Friday 7/7/06 – Jerusalem: the cancer hospice, Israeli Museum, shopping, services – Day 12

Yesterday (Fri) there was the postponed conversation between Temple Aliyah and a new conservative synagogue at Mode’in about twinning.  Since we are not Aliyah members and not likely to join (As Marc says, its “GU” – geographically undesirable – being ½ an hour from our house) we skipped the meeting.  Marc did go at the end to make a contact that could point him to people who could help him explore the possibility of creating a Challenger Learning Center in Israel.  Then it was bus time again.  We went to a hospice that cares for children with cancer.  We got a tour of the facility and then presented them with several bags of toys and stuffed animals for the children.  The place is only 3 years old and very nicely done.  We took a picture of all the kids on our tour presenting the hospice with the toys. 

Next was the Israeli museum, which has this huge (1:50 scale) model of Jerusalem as it was before the destruction of the second temple.  I couldn’t get it all in one photo.  I tried to get it all in two, but they don’t line up to well.

The left picture shows the Temple Mount looking at the western wall and the right picture shows it looking at the southern wall.

The Israeli Museum also has the Shrine of the Book – This is a building that was built to display two things – the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Aleppo codex.  They displayed many pieces from the Dead Sea Scrolls including a good-sized piece of the Isaiah scroll.  Also a correctly sized facsimile of the entire Isaiah scroll is displayed so you can marvel over how long it is.  (The Isaiah scroll contains the complete text of the book of Isaiah and is the longest of all the Dead Sea Scrolls.)  A codex is a parchment book, and the Aleppo codex is the oldest known codex.  I had never heard of the Aleppo codex and found the story very interesting.  You’re not allowed to take pictures inside the Shrine of the Book so I only have pictures of the outside.  It’s a funny shaped building, designed to look like the baskets in which the Dead Sea scrolls were found.

After we had walked around the model and seen the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Aleppo codex, we had about ½ an hour left so we went into the museum proper and looked around.  We saw a tiny fraction of what they had on display before it was time to go.  The bus dropped us off on Ben Yehuda Street and we had schwarma (adults) and schnitzel (kids) for lunch.  We started up Ben Yehuda Street looking at what the shops had to offer and soon met up with Mom and Dad.  I was interested in buying a Tallit, but nothing appealed to me.  There was one Tallit with a tree on it “עץ חיים היא”(“It is a tree of life”) on the atara.  But they were asking $220 for it, which was more than I wanted to spend.  Around 2:30 the shops started closing and we headed back to the hotel.  We just hung out until 6 and then the tour went to the wall for services.  The evening was a repeat of the previous Friday evening – the rabbi led services in the courtyard before the wall, then we walked back to the hotel and had basically the same meal as the week before (except we got served faster then the week before).  After dinner, as usual, we put the boys to bed.

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On to Day 13