Taglit Mayanot Final Day: Until We Meet Again

I am transcribing my Birthright journal, a day by day account of my time in Israel. To start at the beginning, click here!

January 7, 2013
Hebrew word of the day: Hazeman tas (הזמן טס) = Time flies

We woke up this morning to a rainy day. Our first stop was a monument called the Scrolls of Fire molded out of bronze by Natan Rapoport. They are huge and in the middle of nowhere on a hill. The scrolls depict the history of the Jewish people from the Holocaust through the Six Day War. It was a great stop, despite the rain and hail.

Scrolls of Fire in the rain

Next, we went to the Tel Goded caves and crawled through mud to get to the inner chamber, where our tour guide, Ariel, told the story of Rabbi Akiva's death and the story of the Bar Kochba rebellion. Again, despite the rain and mud, it was an awesome experience - totally worth it, though our bus driver was furious when we returned caked in mud.

After the caves, we went to something called the Time Elevator. It is a video with motion seats that quickly explains the history of Jerusalem from the binding of Isaac through the first and second Temples and exiles until we retook Jerusalem in the Six Day War.

We were supposed to fly out tomorrow morning on Aerosvit Airlines, but Aerosvit has gone bankrupt, so we are on a direct overnight flight on El Al with twenty others from our group. The rest are either leaving on a flight tomorrow morning or extending. Because of the change of plans, we had to shorten our closing session, so we hurriedly said "until we meet again" and then hopped on the bus to Tel Aviv.

I had an unbelievably incredible time in Israel and can't wait to come back!