Shabbat Shalom! Today was a very adventurous day for us as AFUWOFI-ites spent Shabbat with their Israeli counterparts. My day started with an Israeli breakfast, salad and toast with butter and various jams.
ThenYonatan (my Israeli counterpart) and I had to decide what to do with our
day. We rode bikes around his kibbutz, Maoz Hayyim. We visited the local shops, played basketball, went swimming, and
talked with many of his friends who also live on the kibbutz.
It was very cool to visit the shops, especially the grocery store,
seeing all the Israeli items with their unique designs and Hebrew without vowels that kept me guessing about what the item really was. Going swimming seemed very appropriate as there was an outdoor pool in the kibbutz and the day checked out at 93 degrees Fahrenheit. An additional
element of fun came it when we picked up a few water games with the locals. It
turns out that playing basketball is one of Yonatan’s favorite hobbies so we went
up to the indoor court on his kibbutz and he showed me how well he played by
beating me by an unmentionable number of points. But it was still a fun, competitive
experience.
I was lucky enough to enjoy Yonatan’s Mom’s homemade snitzel, which was fantastic!
After a long day, the excitement
was not over as there was still a night walk adventure planned. Around 9 p.m. our group and some of the Israelis met for a night hike under a full moon. There’s
something about having a full moon that made the hike special. The moon gave us just enough light to enjoy a beautiful night in nature.
Walking on land that was once endangered, we had a perfect view of the Jordanian mountains. From the time Israel came into existence in 1948, until 1994, Jordan and Israel were in conflict. Many Jewish settlements in this area suffered because of the constant bombardment coming from these mountains.
Thank goodness Israel and Jordan are no longer in conflict, and that we were able to enjoy this hike with unforgettable views and
strong feelings of togetherness and relaxation.
The hike included many relaxing moments, along with a few heart-pumping ones. There was a time when we were all asked to stand a few feet from each other and be silent for five minutes. Then, there was another moment when we were asked to walk for five minutes without speaking. To
me, it served as the more spiritual part of the hike and made it very enjoyable. We also played a game where we held hands and had to get a hoola hoop all the way around the circle as quickly as possible. This served as a way to connect us even more to each other.
The heart-pumping moments were
experienced when we were told a story about the farmer and the shepherd,
which ended abruptly in the middle of the story with a scream that echoed
through all of us. It was, in fact, a false alarm and all a part of the story, but
nonetheless left us all shaking a little. The screaming motif continued when
some teens jumped out of bushes to scare others. This was all a part of the experience.
It truly was a fantastic Shabbat here in Israel.