MAZAL TOV to our B'nai Mitzvah students and their families!!!

What an amazing morning we had today.  First, we welcomed Samantha Goldstein and her family to our group and headed out to the Goldman Promenade for the service.  This promenade had the most incredible view of the Old City and faces directly to the southern excavations of the wall.  The steps where just days earlier we gave each other our blessings as the Cohanim used to do in the days of the Temple were right in front of us, reminding us of our journey thus far in Israel.  We were praying with more than 4000 years of history directly in front of us.  It was an awesome site and we felt the responsibility of being in that place.  We had almost 50 people joining us in worship while Ryan, Matthew, Sami and Hannah led our community.  It was so strange to ask the congregation to face north to face the Western Wall for the Bar'chu...  I had never done that before!  Then some strange and beautiful things happened.  First, during Ryan's sermon about Masada, a very loud motor scooter came right across our promenade, about 5 feet from Ryan.  After the typical "only in Israel comment" Ryan picked up right where he left off, not distracted by the scooter at all.  If you think that is strange for a B'nai Mitzvah service, how about at least 30 Segway vehicles on a tour coming through the service? How about it happening twice????  It was truly a unique experience!  And then, during our silent prayer, with all of us facing the Wall and the Temple Mount, we saw four doves fly across the valley followed by a gentle rush of wind...  God was definitely in that place with us.  And finally, to add a perfect exclamation point to our morning, as I was blessing our four new young adults, a donkey began calling out from the valley.  This might not seem so strange except when you look at our Torah portion for the week that includes of all things a talking donkey!  It was a magical experience and I am so proud of Sami, Hannah, Ryan and Matthew, who led our community with such poise and confidence and chanted the words of our Torah so beautifully.  They truly did TAE proud!  And at the end of the service, as we were singing Simon Tov u'Mazal Tov, our educator Zvi took the four kids and our guests and broke out into a spontaneous hora.  It was beautiful.

If you look in the background you can see the Temple Mount!  Look for the gold dome, that is the Dome of the Rock...

After the service the B'nai Mitzvah families hosted a delicious lunch at Joy, a spectacular restaurant in the German Colony on Emek Refa'im.  The Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren even stopped by to say hello and mazal tov to our four new young adults (thanks to Dan Kuperberg who Michael calls his mishpucha...). After lunch we went to Machaneh Yehuda, a famous market.  This was a crazy place!  So many people there getting ready for Shabbat!  We shopped for a while and made our way back to the hotel to prepare for our Shabbat experience.

We hopped on our bus to ride to Mevasseret, a suburb outside of Jerusalem where we went to Kehillat Mevasseret Zion, a Progressive community.  It was Friday afternoon, and we were expecting a long, slow ride in traffic like we would see in Los Angeles on a Friday afternoon.  But in Israel there was absolutely NO traffic.  It was the easiest ride we had all week long!  We were greeted by Rabbi Maya Leibovitz (some may remember when she came to Thousand Oaks and spoke to us in March) and the rest of her community.  The Shabbat service was entirely in Hebrew (except when she told us which page we were on in English so we could follow) but we recognized many of the prayers and melodies as ones we sing at Adat Elohim.  It was a lovely, participatory service filled with joy and love for Shabbat.  After the services, we were split into our groups for dinner.  Four families from Kehillat Mevasseret Zion welcomed us into their homes for dinner and conversation.  I was lucky enough to join Susan, Hannah and Rachel Mach at the home of Michal and Ilan Hevron.  They were a lovely couple with four great kids.  We socialized and discussed everything from the politics of Israel, healthcare in Israel and, of course, Reform Judaism in Israel. I was most surprised to find out that they are now calling it the Reform Movement. There is a pride that all Israelies seem to have in their country that is so inspiring.  We shared a delicious meal and a lot of laughs.  

It was a wonderful enlightening evening, and, from what I heard from our other tour participants, they all had equally good times.  Another wonderful, meaningful day in Eretz Yisraeil.