Rabbi  Goldstein has asked those of us who recently traveled to Israel to take a moment to write a little about our experience.  Not being a travel writer, I am not sure how to best capture the incredible vividness of our time there, but I can certainly try to convey some of the impressions I had, starting with the sight of the hot, shiney-bright Mediterranean sea washing the shores of Tel Aviv, with drowsy Joffa in the background, as I sat, drugged with jet lag, on the porch of a beach bar scarfing down some of the best seafood and salads I have ever tasted.  Later I learned that the “Manta Ray” was no beach bar, but was one of the trendiest restaurants in town, and Joffa may look like a sleepy town now, but was the landing site for many of the country’s Zionist pioneers.  Nothing here is only what is seems, I learned…Our amiable tour guide, gently herding us through the sites and restaurants and making sure that everyone had enough to eat, enough rest and enough potty stops, like a fond poppa, was actually a tough former military man.   The lovely hills above blooming Kibbutz K’far Blum were actually a menacing threat to the kibbutzim when the Golan heights were under Syrian control.  There we visited a tank battalion and learned a little about the rigors of modern military life from a shyly modest young man who looked more like a scholar than a tank gunner.  Two hours after climbing on dusty tanks in a hot dry desert, we were floating down the Jordan river among lush vegetation, waving at picnicking families on the banks.  Talk about mental whiplash trying to reconcile such diverse landscapes and experiences.

            Our time in Jerusalem began in the loveliest of ways, as we arrived at a site overlooking the old city just in time for the last rays of sunset to glow off the Dome of the Rock and make the city shine just for us-or so it seemed.  The next day we nearly missed one of the best experiences of Jerusalem, though.  Tired and footsore, we really didn’t want to walk back, again, to the Western wall, on Friday afternoon.  Charles, my husband, had experienced Sabbath at the Kottel, previously.