
Subject: Day 2-Wednesday 10th May 2017- Tsfat/ Jerusalem
Day 2 began with a quick breakfast and the slow bus climb winding up to the mystical city of Tsfat. An ancient city of Jewish learning and Kabbalah. We walked through the main walkway surrounded by Jewish art works and jewellery. A religious man stopped a young man and asked him to lay tefillin urging him to do the mitzvah, which he did. He then tied a red string on my arm and gave me a blessing asking for my Hebrew name and my mother's Hebrew name. (Leora bat Sarah). We visited a magnificent Sephardic synagogue painted in mediterranean blue that is supposed to keep away the evil eye. Following that we went into an Ashkenazi synagogue surrounded by religious men of all ages walking around with siddurim under their arms. A while later we ventured down a cobbled staircase and a steep hill passing a view of the ancient cemetery of Tsfat littered with blue gravestones reserved only for rabbonim.
Here we entered the spiritual place of the Tsfat mikveh. We met with a number of ladies dressed mainly in white wearing the signature uniform of sparkly glass jewellery. These women seemed to possess spiritual powers and revel in their chosen path of assisting Jewish women in this secret key to follow the feminine cycles of time. A final meditative reflective time culminated in a celebration of joy and connection between us all. We stepped back onto the bus for the journey to Yerushalayim shel zahav. Jerusalem city of gold.