Israel, Day 8

We finished up our last day in Jerusalem with a visit to a couple of museums and the Western (Wailing) Wall. The Wall is segregated into a mens and womens section, and that is where the religious Jews will go to pray and chant scripture. As you can see, Dave is wearing a Kippa (Yarmulke) as it is a holy place and, therefore, you should cover your head to show humility. You feel the sacredness of that place to the Jews as people are silent and many are crying as they pray. Many will write out prayers and place them between the stones of the Temple.

One of my favorite places to go is the area below the temple...you are able to walk where Christ and His disciples walked and see how they came up into the temple area of Jerusalem. The one pic is showing the street level under Robinson's Arch where people would buy and sell things and it is where the money changers should have been. When I was here last, it was an area that was being excavated. The pic where we are sitting, is the Southern Steps area where all people would come up to the temple. They are created in a non-traditional staircase way so that you must be attentive and, perhaps, that you could chant the Ascent Psalms (120+) according to the meter of the steps.

We also went to the Israel museum which was just amazing. Sadly, we only had time for a quick walk through...it was a place you could spend a whole day at. They have a replica of Jerusalem with the Temple mount and the surrounding walls. Inside they have the piece of bone with a nail through it...evidence of crucifiction.

The last place we went to was Yad Vashem (Name and Memorial from Is 56:5). It is an amazing, yet tragic, place as it commemorates the Holocaust. Our guide is Jewish and he brought in so many pieces of Jewish history and stories from that time. Even though I have always been saddened by the Holocaust, I never quite grasped the gravity of that time and the measure of the horrors done to the Jewish people. The picture that has makes the star of David is actually 6 caskets to depict the 6 million Jews who died and the spear piercing them through. The final pic is of a memorial for the many areas whose Jews were killed.