Shabbat Shalom is a common Hebrew expression for Sabbath Peace. My Judaism teacher said it is a common phrase that they use when they can smell the Sabbath coming- which is around Wednesday.
I had a pretty good week leading up to the Sabbath.We had a field trip around Jerusalam and I later I went to Western Wall. Then I went to the Temple Mount- Al- Haram al- Sharif. It was amazing. There was alot of people in line but when I got up there the plazza was so big that it seemed like there wasn't very many people there. Not only is that the area where the temple was but It also part of Mt. Moriah which is where Abraham took Issac to do a sacrifice. It was pretty cool.
Yesterday, Friday evening, was the start of the Jewish Sabbath. All of the students got to go to the Western Wall- which I was disapointed to learn that despite traditoin it was not part of the Temple Structure but was part of the plazza wall around the Temple- to experiance the start of Sabbath. It was such an amazing experience. There is a big open space that is in front of the Wall and it is filled with people. We saw some people dancing around jovially and then before I knew it there was a huge group that had formed a circle and were dancing around. Then it suddenly broke up and they headed towards Wall. I followed them and picked up a headcovering on the way- a Kippah or Yomakah. The men were all on one side and the women on another. There were hundreds of people standing around and praying towards the Wall but then there would be a spontaneous formation of another circle of people singing and chanting short phrases like Adonai, Adonai, Adonai and then the circle would break up and they would start jumping for a short time.
I got in on a couple of circles. There were lots of times that someone would let you in on the circle. There was a large presence of Israeli soldiers who came to enjoy the Sabbath. Sometimes their guns strung across their shoulders would rub against my leg as we were all dancing around. I thought it was cool to see that the start of the Sabbath is such a joyeous celebration. It was a crazy awesome experience to be a part of.
Today, Elder Pieper of the Seventy spoke in church. He spoke about pilgrims and pilgramages and how it is not really where we go but the kinds of things we do that really matter. After church, all of the students walked down to Golgatha/ the Garden Tomb. It was about a half hour walk. It is a very nice and peaceful place. We sang some hymns while we were there and I read Luke 24. Unlike many places in Jerusalem there is no church associated with the site. There is just some kind of a Garden Tomb Society that takes care of the grounds. I thought it was nice that our tour guide emphasized that there isn't a shrine set up and we don't remember Christ death but we should focus on the fact that He Is Risen. It was a very unique and beautiful Sabbath.
No comments:
Post a Comment