From Tzipori to the Carmel mountains to Haifa

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Yes. Day three. We keep packing it in with our amazing guide, Nadav BenGal. And great driver, Avi.

We woke up to Shabbat in Tel Aviv. Some of the group got in an early morning walk on the beach, though I kept going back to sleep until the last minute. Good I packed the night before!

We began (after another delicious breakfast) with the ride up north on main highway, headed to Tzipori. Along the way Nadav gave the group an introduction to the issues of the security barrier, which is called a "wall" by some even though it is a fence in most places. He pointed out where it was a wall for a short bit next to the highway in a place where the highway was right up against a West Bank town where snipers had shot cars passing on the highway. Mostly we could see the wire fence in the distance as the West Bank towns were removed a bit from the highway location.

Close to 10:30 am we arrived at Tzipori, site of an extensive archeological dig that has been going on a couple of decades. I first was there about 14 years ago and it has changed so much over the years. Nadav explained to the group about the different sects of Jews at the time of the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70, leading to the radical changes in Judaism that led into the rabbinic period and the writing of the Mishnah. He taught the group about Josephus and what we know of the period from his writings. Lastly, he challenged us to think about how the religious Jews of the time lived in mixed cities, like Tzipori, with all of the Roman influences which we saw in the Roman theater and in the mosaic floors depicting Dionysus and other pagan scenes. There was a festival that day at the site with music, children's crafts and some actors portraying people from the time of the flourishing of Tzipori. One of the photos shows an actress playing the wife of a Roman official sent to be in charge of Tzipori.

My brother Dan who lives at Kibbutz Yahel in the south, came north for Shabbat with a friend and they met us just as we were leaving, to say hello and pick up a few things I had brought for him. He'll meet up with me again in Jerusalem next Saturday night after Shabbat.

We drove on from Tzipori up onto the Carmel range to the town of Isfiya. Warmly hosted in a beautiful home. Our guide for the lunchtime session was Hayil (I'll check the spelling tomorrow) who explained to the group about the Druze origins as a people who fled from Egypt during a time of religious persecution and changed their religion into a secret religion. We learned about its egalitarianism, loyalty to the country in which the community lives, and choice given to each Druze to be religious or not. We were served a delicious meal and there are photos of that as well. Druze citizens of Israel serve in the army and even in Israeli consulate overseas. They are close knit and live near their relatives, often in a home that becomes a compound as the family grows. We were honored to meet and learn about these interesting Israelis and their unique way of life.

From there we headed on to Mount Carmel where we hiked a short way along a path below the Carmelite Monastery to a lookout over the Jezreel Valley. There we read aloud the Biblical story of Elijah and the prophets of Ba'al, followed by Nadav's teaching about King Ahab and the period of the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel. We were reminded about the experience of Elijah in the desert when he asked to see God and heard only a still small voice. Then Nadav allowed people to sit in silence for a few minutes to experience the mountain.

Next stop was the Firefighters' Memorial to the 44 who died in the terrible forest fire of 2010. See photos attached. Heartbreaking story of the young cadet prison guards in the bus headed to evacuate the prison at the top of the mountain - but caught up in a freak firestorm that rushed across the road just as they entered a hairpin turn.

Driving on through the burnt out area, Nadav explained that the approach after the fire was to let the forest regenerate itself and he taught the group about the kinds of trees and how it would be sixty years until fully recovered.

Continuing on, we came into Haifa itself and arrived at the Dan Panorama Hotel where we expected to have to wait an hour for our rooms to be ready as most people check out very late on Shabbat. Luckily, we only had a five minute wait so everyone had a nice long hour to freshen up before Havdalah. I had a chance to go on Skype for five minutes with Peter back home.

At 7 pm we walked a few minutes to the promenade overlooking the port with a stunning view of Haifa from above. We met Rabbi Edgar Nof, hazzanit (cantor) Vered, and the founder of the Gesharim L'Tikva (Bridges for Hope) organization. http://bridgesforhope.net We had a lovely 40 minutes of meetings about 15 of their group, singing some beautiful songs, doing the Havdalah ceremony, learning about the organization's Tikkun Olam work. At the end they gave each of us, their guests, a chocolate candy bar. What a sweet gesture. We look forward to visiting the Nirim School with Rabbi Nof and Vered tomorrow morning.

Then it was walk back to the hotel, pick up Bob who had not been feeling well, and a few of us went to the vegan nearby restaurant: Buddha Burger. Just what the vegetarians needed - and the others of us enjoyed it too. Some photos below. Highly recommend the smoothie that had kiwi and parsley and mint. The best!

Came back to hotel and found fruit plate and bottle of wine there - compliments of the hotel for me as the leader. I had forgotten this is often done in Israel since the Dan Panorama in Tel Aviv had not done it. Will take the wine along for the group to share another night, and the fruit for the bus tomorrow.

Lailah Tov. Good night to all.

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