Fast Times at Yad HaShmonah

The past few days have been pretty busy. I'll fill you in pretty quick here, and I might even show you a few pictures if you promise to be good.

Two days ago, we had some free time in Old City Jerusalem. I went to the Wailing Wall, which was quite an experience. In addition to the prayers and the notes at the wall, there was a synagogue in a tunnel against the wall full of Orthodox Jews saying prayers, which I explored for a bit. I also bartered with a merchant and snagged an intricate wooden chess set. I'll tell you what, some of those Arab merchants can be pretty ruthless in their barter tactics.

Yesterday we spent all day in Old Jerusalem looking at some of the sites relating to the Old Testament. We walked around the destroyed Temple Mount, which was pretty cool. That place was absolutely huge. We read the Psalms of Ascent while standing on the Temple Mount steps, which was also really neat. We also went to a few other sites not related to the Old Testament, such as the traditional site of the Upper Room.

Probably the best part was slogging through Hezekiah's Tunnel. For those of you who don't know, when the Assyrians came up against Jerusalem, Hezekiah built a wall to fortify the city (which we saw the remains of, also) and dug a tunnel to channel water into the city. So we started on one end, sloshed through the dark and watery tunnel underneath the City of David, and ended up at the Pool of Siloam (which was also the place where Jesus healed a blind man in John 9).

Also today, we went to the model city of Jerusalem before its destruction by Rome in 70 AD, located at Hebrew University's (I think) museum. We've been getting all these maps and diagrams of what everything looked like, and saw the ruins of much of it also, so I found it interesting to see a realistic representation of it in its original state. But perhaps the coolest thing I saw at the museum today was the Dead Sea Scrolls. They house a good portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls, so I was able to take a look at some really old manuscripts of Isaiah.

Okay, you've been pretty good, so here are some pictures:

This is a section of the remains of Hezekiah's wall. It used to be a lot taller.






















The Hinnom Valley to the south of the Old City.
















A Coonskin Moment atop a pile of rubble from the Temple Mount.
















The Pool of Siloam at the end of Hezekiah's Tunnel.





















The tombs of David. Might he have been buried here?

















The Temple atop the Temple Mount at the model city. I felt like Godzilla walking around.