The owner of the company that invited Sam to Tel Aviv organized a day trip to Jerusalem for the group, which consisted of Sam and Abe and the other presenter, as well as his wife and mom who had accompanied him. They were really excited about getting to see a place that they had heard of and imagined all their lives!
Before they left, they talked to a few people who had been there before, and got all kinds of recommendations about what to see and do in Jerusalem, but they weren't sure they would even be able to get there from Tel Aviv at all! So it was awesome that their hosts had it all planned out. But there were a few disappointments about it, too. Since they were with a group, they couldn't simply worry about their own interests, or be on their own timetable. And they didn't get to see a lot of the specific places that would have been meaningful to them, like the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden or the BYU Jerusalem Center or the Garden Tomb. Sam said it was also a little difficult to be with a guide who was obviously not religious, among a group of people that were also not extremely religious. Although they got to see some wonderful sites, Sam said it was hard to capture a feeling of sacredness or awe at those sites when the others seemed to feel mostly idle curiosity.
However, with all that said, they LOVED being in Jerusalem and experiencing the Old City, seeing the many types of people, and experiencing the very different atmosphere and character of this complicated, ancient place.
Sam and Abraham both said that one of the most amazing things they did was standing on top of the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem with the old city wall, the gleaming gold Dome of the Rock, and the olive orchards spreading out beneath them. They said it felt surreal to be standing in the same spot where Jesus stood when he lamented over Jerusalem and the wayward House of Israel. The city looks so beautiful laid out against those hills and Mediterranean skies!
One of those churches down at the bottom of the hill is thought to be on the site of the actual Garden of Gethsemane. I love that there is still an olive orchard (garden? grove? what do you call them?) around it. But I wish everyone hadn't come and built churches over everything! It seems so disappointing that you go to visit Golgotha and instead of a hill like you imagine, it's just a church with rocks in it! Oh, I know, I know. If they hadn't built churches then maybe the sites themselves would have been ruined or forgotten by now. But it still seems sad (and especially when the different churches argue about the different sites and the relics and traditions anyway!).
Those rectangles clustered at the bottom of the picture are gravestones in a Jewish cemetery. They remind me a lot of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin!
There are some parts of the city visitors can't go into now, for security or whatever other reasons. But they did get to go down to the Western Wall, which is all that's left of Herod's temple (the Dome of the Rock is built on the spot that temple used to stand). I've seen so many pictures of this place! And now I've…seen more pictures of it. But Sam and Abe have really been there! So cool.
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