We have just finished a month of holidays that started with Rosh Hashana on Sept 16, followed by 10 days of repentance until Sept 26, Yom Kippur, then 8 days of rejoicing for the harvest in a fragile sukkah, to remind us  that our joy comes from our security in God. On Sunday the pastor, David Pileggi spoke about gratitude even in fragile circumstances. Behind him is a Sukkah built by the Hebrew congregation of Christ Church.

The final day, Oct 8, is called Simchat Torah. It is a joyful celebration of coming to the end of reading the entire Torah Scroll (Genesis to Deuteronomy), rolling it back to the beginning on the same day and beginning again. We went to a celebration in a park to see the dancing.
Here is a little video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z7_bx4h5Zg&feature=g-upl

 

Sunday afternoon we found location of (not the original building) the Upper Room where Jesus and the disciples ate the Last Supper (Passover Seder)

 

 

 

In the same area is the traditional tomb of King David and the entrance to some caves that mey have been catacombs where beleivers hid during times of persection.

It was here that the symbol "grafted in" was found on the walls. It represents the followers of Jesus (fish) and their Jewish heritage(Menorah and Star of David)

 

 

 

 

Sunday night we had dinner with Tom and Gayle, Phil's dad and step-mother who were there to give talks to a group of ENT surgeons in Haifa.

 Monday we drove along the Dead Sea to Masada (fortress)

 

We took the cable car up this time--

 

------rather than the ancient snake path-the same one used in the first century to get all the stuff up there----look for little people on the trail

 

 

 

 

You will remember the story of the 960 Jewish rebels who fled to Herod the Great's palace in the desert, resisted for 2 years but were finally overcome with a ramp. They all chose to kill each other rather than die at the hands of the cruel Romans.
During their stay they converted part of the palace into a synagogue in which was found a scroll with the scripture from the prophet Ezekiel describing the resurrection of the nation.

 

"Dry bones hear the word of the LORD---

I will make breath enter you and you will come to life---

Come from the four winds O breath and breathe into these slain that they amy live--

They say 'our bones are dried up and out hope is gone--'

This is what the sovereign LORD says-

I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them--

I will bring you back to the land of Israel

Ezekiel 37

 

 

It is interesting to see the remains of the Roman camps around the base of the mountain, seige walls  originally 2 miles long and 6 feet thick, long after the Romans have ceased to exist.

We also revisited Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947. These are among the most famous and important documents ever found, and they confirm the accuracy of the manuscripts from which our modern Bibles are translated. Below is the cave in which they were found.

On the way home, between Jerusalem and Jericho is the Inn of the Good Samaritan. The location is accurate. From a hill across the highway you can see the outskirts of both Jerusalem and Jericho, and the difficult terrain which the road traversed.

Today there is an Ottoman era building houseing a museum of mosaics, but there are no remains of the inn to which the Samaritan took the Jewish man attacked on his way to Jericho.

Tuesday Oct 9 was a Hebrew lesson day, but in the evening we heard the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta in an amazing performnce of Mahler 5
-too bad they didn't have any paintings to display.
Today was another class, but this time an outing to the Mahane Yehuda (Jewish Camp/market)
Something like Kensington Market only much bigger and selling only produce from Israel. I went with my teacher Reut and after learning all the names of the foods, we bought falafels and went to her house for supper and coffee.

 

 

 

Tomorrrow we leave for the Jesus Trail 60 km hike from Nazareth to Capernaum. We will take the blackberries but not the computers-security and carrying them etc, so our next blog will be after we get back on Oct  17th.

Most of this week we have been at the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ) Conference. The main point of the "Feast" is to support Israel's right to exist as a nation in the middle east. There is a Christian caucus in the Israeli parliament and a group of MPs from many countries who met to discuss these issues. One highlight was the Jerusalem March. This involved 80 countries and 5000 people marching through the streets of Jerusalem. It was very well received by Israelis because  many countries and the UN are often blaming Israel for the problems there.
Look carefully in the video and you can see dad in the third row holding a Canadian flag.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4SjqFWUSEU&feature=g-upl

One morning we skipped the conference and went to the Western Wall where over 10,000 people were gathered  for the Priestly Blessing. The blessing is said for all the festivals which required Jews to go to the Temple in Jerusalem (Passover, Pentecost or Shavuot, and Tabernacles or Sukkot)
This is the blessing we chose for Aarons verse when he was born and where his name came from.

