Kayitz b'Yisrael: My ONLINE Summer Israel Program

This past week, I took a group of young, online campers on a virtual trip to Israel. I’ve had a request for an adult version of this program on weekdays (over 5-8 weeks) during the school year 9PT/10MT/11CT/12ET. After reading this post, please let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in!

This was my Enduring Understanding for the week:
(In teacher-speak, that means this was basically my mission - that every part of every day we were working toward this big goal.)

“We learn about Israel, our Jewish homeland, with open hearts - grounded in love for our people and compassion for all who have lived and live in the Land. Israel is a place of deep Jewish memory, Zionist dreams, and diverse human stories including those of Jews, Palestinians, Bedouin, Druze, and others.
Our relationship with Israel invites us to listen, to remember, to be honest, to stay engaged, and to hope.”

With that mission in my mind, we began our journey with a traveler’s prayer before we boarded our flight to Israel. (We began every day with this prayer - and yes, I wrote it.) 

God and God of all of our ancestors who have traveled far and wide,
please help us travel together with peace in our souls, hearts, and minds.
That isn’t always easy.
We will do our best, and we know we will also need Your help.
Help us remember to bring our empathy - our feeling with - with us.
Help us remember to bring our compassion 
- our wanting to care and do - with us.
Help us remember to bring our curiosity - our want-to-know - with us, too.
We know there are more things we don’t know
than there are things we do know.
Please guide our way, keep us safe,
and may everyone we meet treat us with kindness.
You are a good Listener, thank you for hearing our prayer.
Baruch atah Adonai, who hears prayer.

Our in-flight entertainment was this music video filmed in the Negev.
We also each went to this link on Google Earth to explore the places we would soon be visiting. 

Shortly after we arrived, we hopped on our bus and headed toward Mitzpe Ramon and the Maktesh Ramon - the crater. There we met up for the first time with our Hebrew teacher, Talya, from Ivrit Club, (which I 10/10 recommend for all Hebrew levels) nd talked about nature in Hebrew. We learned about the world in that area 250 million years ago. We studied some of the geology (and a little paleontology) of the area. We ended our day at the Maktesh Ramon Youth Hostel. 

Day 2, after breakfast, we took the bus to Akko. We looked out the window as we rode and shared our “windows” (our screens) with each other so we could see what others were seeing. 

We noticed right away that Akko is very different from Mitzpe Ramon! It’s surrounded by water on three sides!

Five (fictional) friends in Akko - Jewish, Muslim, and Christian - gave us a tour through Akko’s shared ancient, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim history. With Talya we learned how to talk about old, antique, and new. Akko is a city that, like all of Israel, is antique, old, and new all at the same time. We went to an underwater archeological site called Atlit Yam. THIS PLACE was a city 9,000 years ago. After what scientists think was a volcanic eruption, the whole city was submerged under water. What? Akko itself has been continuously inhabited for at least 5,000 years. We settled into Akko Knights Youth Hostel.

Day 3, after breakfast, we took a bus to Kibbutz Degania Aleph in Tiberias. While we rode, we again looked out the window and shared what we saw with each other. When we met up with Talya, she taught us about how Jews from all over the world have built the kibbutzim in Israel, and people from all different backgrounds and cultures and languages have created Israel. Turns out, her family lives in Tiberias! We learned words for a song about how chaverim, friends, come in every color - which is literal and also figurative. On Kibbutz Degania we learned about early Zionism - cultural, political, and religious. How these different kinds of Zionism were similar and different and what their goals were. We thought about which one was likely what most of the original members of Kibbutz Degania probably were. We learned about the Kibbutz Movement, and then we walked to Kibbutz Degania Bet where we spent the night in the guesthouse.

Day 4, we got up early to check out an ancient synagoguee in Tiberias and we noticed that the rock in the mountain near it was made of limestone - and so was a lot of what was still there of the synagogue building. We wondered why there might be an olive press where the synagogue was and came up with many ideas. A visit to a kibbutz couldn’t end without learning just a little about Israeli folk dancing. Mayim, Mayim seemed like the right thing since we were so close to the water.

Talya hopped on the bus with us and we learned about Jerusalem in Hebrew with her.

On to Yerushalayim! As we drove through the old and the new we noticed a sign:

What’s Ramat Rachel?
Well, “Ramat Rachel” means the Heights of Rachel . . . but that wasn’t really enough. We needed to know more. We turned off the road and got off the bus. Walking into Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, just outside Jerusalem, we came to a garden and the garden had this statue:

Maybe those small beings are angels? Maybe this is an idol? Maybe she’s an early Zionist?
Then we noticed that there are words:
וְשָׁבוּ בָנִים לִגְבוּלָם

Good thing we had a rabbi with us who knew these words are from the prophet Jeremiah during the time of the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem. Jeremiah 35:15-17.

“Thus said GOD:
A cry is heard in Ramah—
Wailing, bitter weeping—
Rachel weeping for her children.
She refuses to be comforted
For her children, who are gone.
Thus said GOD:
Restrain your voice from weeping,
Your eyes from shedding tears;
For there is a reward for your labor
—declares GOD:
They shall return from the enemy’s land.
וְיֵשׁ־תִּקְוָ֥ה לְאַחֲרִיתֵ֖ךְ נְאֻם־יְהֹוָ֑ה וְשָׁ֥בוּ בָנִ֖ים לִגְבוּלָֽם׃
And there is hope for your future
—declares GOD:
Your children shall return to their country.

