Reflective Waters

Shabbat Shalom! Michael (Georgia) and Marisa here! Today we traveled to Susita, Bet She’an, Harod Spring, and floated on the Sea of Galilee.

Seeing the size of Susita and Beit She’an helped clarify our understanding of the geographical aspect of the Bible. To be able to imagine everyday life in both the Old and New Testament helped us to realize it was not too different from our own. Ronen, our tour guide, made the imagination aspect a little easier by role playing a Roman citizen who led us around his city showing off all the new innovations such as their bath houses, theatres, and places of worship. Seeing the ruins and hearing Ronen speak to us helped us to realize how easy it could have been for any one of these people we see in the Bible to be sucked into this life of sin and to worship the pagan gods. We like to separate our sin from the sin of the people in the Bible but don’t we do the very same thing? We worship false gods such as music, sports, movies, etc. Of course, these idols take different forms than the pagan gods the Roman citizens worshiped back then, but it is important to remember that sin is sin no matter the manifestation.

We also got to celebrate Shabbat by being able to rest at the same spring that Gideon chose his 300 men at! We ate hot dogs and swam in the warm water. It was so nice to be able to just rest and talk after we have had such an intense schedule these last few days.

We ended our day floating on a boat in the middle of the sea of Galilee. Courtney spoke to us about Jesus walking on water in Mark 6. Courtney mentioned the three main points of the story which is fear, doubt, and faith. We felt like this was excellent symbolism for this year as a class. We all had fear coming into this program. We had fear of the unknown. We all most certainly have experienced doubt throughout this program. Did God really bring me to this place? Why am I here? Is this God that I worship even the real deal? However, we have all learned more about the nature of God and we believe and hope that our trust in our Savior has grown. The time that she gave us to pause, reflect, and worship was much needed. It was a beautiful moment for us all individually, as well as a class. Afterwards, Ronen taught us some traditional Jewish dances and we carried on the annual tradition of dancing together in celebration on a boat in the Sea of Galilee.

We ended the night eating fresh Galilean tilapia, or Saint Peter fish, and singing songs together at a restaurant on the shore of the Galilee. Overall, today was a day of reflection. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow will bring!