Tiyul Lech Lecha

So it all started at 2:30 am on Tuesday morning when we woke up to pack up 2 full coach busses. Picture a bunch of seminary girls in hiking clothes in the middle of the night sleep walking outside of Shaare Zedek hospital. We got to Ben Gurion's grave in Sedei Boker at about 5:30 where we had a little opening ceremony for what was going to be a week of transformation. This five day trip was organized down to the rocks. Each day had its own central theme. Day one was "ahi veatzmi" - me and myself. We hiked (or scaled!) up AND DOWN some crazy mountains.

We did Chod Aked which let to Nachal Tzin.

 Our tour guide Brian was awesome

So cute no? He has a British accent to top it all off. 

The hike was STUNNING. So scenic.

Pictures NEVER capture the beauty. 

One of my favorite parts of the hike was התבודדות. We were all given a letter to read that had various questions about life to ponder in isolation. We all scattered and lay down alone. They were mostly issues I think about regularly but the answers always change. The reason why I liked this activity so much was because when you're alone in the desert, you're able to think with more clarity. There's dead silence and no distractions. It was one of the more spiritual parts of the trip. 

12 hours from the time we started hiking, we got to our tents

We then had to make our own dinner with the ingredients provided. Funnest ever. We made a huge salad, burgers, tehineh, noodles, and marinara sauce. When we ate we were all in a circle around a fire with one of the other tour guides playing guitar. I live for food and music so you can imagine how happy I was with this. 

(By the way I'm totally not being descriptive, gotta admit I'm writing this late entry in a rush)

The next morning we hiked Ein Evdat. SHOUTOUT to the Marcus clan, we did this 

Even got the same picture. Someone show Nathan J. 

We went to Eilat for some water sports and then chilled by the boardwalk at night 

The beach there is top notch 👌

Oh and by the way, Marcuses again! Look where I was across the street from 

Such a tease! Bereshit hotel 😄

We were doing some group games across the street in a field. Theme of the day was אני והקבוצה. Or me and the group. 

The next day was me and the land. אני והארץ

We woke up at 5 am to hike a mountain in order to pray during sunrise

Success! (Took this pic before I prayed so what you see here is the risen sun over Jordan. We were still waiting for it to rise over Israel at this point)

After that we crawled through the Bar Kochba caves which was sick. I was literally crawling on my belly through tunnels that people used to live in. 

Like sixty after the Destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, the Jews began to prepare for a new revolt. Bar Kochva and his people spent yearsssss preparing an underground network of caves connected by tunnels. They stocked up on food and weapons to last hem for a while. They even carved little boxes into the walls of the caves to keep pigeons to eat. Bar Kochba and his army managed to hold off the hugeeee Roman army for almost 4 years but in the end we weren't  ready to defeat the Romans and rebuild the Beit HaMikdash. But we the Jews survived and in recently archaeologists have uncovered much of Bar Kokhba’s secret tunnels and caves- which is what I crawled through. 

That night we went to a kibbutz. We had some rikiddim which IS MY LIFE. Great night. Got me excited to dance at everyone's weddings hahahaha. We also watched a movie about Michael Levin (z"l) a soldier who served in the IDF. I reccomend you google him. Amazing story. 

Friday (finally!) was אני והמדינה , the state and I. We went to the Kever of Shemuel HaNavi

And then Har Hertzel. This is where fallen IDF soliders are buried. It's actually down the block from my school and it's absolutely breath taking. There are so many things I love about it and so many things I took away from it. 

Theodore Hertzel was brought to Jerusalem to lie forever

Michael Levin. A hero in heaven. 

We saw a lot of greats this day. I left with a sense of pride. I come from a nation full with people who risk their lives to help our country stay safe. 

Sidenote- I could write loads on all of this but I don't have the time to get it all down (that's for my diary) and you don't have the time to read it anyways. So sorry if it's a bit vague!!!!!! 

This Shabbat was amazing. The theme was  אני והעם- the nation and I.  After a hard long week like what we had, I needed time to just take it all in. I really appreciated Shabbat this week, more than usual. We heard a lot of eye opening  Divrei Torah, had some great sessions, made up some funny skits to wrap it all up, and we all formed a tighter bond as a school. I got to sit with some teachers family's for the meals which I loved. 

All in all, great week. I'm sorry I can't get it all down but you have the main picture 

Love y'all and stay tuned!