Jerusalem part 2.

!! שבת שלום

I met so many people in Jerusalem, from the weird guy selling bread at Sha'ar Iafo to that homeless free spirited religious man who hangs out near the Kotel and the Golden Menorah Replica who invited me for a walk around the old city ramparts before buying me tea. And his friend who lives underneath his shop on Rehov Chabad who gave me a picture of an aerial view of the Old Jerusalem and a large bottle of water for no apparent reason then invited me inside to watch french tv which he did not understand.

I am glad I am writing this, in a certain way it allows me to relive things I did not especially wrote down in my diary.

At the hostel, I met David who was volunteering there and told me about a Rabbi (of whom I have forgotten the name unfortunately) who welcomes anyone that shows up for Shabbat dinner on Friday night, Saturday at lunch and Saturday night for the Havdallah. And the word is on the street so sometimes the house located in Mea Shearim is too small to hold the huge crowd and people end up eating outside. I went there twice with David who was gathering people to go with him because the Rabbi had asked him to. There is only one rule in the house: no politics.
There, I met Avi and Ruven. Ruven is a Yeshiva student in New York preparing his Alyah, he used to be a doctor. He spent a few hours explaining the American political system to me and sharing his life experiences. Avi is a physics teacher currently writing a book who showed me amazing places in Jerusalem. On Saturday evening, he took me to two different Havdallah services where there were only locals and just a dozen people because they were very private and after, whenthe sun had come down we went to Nachla'Or, the house of traditional Jewish music. It was halfway between a jamming session (everyone brings their instrument or just their voice) and prayer. Beautiful!
That night I sang my heart out eventhough I had lost my voice in the desert (it ran away!) two days earlier because of the aircon in the bedroom that couldn't be turned of.
I caught a bad cold in the desert, the irony.




I still have so many things to say about the people I met, the things I lived in Jerusalem, seriously I could go on forever about it. I shall say more later...
Location: Jerusalem, Israel

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