Shabbat Tzfat

This past weekend was spent in Tzfat. Tzfat is a mystical city that I always associate with Kabbalah. 

When we arrived on Friday we went on a tour of the old city. We went to some nice views.

We got to visit the Safed Candle Factory where I bought a gorg havdalah candle for the fam. 

We saw some Shuls as well as a band play. 

Sick instruments. 

Borderline stalking. 

We were given free time to explore for a while before Shabbat. We actually met up with friends that were on birthright. Really crazy to see people. Like not even in Jerusalem but three hours away in Tzfat

When Shabbat started my friends and I decided to check out a few Shuls before we picked one. (Apparently that's a thing) so we stopped by the Rav Kairo Shul and a few others and we ended up in a Breslov Shul . The mechitzah was a one was mirror with lace over it. The men wore streimels and robes (black or gold) They held hands and danced as they welcomed in "Shabbos Kodesh". It was great! An experience I would never get the chance to have. Dinner that night was followed by an amazing speaker. A woman in Tzfat, originally a researcher in Alaska who gave birth to a Downs syndrome child, donated a kidney, and then adopted three more children with Downs. After many years, (and a long story) two of her adopted children got married. We even got to see the album. You can learn a lot about people. There are people in this world Whoes mission is just to give give give as much as they can

After that was a Tish, girls ate candy, sang, cried. 

Saturday was chill. I went to a Karlebach shul with my friends. That meant a lot of singing. So interesting. Lunch was followed by another speaker. We walked around a bit after the speaker (Lauren's husband Kevin) and then 5 minutes later it was time for seudah shelishit, another awesome speaker (Leora Bednarsh). We sang as Shabbat left and then was Havdalah. We ended up crashing a crazy party in a shul afterwords. A bunch of 20 year olds with a great Tzfat- rikuddim band. Only in Israel would they welcome us in and dance with us like that. I loved it. We went to the Kever of Shimon Bar Yochai after Shabbat before our 3 hour drive back.

As if I wasn't exhausted enough, we went out after because all of our friends from NY were In town. There were literally 30 Flatbush kids there. Went to sleep happy that night