Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Indiana Jones Stylez

Shalom peoples of the world!

It has been almost a month since my last communication! So lets go back a few weeks to the festive celebration of Shavuot. Shavuot is the culmination of 7 weeks of spiritual preparation and the celebration of receiving the Torah (the Jewish bible) from G-d. It is a time where Jews all over the world come together and reaffirm their belief and commitment to G-d and his Torah. The tradition is to stay up all night and learn Torah - which is exactly what we did!!! Lectures from top rabbis ran through the night on all different fascinating and challenging topics. At 5am we headed down to the old city to pray with the tens of thousands of pilgrims at the western wall - this indeed was an awe inspiring experience. After prayer was finished thousands of Jews packed into a tight alleyway leading up to the Temple Mount, singing and dancing on the way. According to Jewish law, Jews cannot enter onto the Mount, so instead each of the pilgrims got as close as they could to have a look at the place which will eventually house the third Jewish temple in the Messianic era. On the way back to the Yeshiva I was impressed to see scores of tents and open homes providing food and drink for the returning pilgrims to feast and bless the occasion.

I forgot to mention, that a few weeks ago I attended a course at another Yeshiva, the famous Aish Hatorah. The course was called the discovery programme and was a fascinating 1-day overview of a series of major contemporary issues from a Jewish perspective. Topics included: the creation of the wold, the age of the universe and proof of the divinity of the Torah.

A couple of weeks ago the Jerusalem city council put on a series of cultural events including the yearly light-show. All four corners of the old city were lit up with a collection of contemporary and interactive artworks including theatre, dance and music. The major gates of the city were illuminated with funky displays and there were 4 main routes lit up that you could follow to maximise the experience. It was truly amazing to see the unity in which the event brought to the city - Jews, Muslims and Christians were all partaking together without issue in this unique event.

I had been trying to organise another trip to Petra, Jordan (I had been once with my parents in 2006) for some time now - and finally I managed to find 3 other brave adventurers (Suri, Yael and Josh) to join me! I planned the event so that we could leave from Jerusalem, goto Petra and return to Jerusalem in 2 days - this is quite some task considering the distance in which one has to travel! To my amazement, we pulled it off without hitch! We jumped on a bus 7am Tuesday morning heading down to the most southern point of Israel (a 5 hour ride) - the resort city of Eilat. There we grabbed lunch before crossing the border. Initially it seemed that the border people on the Israeli side were not happy to let us cross, but in the end they decided all was good and let us walk the 200 metres through no-mans-land until we arrived in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. From here we took a 2 hour taxi ride to Wadi Musa (Moses Valley) which is the town built just outside of Petra. We checked into our hotel and headed straight out to what is known as "Little Petra", an extension of the ancient city further south of the valley.

Little Petra was a fun experience, as there is practically no one there (except for a couple of Bedouins chilling in their tents) and we could explore the sight inside and out. There are a few small temples to see (nothing as impressive in Petra proper) and also some examples of Nabatean paintwork more than 2000 years old.

That evening, the four of us went up to the roof of our hotel to chillax, smoke local Nargillah and drink tea! (Did you really think I would go back to Jordan and not smoke haha?!) We went to sleep quite early as we wanted to get down to the actual site of Petra by 6am, so we could get in early and avoid the heat and crowds.

5.59am - standing outside the ticket booth waiting for them to open! To get into the site is not cheap at all - 50JD which is about 100 bucks NZD!!!!! But definitely worth it! For those who don't know - Petra is an ancient city dating back to the times of the bible and was the centre of trade and commerce in the region for 100s of years. The caravan routes from the East and Arabia passed through Petra on their way down to Egypt and Africa. The most dominant peoples of Petra were the Nabateans, who are the ones responsible for the amazing temples and tombs that are there to this day, and later the Romans - however, the city was highly influenced by Greek and other foreign cultures. We entered into Petra and were immediately hassled by the donkey and horse owners who wanted to give us a ride down into the city itself. We declined, but instead hired a guide who promised us an alternative "secret route" through the hills. Our guide was a local bedouin whose father was born and raised inside the caves of Petra - in fact he took us to his family's cave half way through the tour. Usually when people visit Petra they enter the city through what is known as the Siq, a thin crevasse in the cliff-face which zigzags down and finally opens into the magnificent ancient necropolis. Instead, we were guided up westward into the hills towards the place of the high altar. The hike, although physically intensive, was worth it due to the fascinating geological formations throughout the hills and valleys. We finally reached the edge of a cliff face, a few hundred metres into the air, and as we approached the edge we were blown away by the sudden impressive sight of the Treasury (a Nabetean temple carved completely out of the rock) down below us. We decided to sit on the edge and take in the sight for a few minutes before we continued on our claim up and other the Treasury itself.

We reached the high point of our journey and as we started to descend down into the valley of Petra we noticed a bright blue lizard hanging out of a rock - photo op! The way down involved negotiating a large crevasse with the most stunning views yet! The rock face was a combination of bright reds, purples, yellows and blues dripping down the edges not dissimilar to Dali's melting clocks. Luscious green bushes with purples plumage were randomly scattered through the cliff-face adding to the beauty of the surrealistic image. Finally we arrived at the bottom in the valley of Petra. All around us were impressive ancient temples carved seamlessly out of the dramatic red rock.

