Day 12 - Living water and Shabbat Shalom

 Day 12: Living Water and Shabbat Shalom

Total miles traveled to date: 9,040

Steps taken today: 7,565

Steps taken to date: 84,038

Details: Tel Aviv to Mishan to Nova Memorial to outside Jericho to Checkpoint Charlie to Jordan River

Total Miles Driven today: 229 

Shabbat (Saturday) has long been my very favorite day of the week. It's the one day of the week when I feel I am allowed to truly relax. Most Sabbaths I spend sitting in front of my computer and lazily mosying around my garden. But when Joe suggested a mikvah (cleansing) for this Shabbat, I was totally game. Let me back up and start with Friday, the 6th of March before leaping ahead to Saturday. We knew we wanted to get a few things accomplished, but the most important thing was making sure the barley was Aviv (Ripe) before our wave sheaf ceremony on Saturday night. 

We split up for this trip - Karen and Johan, Shawna and myself piled into the SUV with Joe.  We headed south first, stopping in several places to check the barley.  At the first location, near Mishan, we stopped and did some videos.  While we were standing by the roadside, several farm trucks passed.  One of them stopped unexpectedly and the driver passed 8 beautiful mandarins out the window.  Honestly, they were so fresh and sweet that they are by far the most delicious mandarins I've ever eaten.  That was a good thing because there would be no time for lunch this day!! 

Eventually, we stopped at the Nova Festival site near Reim to check the barley there, and then back up to Jerusalem.  Joe had another divine appointment this day.  

We winded our way to a nice Jewish area of town, which was already shutting down for the Shabbat, and Joe was able to locate the address where he was to deliver the jars he received for the red-heifer ash sprinkling.  He kept one for himself.

We met up with someone fairly famous: Yehuda Glick.  Joe donated two of the jars to the Rabbi.  If you don't know who this is, you can read more about him here: Yehuda Glick Wiki  Rabbi Glick agreed to show us a place to mikvah - which is the origin of baptism.  Mikvah is different, though.  It's intended to be a ritual physical cleansing of the body.  The Torah tells us to do this after a woman's cycle ends, along with several other times we may be unclean, and before going up to the temple.  Joe is wanting to perform the red heifer cleansing, so he asked Rabbi Glick where we might do that, and we followed him  to the most beautiful location: Ein Lavan. (White Spring)  You can read a little about that here: Ein Lavan

We had wanted to go to the Gihon spring, but most everything that tourists want to do in Israel is closed right now, so we needed to find another location.  Where the Rabbi took us was amazing!  We walked up a long set of stairs, and there at the top were two beautiful pools, surrounded by fig trees and lush vegetation.  On the Friday that we went, there were many Jewish men and families there, enjoying the sun but also doing a mikvah before Shabbat. Surprisingly, I've taken very few photos.  I will remedy that next time around.  

 

A pool through the trees

 

We headed back to Tel Aviv to the hotel and shabbat.  Our travel companions had come back earlier, and had done some shopping for us, so we had a lively discussion during our evening dinner.  Being exhuasted, I headed to bed early. 

Resting well was not meant to be, however.  Hezbollah and Iran are pretty determined to make life miserable for anyone in Israel, and they interrupted our Shabbat sleep constantly.  They just indiscriminately lob bombs and drones at all people - Jews, Christians, Muslims, and atheists alike.  Fortunately, in spite of four trips to the bomb shelter in three hours, the Hand of Yah - the Iron Dome, kept us all safe.  

On Shabbat, a group of eight of us headed out.  The evening before I prayed for rain - rain to give us a fresh sprinkle of water on the pools.  As we traveled to Jerusalem, rain began to spatter our windshield, and continued gently drizzling upon us as we each took our turn and dunked.  It was SO COLD!!  It gave me a headache, but I have no regrets.  This was the first mikvah of three - we will go again Monday and on the 7th day, and we will dunk ourselves again.  As we stood there, I then prayed for the sun, and behold - as we ate our cold lunch and chattered and talked, out came the beautiful Israel sunshine.  

When doing the mikvah, it's important to do it in "living water."  What does that mean?  It means water that is not stagnant - water that has an inlet and an outlet.  Things that qualify are lakes, rivers, and seas and ocean, but also mountain springs.  That is what this was - a pool with a directed stream that had a flow in point and a flow out point we could see and verify.    I would not have called this pool clean - there was algae and Johan, bless him, got in first and helped by cleaning out some of the junk and garbage and algea.  From the side, I could see some kind of critter (bug larvae?!?) scooting around in there, but I decided this is where YHVH brought us, leading us here by one of his anointed.  I would obey first, and trust Him to figure out the details.  Yeshua tells us HE is the living water, and all who come to him will not thirst.  This is the picture of that, indeed. 