Num 6:24-26
"The LORD bless you and keep you
the LORD make his face (presence) shine upon you and be gracious to you
the LORD turn his face (presence) toward you and give you peace"

In the video you can hear the singer say the blessing and all the priests (cohens) repeat it over all the people gathered there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_pLMrMXfNo&feature=g-upl

Below you can see the crowds who began walking there from before dawn.
 It was very moving to see and hear.

 

Also at Sukkot there is a tradition of waving 4 different species of plants that represent four kinds of people and their inward and outward responses to the call to live in a way that honours God.

 

 

The same day we went to Efrat (near Bethlehem) to a Jewish Yeshiva (Orthodox study center)
 It is the only one in the world that invites Christians to study Bible together with them. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is the leader and Chief Rabbi of Efrat. With a group from the ICEJ Conference, we studied the Bible's view of what the Messianic age will look like from a Jewish and Christian perspective.
 David Nekrutman (2nd pic), who had taken us to an Arab Christian Congregation, is the director of the Jewsih Christian program.

 

 

 

 

The last day of the conference there was a talk by an African former Muslim who had acid thrown into his face and half burned off by someone who objected to his decision. he is still receiving plastic surgury from the Sheba Hospital in Israel. His name is pastor Umar Mulinde, if you want to google more about his story.
It was fitting that the closing lecture given by Malcolm Hedding (former head of ICEJ) spoke about  faithfulness in suffering.

 

 

Yesterday we went on a tour of the City of David, outside the Old City walls.  Remember walking through Hezekiah's Tunnel and arriving at  the Pool of Siloam? It is now thought that the pool was much bigger and the edge of it has been found but the rest can't be seen as it is underneath a garden owned by a church. Beside the pool some steps have been excavated that climb all the way to Temple Mount. It was here that the priests carried water and poured it out on the altar to remember the water of life flowing from Jerusalem.
This was predicted by the prophet Ezekiel 600 BCE-Ezek 47:1-12, and reiterated by John in Revelation 22:1,2
"I saw water coming out from under--the Temple--where the river flows everything will live.-- Fruit trees--will grow on both banks of the river--their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing (of the nations)"

It was during this festival on Sukkot that Jesus said in John 7:37,38
"If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink---whoever trusts in me streams of living water will flow from within him--"

 On one side of these steps is a Roman drainage ditch which are now open tunnels so we walked in them up to the Western Wall. This ditch runs in the central valley called the Tyropean Valley. It has now been excvted and you can walk inside it to the Western Wall for 3/4 km-something like Hezekiah's Tunnel but without water.

 

You can get an idea of how this used to be from the model of Jerusalem where you can see the pool, the steps and the drainage channel to the left of them.

 

 

 

Other interesting new things there-- a hugh palace located next to the pool site which may have belonged to Herod-Antipass, grandson of Harod the Great, and some burial caves that might be where king David was buried

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following two pics show a huge stone block that used to be part of the wall around the Temple, that crashed through the pavement and lodged in the drainage tunnel below. (triangle rock) This occurred during the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE.  Outside near Robinson's Arch remains you can see where it went through the pavement of the Roman road below the wall.

 





 

 

 

In the evening, Friday night, we went to a Shabbat dinner on Ruth Fazal's roof-top  in a Sukkah with about 30 people reflecting on the feast of Sukkot and the meaning of the sabbath.
We are inceasingly convinced that a Jewish connection needs to be at the heart of how we understand the Bible.

On Friday Sept 28 we decided to tour the Hurva Synagogue where we had gone to worship on Yom Kippur. It is  large, beautiful, modern with architecture based on the previous one built in 1864 and blown up in 1948.

 

 

 It has been destroyed and rebuilt four times since the 1700's. It is 70 metres high and it's dome is physically higher than the Dome of the Rock, the large Islamic monument on Temple Mount (clearly a political statement). The last major re-construction began in 1967 and it was dedicated for service in 2010. It's significance is that since the 1500s this synagogue has represented a visible Jewish presence in the Old City.
Old ruins exist and are preserved in the basement of this building including this Mikva, a ritual bath. The presence of many such baths under the present day Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem is thought to be because this area was the home of the Temple priests who had to be pure for service in the Temple.