It was not long before the Bedouin kids rocked up with their donkeys (which I had anticipated!). We decided that we wanted to go and see the second most famous temple (after the treasury) known as the Monastery - I had not seen this last time so was eager to go. We were told it is about a 1 hour walk each way, so we decided that the two girls take Donkeys (as they were pretty tired at that point) and Josh and I would do it on foot. The girls made the right decision, the path is pretty much completely uphill and involves quite a number of steps!!! After an hour we made it - totally broken but still alive!!! The Monastery is a truly impressive site - in my opinion, more impressive than the Treasury! It stands all alone, proudly boasting its ornate architecture and precision! It is quite amazing to think that a temple of that size was carved by hand our of a cliff face! The ancient world continues to impressive me! Opposite the temple is a cave kitted out as a Beduin tent. We chilled in the cave for a few minutes processing the breathtaking view. We headed back down to the valley and made our slow decent back up to the entrance to Petra. This time we headed through the Siq admiring the thousands of years of carvings and artworks.

It was just after midday when we left, so we jumped in a taxi and headed straight to the border. We arrived just in time to catch the 5pm bus back to the holy city of Jerusalem - what an adventure!!!!

That same week there was a concert on in town with two bands that I have always wanted to see - Matisyahu and an Israeli band Hadag Nachash. Hadag Nachash opened, and in true dubb/rock/reggae style worked the crowd! The vibe was amazing as the huge Jerusalem mosh-pit jumped away to their funky fresh sound. Btw - if you are wondering who Hadag Nachash are - watch the movie "Don't mess with the Zohan" - most of the soundtrack for this movie is them! Finally Matisyahu came on stage. Unfortunately his microphone was not so loud, but it did not really matter as his set rocked! All the big songs were sung including Jerusalem, One Day and King without a Crown. A few tracks were remixed and at one point a guest star - Shyne - popped in for a quick freestyle rap! Shyne is an interesting character - he is an black american rapper who while imprisoned found out about Judaism and converted! He even studied at my Yeshiva hahah!

That Shabbos was great fun! We were in Jerusalem and were joined by a large summer programme of young guys from the States known as the JLE. Late Friday evening one of the Rabbis took us down to Meah Shearim (an ultra orthodox neighbourhood in Jerusalem) and brought us to a very unusual Oneg Shabbat (an event held on Friday night in honour of Shabbat). A group of Lithuanian Jews get together late Friday night in the basement of their Yeshiva. The room is pitch black. Imagine this - 50 or so religious men singing a mantra in unison over and over again in the dark in complete harmony. To be honest - it felt like they were trying to conjure up some sort of evil spirit! Apparently this is an ancient practice and is supposed to bring the individuals to an elevated sense of spirituality so that they can really honour the Shabbat and G-d. Well.... each to their own.

Last Shabbat was the best one yet. The Yeshiva brought my whole programme and the JLE guys north for the weekend. Firstly we were off to the Arbel mountains, where we hiked down the cliffs overlooking the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). Next, we were off to the Kinneret itself for a quick swim and a sunbather before heading north to the mystical city of Tzfat.

Tzfat is the world capital of Kabbalah (and no - not Madonna's type of Kabbalah). This is where the famous Arizel taught and learnt Kabbalah - a collection of deep spiritual teachings about G-d and the world. Tzfat has had its fair share of mystics and great rabbis and today is a centre for Jewish learning. We spent an amazing Shabbat in the old city which included praying in the streets and dancing our way through the thin and winding alleyways. At our hotel we enjoyed amazing meals, amazing speeches from our rabbis (including the head of the Yeshiva - Rabbi Schiller) and truly amazing singing and dancing into the wee hours! On Saturday afternoon, a local rabbi gave us a fascinating tour of the old city of Tzfat sharing with us a combination of ancient and modern history. We visited the shule of Yoseph Karo (the author of the great work of Jewish law - the Shulchan Aruch) as well as the Arizel's shule.

Saturday night we boarded a bus that took us across the valley to the small town of Meyron. As you may remember - we had been here before on Lag B'omer, however this time there were no crazy crowds! We visited the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the author of the Zohar (the major Kabbalistic work). After this we joined the singing and dancing planned for the evening. This tradition of eating, singing and dancing on Saturday night is known as a Melave Malka and is a way of brining the spiritual experience of Shabbat into the week. The band rocked away, and we danced until 2am..... to discover our bus had left without us!!! Turns out that the bus driver could not be bothered waiting for us and decided to leave with all our stuff.... Luckily he returned (at 4am) and we arrived back in Jerusalem to see the sun rise!

One last thing that I forgot to mention.... A friend and I went down the other week to the grave of Rachel (the wife of Jacob from the bible). The grave is in Bethlehem but sectioned off (by huge concrete walls) from the Palestinian area. Not so exciting - but now I can tick that one off the list!

Anyways...... That is about all to report!! Hope all is well back home!! PEACE!!