Welcome to my hidden world!

Day 10, Tuesday, last day.

Our last day started with our final yummy breakfast at the hotel, lecture about how to bring our excitement home and not blow it by Lori Palatnik.  Then we had to check out and had about 3 hours of free time to shop and do whatever we wanted to do.  We walked to the Shuk-market and got some more presents.  The day was absolutely beautiful!  Time went by very quickly as we had to get to the hotel where we got on our buses and went to the Rachel’s tomb.   It is located by Bethlehem.
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Day 9, Monday, October 31, 2011

The morning started as usually with yummy breakfast after which we walked to the old city to the Aish World Center.  As we arrived at the center, we were given paper, pen and an envelope and we were given some time to write a letter to ourselves that we will get in 3 months.  I thought it was a great idea and I will be very excited to receive this letter from Jerusalem in January.
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Read about Day 10, last day.

• 1st 3 Days
• Day 4
• Day 5
• Day 6 and 7

Sunday
Today we went to Masada where some of us got Jewish names.  We celebrated by singing and dancing.   We had an interesting tour with Ken Spiro around the site.  The view from the top of Masada was breathtaking.  The weather was perfect.  It was not as hot as it is in the summer, it was around 80F.  We were the first tourist group to get up and it got crowded only by the end of the tour.


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Read about Day 9

• 1st 3 Days
• Day 4

Thursday, Day 5

Today, we had very emotional or emotionally sad day.  We started with the lecture by Ken Spiro about Anti-Semitism that was gloomy and disturbing.  There are so many lies and misconceptions about Jews in the world, it is very sad and makes me feel powerless.  Even Jews themselves believe in those lies and don’t want to find the truth.  That makes it even worse!

 After the lecture we went to the Yad Vashem -- Museum of Holocaust where I cried and cried and cried.  Last time I was in that museum I remembered crying very hard while visiting children’s memorial.  This time it was emotionally difficult throughout the whole museum.  Here is the picture of the exit from the museum:( Read more... )
Read about Day 6 and 7 Shabbat

1st 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.
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Read about Day 5

I am back home and connected :)  Almost every night in Israel I wrote about my adventures and now will share it one by one.

Israel trip with Jewish Women Renaissance Program (JWRP) is truly amazing.  You can have high expectations and they would be met and exceeded.  I had no expectations; I don’t like to have expectations when I travel.  I just like to experience whatever I would experience.  It is not a religious trip but more of a self-searching and growing program.

We started our journey with the beautiful city Tiberias on the lake Keneret.  Our hotel rooms were facing the lake and we had breath-taking, energizing view!  We had a really long late dinner at a restaurant on the lake where we ate, talked, danced and I was blown away by the energy of all of the women, considering that we were all so tired after our long flight and long drive from the airport.

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Read about Day 4
Read about Day 5
Read about Day 6 and 7
Read about Day 8
Read about Day 9 
Read about Day 10, last day.