 

I just wanted to share these warning and prohibitions on the bottom of a sign.  I particularly like the little dude falling to his death! 

 

 

We traveled again - south to "Checkpoint Charlie" where we first found the largest amount of and most fresh barley.  Here we did something so fun and cool!  The route we took drove us by several interesting places.  One of those was a small park marking "sea level."

Down to the Valley

We also sort of, kind of stopped at Jericho.  We did NOT get out of the car nor did we actually stop.  This is a very unsafe area for our Jewish friends, and I just want to highlight this.  Much of the time we are given the impression in the media that it's the Jews controlling where people are allowed to go, and there is an element of that here.  But the way the media portrays things is a big fat lie.  In many, many cases, the Jews do not even have access to their most important heritage sites.  Jericho is one of those places.  As you can see by the sign, just being there can get them killed.  We didn't stick around to ask questions.  

 

 

When we arrived at the field in question, we were excited to find MORE than enough barley to make up the "first fruits" and so we went ahead with the ceremony.  

 

The Rabbis perform a ceremony where they ask questions, and the crowd shouts the answers back at them.  We have done this virtually together in the past, but it's lacking something to stand alone in my room shouting at the computer.  This time, we stood with Joe, outside in the beautiful Israel twilight, and shouted back at Joe!!   This is one of the reasons I came here!!  It goes like this - "Has the sun set?"  "YES!  THE SUN HAS SET!" ...and so on and so forth.  Anyway, watch the video.

 

 

The ceremony was fun and not at all reverent (sorry, YHVH - I can't help having fun with these people!) We stumbled back to the cars in the near dark, and traveled to the site of the Jordan baptism again, and had dinner at a swanky French restaurant called - "On the River."  I shared a mushroom risotto with Shawna and enjoyed a salmon steak with gnocchi.  I keep saying this, but it was one of the best meals I have EVER had.  I ate everything except a few peas and some gnocchi.  

 

 

Joe intends to do the ash sprinkling for cleansing.  That's why the unused terra cotta jar, and the ashes he was given at the convention he attended in Nashville.  He intends to have himself sprinkled, and to sprinkle some others.  If you read in Leviticus 19, you can find out more about the ash ceremony, and its meaning.  Here is a link to the wiki about it:  Red Heifer Link Here

While we traveled, Joe asked me what I hoped to gain from the sprinkling of the ashes.  I told him the truth - I hope to be healed of my grief.  The ceremony is intended to be a cleansing after touching a dead body or being in a room with one.  Since Storm's passing this has happened three times - him, my uncle, and my father.  

I confess I still carry the grief of my husband's loss. I function and live and go on about my life, but deep inside there is a sadness, a sense of incompleteness.  A feeling of failure and just pain that still causes me to cry and feel sad.  I would heal myself of this grief - I would put it down and walk away from it if I can.  After 11 years I am accustomed to carrying it, but also tired of the burden.  I am hoping that by committing myself to the ceremony of the red heifer I CAN be healed, and I can go forward without this well of pain that never seems to run dry.  

This morning as I write this is Sunday and we had ZERO alarms overnight.  Praise Yah for restful and restorative sleep.  Today we move to our location in Jerusalem, leaving the lovely Port Hotel that has so graciously housed us for two weeks.  The staff here has been amazing - accommodating all of our requests, calling locations for us, arranging for us to use the breakfast room and the conference room at our whim, and continually making us feel at home.  

In the bomb shelter, we have made friends with the staff and local neighbors who come here for safety.  One of them brings a funny, fluffy dog that growls at her for using her phone.  We've met a wonderful man who thanked us for coming today - thanked us for supporting them here with our presence and our money.  One of the neighbors helped us feed the whole hotel one evening by calling a friend for delivery.  Another one knows us by name and greets us with smiles every time the alarms howl.  I can't thank the city of Tel Aviv enough for being more welcoming to a strange group of Americans, South Africans, Irish people, and one verbose Canadian.  We have shared the little basement bomb shelter with people of all colors, several various dogs and the occasional child, some IDF soldiers, and anyone who needs a safe space to hide from the murderers who seek to take our lives.

 

Friends among the bombs

 

Now, as we move to the next stage of this journey, may we be blessed with mercy and grace, and continually be kept in the palm of His hand.  Please pray for some things to open up - pray that we can visit things like the Old City and Hezekiah's tunnel.  Also, pray flights open up next weekend so we can get out on time.  

Blessings upon you, and shalom from our last day in Tel Aviv.