Fall means . . . Halloween?

Well, we are at last getting close to autumn - Israel style.  When I went out for my morning run two days ago, for the first time it felt really cool, almost cold.  The sun has still been warm, but the temperatures have been comfortable with breezes.

We had one of our first rains a week or so ago, but yesterday later in the afternoon it got downright misty, and this is when I went outside for my break at the time of the early evening prayers: 

If we were home right now, autumn weather and October would mean Halloween, one of Elaine's and the children's favorite holidays.  I have always had ambivalent feelings about that holiday, accepting that it is mostly about fun and candy today but not really liking its antecedents and its associations, well, you know, with witches, demons, ghosts, ghouls, and the like.

There reason I mention that is because despite my protestations about Halloween's origins and potentially darker side, I have always enjoyed decorating for it.  Corn stalks, hay bales, gourds, squash, and of course pumpkins always adorn our front porch, but I have always joked that I was just decorating for the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.

Well, we had just finished celebrating the actual festival of Sukkot this week, so Elaine had the idea of using some of the lights from our sukkah to decorate the door of our apartment, and Rachel helped Samuel make and color all kinds of decorations.  They had fun watching Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin and other such videos while they worked.  Here was the is the result:

Samuel was so excited about our "spooky door" that he told us he wanted us to put a sign down the corridor, where our hall meets the main center, inviting people to come down and see it.

This made me realize how important it is that we have fun with holidays, not just the local ones, but our own, accustomed holidays.  Samuel has adjusted quite well to being here.  But for the first time in the almost two months since we arrived, he has started to talk frequently about home.  Elaine thinks that when he says, "I am really going to miss Christmas at our home in Utah," it is not just his projecting forward, it is also his way of expressing his overall homesickness.  The other day, in fact, he asked Elaine, "Why do we need to be here in Jerusalem."  Her response was that Dad really loves Jesus and wants to live for a while where Jesus lived."

That was a good way of expressing it, but of course it is also work, and it is also a trip for the whole family.  But this has made it clear to me that a little boy struggling with autism has given up more than any of us to be here.

Separation Wall

A portion of the "Separation Wall" between Bethpage and Bethany, separating areas of Arab East Jerusalem from other Palestinian areas. It has increased security for Israelis, to be sure, but it has had a real human cost, both social and economic.

Here are a few pictures:

Final Day of Sukkot at the Western Wall

The last day of Tabernacle, what John 7:37 calls "the great day of the feast," used to take place in the Temple Courts and before the altar.  Now the Western Wall, all that remains of Herod's remodel and expansion of the Second Temple, is as close as our Jewish friends can get, and many of them come here to shake the four species as they rejoice before the Lord.

Lulavs are prepared and blessed

With my colleague Jared Ludlow and a few of our students

Perhaps one of the most interesting things I saw today was a group of Jews doing their version of the Hosanna Shout.  Watch this clip through to the end.  Rejoicing before the Lord here includes chanting, or shouting, psalms, including Psalm 118:25, where "Save now, I beseech thee" is Hosanna!

Making Olive Oil at the Jerusalem Center

If from reading my blog, especially the last few days, it seems to you like we are REALLY busy here . . . well, you're right! We went to Eilat yesterday, had an intense field trip this morning, and then today we took the first steps in making olive oil.  Last Wednesday we gathered the olives that grew on the dozens of trees that we have here on the grounds of the Jerusalem Center, and starting midafternoon today we began the process of making olive oil by washing, crushing, and then pressing the olives that we picked last week.  Watch the highlights video below first, and then there are pictures and video clips of each of these steps below.  You can see more pictures and clips on Samuel's Page, since this ended up being a center activity that my son, Samuel, really enjoyed.  [Remember that pages are just opposite of posts: the newest posts always appear at the top of a blog, but additions to a page appear at the end, so you will need to scroll all the way to the bottom of Sam's page to see his pics and clips]

After the olives were washed in a large vat, they were scooped pit with strainers and put into buckets.  Students and the faculty children took turns pouring the olives into a large stone basin over which a large crushing stone was rolled over them, crushing them into a mash.

Three of the faculty daughters, including my Rachel, take a turn

Samuel pours olives into the crushing basin

The crushed olive mash is shoveled into burlap bags that are then stacked in either a screw press or a lever press.  The intense pressure squeezes the olive juice out of the mash.  It then runs into a catching basin and then in succession into two round holes or receptacles.  The receptacles are partially filled with water, so the sediment sinks in the water while the oil floats.  The partially-purified oils runs off the top of the first receptacle into the second, where the remaining impurities sink and the oil rises.  It is later skimmed off and clarified.

