Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Journey to Israel - Chapter 10

Chapter 10 - Friday, 3/24/89

On this Good Friday we went to the Garden of Gethsemane for a time of worship. After that we visited the Holocaust Memorial, reminding me of the persecution of the Jews. Would things have been different had they not have persecuted Jesus? It is gruesome what evil men are capable of. I could not stay in this museum very long without becoming nauseated at what had happened.

We then went to the Model of Jerusalem, a small scale of the city as it was in the time of Herod. Friday sundown until Saturday sundown is the Jewish Sabbath. The stores, businesses, schools, and public transportation all shut down as the Sabbath is the most sacred day of all the Jewish days.

Several of us attended a Jewish Synagogue service on Friday evening. Men must wear hats, and most wore the little round flat caps. Men and women enter through separate doors. The men go into the main “sanctuary”, while the women sit along the sides behind partial walls and iron grill work through which they can view the service. It was a service with a lot of ritual, yet a very loose atmosphere. As it was in Hebrew, we did not understand anything being said, prayed, or sung.

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