Days 4 & 5: Friday 15th & Shabbat 26th July 2016

Today we started off on a magical, mystical tour of Tzfat.  Tzfat is a very well-known and interesting city but is probably one of the later cities for Jews to settle as it only became an important city for Jewish life in the late 15^th Century.  The city is most closely associated with Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah, whose foremost teach er, Rabbi Isaac Luria, lived and taught there.  Known as “Ha’Ari” (the lion), Rabbi Luria had come from Egypt to Tzfat in 1569 and died just three years later.

Besides the Kabbalists, Tzfat also attracted numerous other Jewish scholars and spiritualists, including Joseph Caro, the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero and Solomon Alkabetz, composer of the Shabbat hymn, Lecha Dodi.  We heard their stories and visited some of the beautiful shuls, all decorated in blue. 

We then did our first proper hike on Mount Meron which was fun and a great laugh!

We were really looking forward to our first Shabbat on tour. We welcomed it in together with a moving Kabbalat Shabbat led by Eli Elmalem and it included a lot of singing and dancing and then went in to our meal which continued with this electric atmosphere.

It had been a wonderful day and we were very much looking forward to being able to sleep in on Shabbat morning.

 

Shabbat 16^th July

After our well-earned rest, it was time to enjoy the rest of Shabbat on the kibbutz. 

We had a wonderful service led by our fantastic in house Chazzan Michael Rowe and following another tasty, fun and tuneful meal we had free time.  As well as this, the madrichim led some really fun games and discussions. We were then given a tour of the  kibbutz.  We got to feed some cows and learnt about the origins of kibbutzim, the communal ethos and the importance of all the agriculture and production that goes on at Lavi.

In true Tribe style, Shabbat ended with an inspirational Havdalah with everyone singing and swaying arm in arm.  We had become one incredible family. 

After Shabbat we went on an evening cruise on the kinneret that included great music and the lovely atmosphere from our special Shabbat atmosphere continued on the boat.