Here is a video combining clips of the various stages of the process:

As the pressing continued, we took turns going back to continue to crushing process.  In addition to the students, the faculty families also joined in.

The Ludlow Family takes a turn with the crushing press

The faculty boys, including Sam Man, push the beam

And then it was my family's turn!

Samuel really enjoyed this

Margaret and Elaine give it up, but Janet Skinner and Jen Harper keep pushing

Olive production was a major ancient activity. For Christians, however, the process provides a vitally important metaphor for the first stages of our Lord's atoning sacrifice.  Gethsemane literally means "place of the olive press."  When we think of the crushing load that Jesus took upon himself---bearing the weight of our sins, sorrows, and pains---and how this weight literally pressed the blood out of every pour, some of the images I have just shared may take on new meaning to you.

Elaine and I share a testimony that Jesus Christ suffered for our sins, pains, and sorrows.  This caused our Lord to suffer and bleed from every pour in Gethesmane.  He then went to Calvary and died for those sins, pouring his blood out upon the cross.

Student Trip: City of David, Hezekiah's Tunnel, Pool of Siloam

Rachel and I emerging from Hekekiah's Tunnel

Today we took the students to the City of David.  Because Rachel is still out of school for Sukkot, she was able to go with us. Because I gave the background and described the sites associated with the City of David in some detail in an earlier post already, I am plan is to start today's update with a highlight video and then just post pictures and a couple of more clips.  My friends and family will want to see Hezekiah's Tunnel, which we did not do last week, and some pictures of Rachel at the sites.  A lot of the material here, however, is provided mostly with a view toward my students' family and friends, some of whom have been accessing this blog to see their own people.

Below is the highlight video, perhaps a bit long because Rachel got several clips of her Dad teaching (the highlight function is automatic, so I am not really able to select clips or cut things):


For those familiar with Jerusalem Center rules, let me explain the picture above and some of the frames in the video below of me in seeming shorts.  They were not shorts.  They were my Columbia field pants, which are what are called "gators."  They unzip below the knee, so right before we entered Hezekiah's Tunnel, I unzipped and took of the bottoms.  And yes, after I had dried out (post Pool of Siloam) they were zipped back on lest I be a bad example for the students.

My colleague Steve Harper was ill today, so Jared Ludlow took Steve's group today, which left me on my own.  I think I did all right, though I made wrong one turn and somehow, because of our haste to get into Warren's Shaft I missed the Royal Tombs of Judah (will need to show them my video of that in class tomorrow.

First overlook, seeing Kidron, Hinnom, and Tyropoean Valleys

Rachel with possible ruins of David's palace

 

The best part of today's trip was taking the students through Hezekiah's Tunnel.  After the still pics, I am posting a video of our trip through the tunnel that combines several clips.  It is a bit dark to see things sometimes, but it give a feel for what it is like to go through the tunnel.

Rachel and Rivka demonsrtating how deep the water got (in some places) in Hezekiah's Tunnel

Light at the end of the tunnel!

The tunnel currently opens up into a "Pool of Siloam" that is actually much later than the one at the time of Jesus.  Still, it is fun to celebrate "getting through" there before going to the Second Temple period pool, which is where Jesus and his disciples would have visited and where the miracle of healing the man born blind was completed. 

Our time at the actual Pool of Siloam turned out to be one of the most moving experiences of my time in the Holy Land so far, because it was my first chance to teach my students about the Gospels and bear testimony of Jesus.  I lost control of my emotions, a bit when teaching and even more when we were singing "Come, Follow Me," especially when the line says "then let us in his footsteps tread."

Had an interesting encounter as we left the Pool of Siloam. As we were leaving, the Israeli parks official, whom I saw watching us as I taught down at the pool, said, "You have an interesting theology.  You obviously love Jesus, but you seem to love temples and Jews, too."  We do not talk about the gospel here in Israel to people outside of our own faith community, but I think he got us right!  So I just smiled, and we moved on.

Teaching about Jesus!

Rachel and I in the excavated corner of the Pool of Siloam

Like we did in our faculty pretrip last week, we went up the Herodian water channel tunnel and then walked home through the Kidron Valley.  We talked about the application of Psalm 23's "though I walk through the valley of shadow and death" and then took pictures of the Maccabean-era tombs there before catching vans back to the center.

Walking up the Herodian drain

The probable "pinnacle of the temple" where Jesus was tempted, high above the Kidron Valley

So-called Tomb of Zechariah

With Rachel in front of the s0-called Tomb of Absalom.  I love being with her at these sites!