Jerusalem Day 2

Every day we finish the day thinking, how will we top this tomorrow or even equal it?  We don't want to think that tomorrow is going to be anti-climactic, but alas (Bible word)...each day is different and definitely feels like it tops the one before.  A high bar for our new guide tomorrow!

We got up this morning- early!  Another big day ahead of us - starting at the Temple Mount.  So the Temple mount is now an Islamic shrine set on top of the site that was one THE Temple during Jesus' time - it is where he was teaching when he was a teen and his mom couldn't find him and it is where later on he turned over the tables of the money changers!  So this was the Holy place where all Jews would come to celebrate the big holidays.  Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times and captured and recaptured 44 times.  Civilizations just keep piling up here.  

The Jewish people know they will not get back the area where their temple was since the Muslims have occupied the site for so long, but it was part of the agreement after the 7 day war (or was it 6?) that they would have access to the Western Wall - which is not a wall of the temple, but a retaining wall - that holds up the temple region.  It is only a fraction of the wall that circles the temple, but it is a Holy and sacred site where they believe all prayers rise together up to God.  Millions of people write down their prayers (us included) and put them in the cracks in the wall.  Twice a year they take all of the prayers and bury them together up in the Mount of Olives.  Sort of cool to know that everyone's prayers are treated with respect.

We took a tour under the wall - very cool- we were 7 stories under the ground!  During Covid, the Israeli's took the time to prepare the archeological sites underground so that people can go see them.  Our guide was an archeologist - gave us a great picture of what it all looked like during the time when Jesus was in the area.  We actually went to the gate that was the main entrance to the Temple - a gate that Jesus HAD to use to get to the Temple - the original rocks that were in the doorway are still there - we followed right in his footsteps to the door.  (the gate is now closed and I mean closed, as in bricked over).  

Our next hike was through the archeological gardens of William Davidson (apparently he was the glass guy for Ford and donated 75 million dollars in 2007 to help preserve this site).  The site is amazing and all brand new walks through multiple levels of history near the southern wall.

We walked through the City of David - where they have found an 18 room palace, that they think must have been King David's.  There is evidence of the time period and of the size of the palace, but not that it was David's - but who else would have such a fine place...after all even his right hand man's house had a bathroom! Now that is someone with wealth and power.

Last stop of the day was the much anticipated Hezekiel's tunnel.  When Hezekiah was king (yup another king) he was expecting an attack and possibly a ond siege by the Assyrians - so he had a tunnel built to bring water from a spring to an open reservoir - the engineering around water throughout time has been just amazing - actually all the engineering - building, water supply, etc.  This is all documented in the Bible - today you can actually walk through the tunnel - head lamps, water up to mid calf, dark and narrow.  Only a small group of us went - it was amazing - the sides of the tunnel touched your shoulders in some parts and some people had to squat through some of it, but some parts had high ceilings.  Very cool experience.  We sang our way through!

We'll see what tomorrow brings!