“Um, wow,” one of us said.
We looked at the statue again and realized the small beings are children and the figure is Rachel.
“But how can . . . I mean, she died a long time ago . . . how can she be weeping?”
Aaaaaand maybe my favorite part of the week happened right here - so I’m going to tell you about it.
“Maybe she’s a dybbuk? But not the kind that’s vengeful, I can’t remember the other kind.”
“Yeah, the vengeful ones are my favorite.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Souls that have unfinished business - sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad.”
“It’s a Jewish folklore thing.”
I jumped in, “Ibur,” I said. “The kind that isn’t vengeful.”

“Ah. Well. Maybe she is and maybe she isn’t. Maybe she wants revenge against the people who exiled her descendants.”
“Or maybe she just wants to protect them.”
And there it is, the book I desperately want to read that hasn’t been written yet.

Back to the main plot as it were, we thought about what Jeremiah meant, and what it would mean for Kibbutz Ramat Rachel to make this statue here - and why they might.
We looked in the Torah, Genesis 35:19-20 and got an answer: maybe THIS is where Rachel died and was buried.  Sure enough, Rachel’s tomb isn’t far away.

“Woah. So they wrote that on the statue because THEY - the kibbutz people - were the promise God made to Rachel when she was weeping after the destruction of the Temple. THEY are the hope. THEY are the children returning to their country.”

“Again, wow.”
“Again, wow,” I agreed..

That sure gave us a different perspective as we continued on to Jerusalem and the Old City. We got a sense of the city, Old and New, and then arrived at the Jaffa Gate

We made our way to the New Citadel Youth Hostel for the night.

Day 5, after an elaborate breakfast, we noticed there were many cats in the main area of the hostel so we learned that Jerusalem is, like Akko, a shared city: Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Cats.
(If you know, you know. If you don’t - go to the slides and watch the video!)

We walked through narrow roads and alleys to a lovely courtyard where we met up with Talya and reviewed all of the Hebrew we learned this week. After we shared with her directly what we appreciated about her and what we’d learned and said, “Shabbat Shalom” and “L’hitraot” to her, we wrote our thoughts down in a Thank You note that I’ll send to Talya and Ivrit Club after Shabbat. (She’s in Israel, so she joined us just before it was time for her to get ready for Shabbat.)

“We learned so much with you this week!
We liked the song, it was quite fun, we liked the conversations and asking and answering each other, we liked learning with pictures and activities and by talking and not just memorizing, we liked learning about places in Israel and facts about Israel and how to say them in Hebrew. 
You are very fun, kind, and supportive.
Thank you for teaching us and being awesome.”

After that, it was time to walk to the Kotel.
On our feet the route to the Kotel? An 8 minute walk. It took us almost 15 minutes.
If you go to the link, you can click on the little person and then on any of those blue dots and see the street view. It’s . . . pretty cool.

At this point, we were experts at navigating Google Earth.
One of us really wanted to go shopping and popped in and out of lots of stores. One of us was in a hurry to get to the Kotel and walk around there.

At the Kotel we learned a little about the letters to God/prayers people put in the Wall. We drafted (not quite finished, but close - we’ll make time during Merchav Shabbat to finish it up) a new prayer for Israel. 

If anyone wants to send their own prayer to the kotel, you can do that right here. Someone will print it out, take very good care of it, and put it in the wall for  you.

We had a little refresher of who the Nabbateans were - hadn’t thought about them much since Monday - because the mother of King Herod (Jewish) of Jerusalem was Nabbatean. The two kingdoms interacted a lot. 
Then we learned just a very little bit about King Herod’s building projects in Jerusalem.
All of this brought us to the end of our time in Jerusalem and in Israel.
We boarded the plane and headed home.

You’ll find our big take-a-ways in our prayer when we are ready to share it.

As we talked about it, our experiences this week were a lot about memory and about the memories specifically of this Land - of Israel, itself. We were really struck by how much old and new is right next to each other and how much history of “basically everyone” is here. (okay, so not everyone, everyone - we know - but a whole lot of different groups of people) We felt like learning this history and about this place now is really different than learning about . . . say . . . Thailand. We agreed that would be cool, too, but Thailand isn’t ours. Or isn’t quote-unquote the place of our history that we are connected with. At the same time, we had some thoughts but mostly weren’t really sure how we feel about everything happening in Israel right now. We were, however, pretty comfortable not being sure about that. We were pretty comfortable feeling proud and sad and worried and caring and concerned and hopeful at the same time. I think that says a lot about us.

Most of all, every single one of us felt like this place, Israel, is just a really cool and interesting place to get to know for lots of different reasons. The history, the science, the geography, the people - all of it.
We liked being there, and we liked being there together.

I didn’t share my Enduring Understanding with the campers/students, but here it is again:

“We learn about Israel, our Jewish homeland, with open hearts - grounded in love for our people and compassion for all who have lived and live in the Land. Israel is a place of deep Jewish memory, Zionist dreams, and diverse human stories including those of Jews, Palestinians, Bedouin, Druze, and others.
Our relationship with Israel invites us to listen, to remember, to be honest, to stay engaged, and to hope.”

I think we fulfilled the mission.