Last weekend we headed out of town on our monthly Tikkun Olam adventure. After leaving town (relatively on time…way to go group!), we went to a mountain of some sort to go rappelling. It was really scary but lots of fun. Afterwards, we headed south to the Dead Sea or Yam haMelach in Hebrew (Sea of Salt). Obviously it was tons of fun…except for all the scraps I got rappelling. We made a big chain and floated together as a group. It was pretty cool. Everyone held on to the feet of the person in front of them and the person in the front paddled. We were the coolest people in the Dead Sea. From the Dead Sea you can see Jordan, so I waved. I’m pretty sure someone waved back.
From the Dead Sea we headed to our camp site covered in salt. We made dinner and sang songs for Shabbat. There was a group in the other tent that was with Jews for Jesus. This prompted an interesting conversation about what we all think we know about Jews for Jesus. During our Shabbat song session, one of the gentlemen came over with fun and pretty flags. We danced with them and made our Shabbat song session that much more amazing.
The next morning we got up really really early and went on a 10 km hike through the Judaen Desert. It was a great hike. It would have been more amazing if I had gotten more than 3 hours of sleep and didn’t wake up sore. But c’est la vie (don’t have a comparable Hebrew expression yet). The scenery was beautiful. It’s amazing that so much open space could fit into such a tiny country. The Judaen desert actually looks a lot like Nevada. The desert is very quite and serene. It’s very easy to forget the troubles of the world, or more specifically the Middle East, when you are walking miles and miles looking at nothing but rocks. And then I fell flat on my butt.
The hike ended in a spring, which was very refreshing. It may be the end of November here but it’s still hot, especially in the desert. Speaking of hot….yesterday was thanksgiving in the states….it was 80 degrees here in Tel Aviv.
No comments:
Post a Comment