Trip to Israel day 4
Nov. 5th, 2011 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ahka1st 3 days
Today, we had an amazing day! We spent all day in the old city of Jerusalem. At first we learned about the Aish and the history of the Aish World Center building.
New Hebrew phrase: Buker Tov =good morning but to answer to someone else one would say Buker Or - good light.
We had an amazing lecture by Lori Polatnik, the leader of the whole trip. She is truly wonderful speaker! She was talking about 3 types of people typology or Kabala of you. She pointed out that the most important thing in our communication with our children, our husbands and friends is to be understood and appreciated for who they are, and know where their motivation comes from. She explained about CHaim soul and CHaim body, Bracha soul and Bracha body, and Tov soul and Tov body. We had a lot of fun figuring out who is who and who our loved ones are. Here is detailed descriptions of this lecture.
We took pictures on top of the roof of the Aish World Center with the Kotel in the background. It is a beautiful building that took many years to build. The initiator of this organization was an amazing teacher Rabbi Noah Weinberg. Unfortunately, he passed away about 2 years ago and we didn’t have chance to meet him, however we met his son.
As a gift, we got Sidur books with our names engraved on it. This book has prayers that Jewish women must say asking for many good things for self, families and other people. It is women’s obligation to pray at least once a day. Women’s prayers are very powerful and it does not matter where women pray. There are prayers for children’s success, for health, for birth of children, to find a husband, and for many other occasions when we need to pray. We can pray from our heart but reading those prayers I understood that personally I would not be able to say it better than those prayers do. There is a special prayer that needs to be read when one is near by the Western Wall. I read that prayer and prayed again from my heart. I wrote two notes and put it into the wall. This was my second amazing experience at the wall.
The day was not over and I had several more amazing moments. I have learned for the first time in my life about Natan Sharansky and personally met this amazing woman, his wife Avital who raised whole world to help Jews in the Soviet Union leave that country. She was a very young shy woman who wanted to free her husband from the Russian prison where he spent 12 years as a “spy.” I did not know that people in America and Canada and Israel were rallying, and contacting political officials to advocate on behalf of us, people living in fear of our nationality not even knowing what that meant. It is because of her, her husband and a handful of other fearless people like this amazing woman Avital Sharansky, most of the Jews of Soviet Union were able to immigrate to Israel and USA!!! I believe that She, advocating for her husband and human rights of Jews in the USSR was the reason Gorbachev had no choice in doing perestroika!!!
I was deeply touched by meeting her and hearing her story. I had enough guts to stand up in the room of 150 women and tell her that it was my first time that I hear this story and how thankful I am for what she did!!! I hugged Avital and we both cried with her and all other women had tears in their eyes. It was out of this world experience! Here is the short video of me hugging her:
In the evening we went underneath the old city where we got to see the layers of the history and even touch the holly mount Moria!!! I read about it in Torah and here I am touching it!!! I read about the Temple and here I am some feet away from the holiest of the holy places on Earth!
What an amazing day it was!!!
Couldn’t connect to the internet yet, don’t want to pay for it at the hotel and not having luck with free wi-fi.
Good night!
Read about Day 5
Today, we had an amazing day! We spent all day in the old city of Jerusalem. At first we learned about the Aish and the history of the Aish World Center building.
New Hebrew phrase: Buker Tov =good morning but to answer to someone else one would say Buker Or - good light.
We had an amazing lecture by Lori Polatnik, the leader of the whole trip. She is truly wonderful speaker! She was talking about 3 types of people typology or Kabala of you. She pointed out that the most important thing in our communication with our children, our husbands and friends is to be understood and appreciated for who they are, and know where their motivation comes from. She explained about CHaim soul and CHaim body, Bracha soul and Bracha body, and Tov soul and Tov body. We had a lot of fun figuring out who is who and who our loved ones are. Here is detailed descriptions of this lecture.
We took pictures on top of the roof of the Aish World Center with the Kotel in the background. It is a beautiful building that took many years to build. The initiator of this organization was an amazing teacher Rabbi Noah Weinberg. Unfortunately, he passed away about 2 years ago and we didn’t have chance to meet him, however we met his son.
As a gift, we got Sidur books with our names engraved on it. This book has prayers that Jewish women must say asking for many good things for self, families and other people. It is women’s obligation to pray at least once a day. Women’s prayers are very powerful and it does not matter where women pray. There are prayers for children’s success, for health, for birth of children, to find a husband, and for many other occasions when we need to pray. We can pray from our heart but reading those prayers I understood that personally I would not be able to say it better than those prayers do. There is a special prayer that needs to be read when one is near by the Western Wall. I read that prayer and prayed again from my heart. I wrote two notes and put it into the wall. This was my second amazing experience at the wall.
The day was not over and I had several more amazing moments. I have learned for the first time in my life about Natan Sharansky and personally met this amazing woman, his wife Avital who raised whole world to help Jews in the Soviet Union leave that country. She was a very young shy woman who wanted to free her husband from the Russian prison where he spent 12 years as a “spy.” I did not know that people in America and Canada and Israel were rallying, and contacting political officials to advocate on behalf of us, people living in fear of our nationality not even knowing what that meant. It is because of her, her husband and a handful of other fearless people like this amazing woman Avital Sharansky, most of the Jews of Soviet Union were able to immigrate to Israel and USA!!! I believe that She, advocating for her husband and human rights of Jews in the USSR was the reason Gorbachev had no choice in doing perestroika!!!
I was deeply touched by meeting her and hearing her story. I had enough guts to stand up in the room of 150 women and tell her that it was my first time that I hear this story and how thankful I am for what she did!!! I hugged Avital and we both cried with her and all other women had tears in their eyes. It was out of this world experience! Here is the short video of me hugging her:
In the evening we went underneath the old city where we got to see the layers of the history and even touch the holly mount Moria!!! I read about it in Torah and here I am touching it!!! I read about the Temple and here I am some feet away from the holiest of the holy places on Earth!
What an amazing day it was!!!
Couldn’t connect to the internet yet, don’t want to pay for it at the hotel and not having luck with free wi-fi.
Good night!
Read about Day 5