On Sept 29 we spent the day with Ruth Fazal. We travelled to Nof Ginosar to pick-up a friend of Ruth's. This is the kibbutz where in 1986 a 2000 year old fishing boat was found similar to the one that Jesus would have used. It took 10 years to perserve the waterlogged wood and it is now in a climate controlled room at this kibbutz.

We then went to Caesarea for a Convocation organized by The House of Prayer for all Nations. This was held in the restored Roman amphitheater built by Herod in the 1st century overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. (we were there in 2005). It was a large port city and the place from which St Paul and others travelled to the then known world to teach about the Jewish Messiah Jesus.

The convocation included people from 240 countries around the world who came to pray for Israel. During this evening there were representatives who spoke on behalf of their countries asking forgivenenss for the destruction of the Jews in the Holocaust. Below is the rep from Germany.

There were 500 Holocaust survivors present as guests and Ruth Fazal sang a song she had composed in Hebrew for them while her friend danced. (fuzzy video but you get the idea)
The chorus of the song is;
"I cannot forget my people, I cannot forget my Israel"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAEG2iSDYXo&feature=context-gau 

The meeting ended with 2500 people singing over the survivors in that ancient place an old worship song whose lyrics are only 1 Hebrew word-Hallelujah. (not the Leonard Cohen version)
It means hallel- praise, yah-God. It sounded something like this only without the verses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kZ2xtfyaAU

Sept 30 was the first night of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. This is the festival from Leviticus 23 where the Israelites were commanded to live in booths to remind themelves of the time they spent in the desert in temporary fragile dwellings with the sky visible through the roof covered with branches.
This is to remeber the God is our eternal dwelling place and he is present to us even in the fraglile places. We need always to look up to the heavens where our help comes from.
All over Jerusalem people build the sukkot and "live" in them for 8 days.
Here is one on a rooftop in the Old City.

 

 

 

In the evening of the first night of sukkor we had dinner on the rooftop of friends of Ruth Fazal who are form South Africa. From there you could see the full moon over the city-the time of month when this feast is always celebrated. The symbolism is that when the light is at its brightest God revels himself and dwells with us in the "sukkah" (our fragile bodies).

 

Most of this week we will be attending another conference involving Christians from all nations called the Feast of Tabernacles sponsored by ICEJ. This conference was started 33 years ago in Christ Church by Canadians, Merv and Merla Watson. When they shared their idea with a rabbi his comment was;

 

"When I see the nations coming to celebrate Sukkot in Jerusalem, I hear the footsteps of the coming Messiah"

 

This conferene is based on Zechariah 14:16

 

"Then the survivors from all the nations----- will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles "

 

If you want to watch any of it or hear the talks ICEJ is streaming it live at about 1:30 pm Toronto time, or you can select from the archives.    http://int.icej.org/live

 

Hello again from Jerusalem. We are currently at home catching up on study, e-mails and this blog. We spent the night before last at Christ Church in room 11.

 

 

 

Do you remember the lounge?

Unlike our New Year, the Jewish New Year is the beginning of 10 days for preparing to ask forgiveness for the previous year. People call each other and try to set things right during those 10 days, then on Yom Kippur the whole country stops-all cars, all restaurants, all work, to spend the entire day fasting and praying in the synagogue, sincerely repenting and calling on God for help. The opening service is called Kol Nidrei and has beautiful liturgicalmusic sung in unison by the congregation. This melody has been written as a cello concerto by Max Bruch. You can hear a nice version on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7cNznH0GhI

We wanted to be in the Old City on Yom Kippur so we could fast, go to the Wall and to the services. 

 After sundown we stopped at a Jewish Synogoge "Hurva" and listened to the Kol Nidrei on the evening of Yom Kippur and went back for the closing service where the whole congregation calls out God's name 7 times then they blow the shofar to end service. Many people were wearing all white to symbolize being cleansed form their sin.

