out were done.
We also met a scribe hard at work copying the Torah. He even sang/chanted while reading the scroll. Yes I have video :) The scroll was supposedly five hundred years old. Not sure if that is true since it was outside and not in a museum. Could have been an embelishment for effect.
The metal device sticking out the side was for pointing at the appropriate place as he did not want to defile the scroll by touching it. The passage is from Exodus where Miriam sings her song after the destruction of Pharoahs army in the Red Sea. Some very interesting processes for fixing a mistake in a scroll. The scribes name is Zechariah and he comes originally from Yemen.
At the date palm we were told about date honey which has nothing to do with bees. This I found very interesting.
By this time we were hungry and so we went for lunch. The lunch was subsidized and we paid only 10 shekels. Well I always say you get what you pay for and we sure got our moneys worth. Remember that most of our lunches were in the region of $10. We got a shepherds lunch. Half pitas with humus, sour cheese, and two other strange things as well as pieces of cucumber. Well I had paid my money so I ate. One pita. While fighting the flies and boy were there alot of them! Had two cups of mint tea. One without honey and one with two teaspoons of it. The honey mint tea was very good. A highlight of the meal was the dessert. Plain yogurt with date honey. Excellent. I nearly went for seconds but we had to catch the bus. Didn't even have time to finish my watermelon piece. Then on to Jerusalem! We took a short detour to a place that overlooks Bethlehem. It was one of the front lines of the 1948 war. We walked over the trenches. Hectic. We walked past a memorial that has three very tall pillars with two live olive trees growing on top. One interesting thing that we learnt there was about the shepherds that the angels met to announce the birth of Jesus. They were no ordinary shepherds but worked for the temple and were raising lambs for sacrifice. So what the angels were actually saying was "Good News. You're fired!" Donald Trump would be proud! The Lamb who takes away the sin of the world has come!
Well our day was fast winding to an end. We stopped at a lookout point for five minutes to see the Old City. Then it was on to the hotel. Turns out our three person room had only two beds. But we sorted them out but quick! The wifi was not free, mores the pity but this we can also manage.
Took a short walk on my own towards the old city which is very close to the hotel. Had to turn back as it was getting close to supper time :( well we will see her tomorrow God willing.
Time for me to go to bed now as it is an early morning as our visit to the Western Wall tunnel starts at 7:40am
Good night for Mt Zion Hotel in Jerusalem!
-- Post From My iPhone
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