Birthright Israel: Day 2

Sunrise over the Sea of Galilee / the Kinneret on Shabbas morning.

Because the Jewish day starts at sundown, when I woke up on Saturday it was still Shabbat.  This being my first time really immersed in Jewish culture, and I myself not religious, I wasn't all that concerned about observing every single rule of the Sabbath, but out of respect I wasn't constantly wielding my camera and throwing it in everyone's faces throughout the day (electronics are not supposed to be used on the Sabbath).

I did take a couple photos, which I'll show you all shortly, but as you probably know, the Sabbath is the day of rest, and so this was not an action-packed day of adventure or sightseeing.  We all got a morning to ourselves to sleep in, relax, recover from jetlag, and do a whole lot of eating.  We had breakfast, free time, lunch, and more free time.  Eventually, the guides organized an optional little Shabbas walk for whoever wanted to come, and as I was already getting cabin fever I jumped at the opportunity.

 Human knot activity while we waited for our staff to gather for our walk.

Our hotel was a little south of the main city of Tiberias, so our walk was along a quiet little road along the water.  We got a nice view of Tiberias:

Tiberias & the Kinneret

We then walked up to the Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess tomb.  There are two sections to the tomb, marked by the two domes: Sephardic and Ashkenazy.

Tomb of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess - Sephardic and Ashkenazy domes

View out to the Kinneret in the tomb/temple complex... if you look VERY closely, you can find a cat! Israel's chock full of them.

We came back from our little walk, had some more free time, and then it was time for Havdala.  Havdala is the ceremony that closes Shabbat at sundown - in super short, concise terms: the rabbi lights a special candle, says some prayers/blessings over an overflowing cup of wine, downs it, passes around something good-smelling, we all check our fingernails by a candle, and then Shabbat is over.

Rabbi Dov, pouring the glass of wine just past overflowing, so that our week would be overflowing with good things.

Myrrh being passed around, so we could smell something good.

After Havdala, we had a group activity thinking of stereotypes we all might have of Israelis, since the next day we were to be joined by our 8 soldiers (every Birthright trip gets soldiers that travel with them for part of the trip).  Then, we went to town for dinner and dancing!

Dinner out!

Fun market by the water.

Hanging out by the water.

Dancing!

A group of us with our wonderful Yonit.

It was a fun night by the water, a good way to end Shabbat and keep bonding with each other before picking up the next day with the real start to our whirlwind sightseeing itinerary for the remainder of the trip.

[As always, I do not put every single picture I take into this blog.  To see the entire album of photos I took while on Birthright, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtashalocke /sets/72157628872433827/ When I get to my extended, post-Birthright part of the trip, there will be a new album for those photos as well.]