Shabbat

May 24^th

We spent some time together in the late morning and then had lunch. Afterwards, we hiked to Nahal David, or David’s Cave. It was only 20 minutes from our field school but it was extremely hot so I was happy I brought water. We spent some time walking along a riverbank before finding a pool where we could swim. It was very refreshing and made the last leg of the hike easier. I made it to the caves and spent some time enjoying the view. This cave is where the biblical story between David and Saul. Saul hated David and was trying to kill him, they both ran away from Jerusalem and slept in a cave. Unbeknownst to wither of them, they chose the same cave. David stumbled across Saul and cut a piece of his cloak off and sent it to Saul when they met next. Saul did the same thing to David later on and both agreed to live near each other without too much conflict. It’s amazing that this all took place in the cave I visited.

That night, we had a guest speaker from Sderot, a small town on the border with Gaza. He spoke about the dangers of the area and how frequent missile strikes were. Over the past 8 years, 20,000 missile had been launched at this area of the country. Media does not cover these stories so this man is trying to get the word out. While it is important to take this information with a grain of salt, it is still shocking to hear. I know Israel retaliates towards these attacks and this is generally what we hear about but it is important to hear both sides of the argument. I enjoyed the talk and will do my best to be informed about these issues.