When the Temple stood in the first century, the High Priest would make the atonement sacrifice for the sins of everyone on this day.

http://www.jewish-quarter.org.il/atar-hurva.asp

 The following day we had some God Appointments.

The first was a visit to the Jerusalem Prayer Centre which is near the Garden Tomb on Nablus Rd.
This prayer center is hosted by Dale and Anita Thorne.

For 25 years this home belonged to Bertha, a daughter of Horatio Spafford. Horatio wrote the hymn "It is Well with My Soul" after losing four children on a ship that sank in the Atlantic in which only his wife survived. Afterwards he moved to Israel because he saw a trickle of Jews coming to their homeland from Yemen and believed that this was the beginiing of the fulfilment of the promised return that heralded the Messiah At the time he lived in Jerusalem al the inhabitants lived in the Old City-a very small community compared to today.
He was a founding member of the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem and the original score of his hymn from the late 1800s is in a small museum there

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPPSG_SpojY

Positioned on the dividing line between Arab east Jerusalem and Jewish west Jerusalem, they are ideally situated to promote prayer for all peoples of the Holy Land and beyond. The upper room is beautifully arranged to promote quiet reflection and prayer and included poetry, songs, art opportunities and scriptures on the walls.

 

The second was a Christian prayer meeting at Christ Church led by David Pileggi, that included people from many countries in the world, to praying for protection and peace in the middle east.
The day finished with a vist to David and Carol Pileggi's home for long talk and a glass of wine.

The last couple of days we have not been taking many pictures.
On Sept 22 we went back to the Israel Museum-way too much to see in one day and not easy to take pictures.
1. The Shrine of the Book-if you remember in 2005 we went there. You can see the actual Dead Sea Scrolls which were found at Qumran in 1948, the same year that Israel became a nation. Much of it is copies of the Hebrew Bible that date back to 130 BCE. The pervious earliest maunscripts were 1000 CE. The content of the manuscripts was almost identical, confirming the validity of the ones used to translate our Bibles of today. Interesting that God returned Israel to the Land and the scriptures to Israel in the same year!!! The Essenes who wrote the scrolls retreated to the desert wilderness because they believed there was soon to be a great battle between the forces of darkness and light. This is represented at the Museum with the roof of the exhibit like the white top of the jar that the scroll were found in, and a large black marble monument in front of it.

2. There is a large miniature model there of the city of Jerusalem as it was in the first century, reconstructed from archelology and Biblical and other accounts. Below are some pictures in which you will see the Temple, and the City of David (where we ended when we went through Hezekiah"s tunnel. If you look carefully in in the left corner you will see the Pool of Siloam)

 

3. Two items of interest in the Museum were a exhibition of ancient glasss. People had the ability to make glass since 2000 BCE. The picture is of glass from the first century Roman times which is not clear, of poor optical quality due to impurities in the ingredients used . It reminds me of the scripture that Paul wrote about how our undertstanding of love in 1 Corinthians 13:12 will be clear when we see God's face.The word in Hebrew for face of God, "panim" is the same as the word for presence of God.                                                                     1 Cor. 13:12
"For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known."

 

The second picture is an ancient Jewish marrige contract (or Ketuba in Hebrew). It sets out in writing the promises and obligations agreed to when 2 people get married.  The Torah given to Moses and written on the stone tablets is also a form of Ketuba marriage contract. This is where the idea of God being married to Israel and Jesus (Messiah) being married to the congregaton of beleivers at the end of time comes from.

 

In the evening we had dinner with Keren Burlan. She is a 22 year old Jewish girl from New York who has decided to return to Israel and live here. She is obliged to join the army for 2 years and has just finished her basic training. We helped sponsor her to go home because of the scripture that says;

Isa. 49:22

"Thus says the Lord God;

Behold I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations,

And set up My standard for the peoples;

They shall bring your sons in their arms,

And your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders."

 

 

 Sept 23 and 24 I had Hebrew lessons, and dad went to visit his patient with MS. Here is a picture of Rachel, the recetionist from Ulpan Aviv where the lessons are. The sign on her desk says Shana Tova-Happy New Year. She is from England but has returned to live in Israel. In the afternoons we stayed home and studied and organized other places we want to go.