Day 07 - Jerusalem Temple Mount, Western Wall, Rabbinic Tunnels, Yad Vashem

Shalom! Shalom! Zeh ha-bayit shelanu to Jerusalem! Today kicked off our first day in the City of David, the place of peace, and the seventh day of our tour. One of the most populated cities in Israel, and boasting over 3000 sites, Jerusalem exceeded our expectations with its historical beauty and significance. 

Our first stop began at the Temple Mount, and while not fertile and lacking a river, as many of the other cities we’ve visited, this is the place God Himself chose for His people.  

In Genesis 22, Abraham is tested by God when asked to take his son, his only son, up to the region of Moriah to be sacrificed. And when Abraham reached the place, on that third day (there’s that number following me again…), God Himself provided the lamb for the offering instead. And that place was called The Lord Will Provide. 

(Hebrew lesson of the day: Moriah is translated to “Fear of the Lord”)

Surrounded by mountains and valleys, the Temple Mount is a fortified city, and the place where David brought the Ark of the Covenant… and the place where the first temple was build by Solomon… and the place where Zerubabel build the second temple after the first was destroyed by the Babylonians… and the place where Herod  built a retaining wall over the temple.  And the only remnant of this wall today? The Western Wall (or Wailing Wall), the place where the Holy of Holies, lies just 19 meters east behind it.  And still today, this is the place where prayers are brought up to the Lord.

We also toured the Rabbinic Tunnels, just underneath the Western Wall, where it was discovered  that the Dome on the Rock sits above the ruins of the second temple!! 

On the way out, we crashed a Bar Mitzva celebration and danced our way, Hava-Nagila-ing, all the way back to the bus.

Our last stop took us to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum, whose name is rooted in Isaiah 56:5, “… to them I will give within My temple and its walls a memorial and a name… and everlasting name that will endure forever.”

As we entered, the ambiance became somber as we quietly took a moment to take in the severity and beauty of this place. We learned about The Righteous Among Nations, a memorial honoring those who risked their lives to save the Jewish people during this time and walked by the path of cherub trees planted in their remembrance. And the unique thing about these trees? The seeds take twenty years to bloom… so that the next generation will remember. 

Next we visited the Hall of Remembrance, where ashes from all the concentration camps have been gathered and buried as a memorial to all the lives lost, to allow their families to remember and set a stone for their loved ones. The Children’s Museum was probably the most profound; as we entered, names of all the children lost were called out as only five candles lit an infinite reflection of light to remind us that one soul can save the entire world. 

We experienced the weight of the history, the sorrow of lives lost, yet a hope for generations to come. Because that’s what it’s about- when we walk through the wilderness, even when we don’t understand the process, it’s going to be okay - because it’s all about His Presence. That His intention has always been to show that He is all we need and directs out path if we are still enough to listen. And that when He calls us into any place, oh, that we remember and know He has chosen this place to show Himself to us as the God Who Provides!

-Rebeca Rodrigues