Day 08 - Jerusalem: City of David, Hezekiah's Tunnel, Southern Steps, Yad Vashem

What an amazing yet challenging day! Today we began in the City of David. Walking through what archeologists believe is the remains of the King’s Palace was incredible. The scope and magnitude were so impressive.  As we worked our way down the city, we entered what is known as Hezekiah’s Tunnel.

Hezekiah’s tunnel was awesome. There were two different tunnels to choose from the wet and the dry tunnels.  The tunnels were made to escape from the palace and were dug from two different sides.  They were dug following a natural spring that flowed under the city of David and they dug it from both sides and met in the middle. The tunnels were the length of five football fields and were in some places as narrow as 2 feet wide and 4 foot tall. The wet tunnel was pitch dark, and in most cases, we were walking in 10 inches of water. The deepest it ever got was waist deep, but we needed to have flashlights to light the way. The dry tunnels were not very long, were well lit and in most places were a little bit wider.  All of us who did the wet tunnel had a lot of fun, and even burst out in song in the pitch dark of the tunnel.

When we got out of the tunnels it was a short walk to the Pool of Siloam. Where Jesus sent a man to wash his eyes after He spit in the dirt and made mud, before spreading it on the man’s eyes. (Read John 9). We learned that it was 900 steps from the temple to the pool and the faith of the man never wavered.

We continued the day looking at the place where Jesus came and turned over the tables of the money changers.  When you came to the temple, you bought your sacrifice and had to change your money for the temple offering. Jesus was in the place where we walked, and it was an amazing time of pondering and awe. We also learned that the old walkway to the Pool of Siloam was right by the South-West corner of the wall, the same corner that the stores were by in the temple courts.

The last place we visited in the Old City was the Southern Steps. This was incredible and so much happened here.  This is the place where Peter gave the Pentecost sermon to all the nations, and each heard in his own language.  When it mentions that they were all baptized and over 3000 were added to their numbers, there were so many spiritual baths surrounding that part of the temple that it would be the only way that the disciples could have baptized that many people in one day.  It was incredible.

The last place that we went today was the hardest place we have visited in the tour, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum.  We began at the Children’s memorial.  Over one and a half million children were needlessly murdered during the Holocaust. That absolutely broke me and I never recovered after that. The atrocity of the time between 1933 and 1947 for the Jewish community was unthinkable, and I am forever changed because of what I witnessed. I can never be a bystander when something horrible is happening to another human being in my presence. Sometimes we write things off as it being none of our business, but I learned that I cannot sit silent when there is something that I can and should do to help. The images haunt me, and I cannot remove some of the things that I wish I could unsee.