Israel 2013 - Day 3

Israel - Day 3

Today started with a trip to Yad Vashem... The Hand (meaning Memorial) of Names. Yad Vashem is the Israeli Holocaust Museum. Having visited the US Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. and Yad Vashem twice I still never cease to be horrified at the darkness and inspired by the light human beings are capable of. There is really nothing to say about these places: their images, words and artifacts. They simply must be experienced and reflected upon personally.

When we were at Yad Vashem today, the President of France was about to visit as well. As a result there were plenty of soldiers, police and new recruits there getting the place ready for his arrival. I took a picture of several Amharic (Ethiopian) IDF members with our bus captain who is also Amharic and posted it on my Instagram: jacobtwotwocan Go there to see it.

We then made our way in quick succession to Mount Zion... the 3rd of 3 mountains that makes up the city of Jerusalem: Mount of Olives and Mount Moriah are the other 2. On Mount Zion are many important sites including The Upper Room (Luke 22:12), the House of Caiaphas (John 18:28) and the tomb of David (1 Kings 2:10). After seeing them we got back on the bus for the 1st of 2 highlights of the day... our visit to the Mount of Olives (Mark 13:3). So much of Jesus ministry and teaching occurred on or around the Mount of Olives. He entered the city triumphantly from there. He was betrayed there. He was tested there. The views of the Old City and surrounding Judean countryside are worth the price of coming to Israel alone.

After lunch a lot of walking around the Old City we visited the Southern steps late in the afternoon where Jesus would have taught the people as they went in and out of the temple (Luke 20:1). There is a great picture and more commentary on the steps on my Instagram page.

After dinner and darkness had fallen we returned to the Old City by bus and visited The Kotel and the Western Wall Tunnels. The Kotel is sometimes called The Wailing Wall or more correctly The Western Wall. It is the holiest site that Jews can currently pray at in the world. The Isareli Antiquities Authority have excavated the entire 1860 foot length of the western retaining wall that bounded the temple complex constructed by King Herod. The tunnel(s) - yes there are multiple ones now - run under the existing Muslim Quarter of the Old City and are not only archaeologically fascinating but politically very sensitive. For more information about The Western Wall Tunnels read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Wall_Tunnel