To the Bat Cave

Our Memorial / Independence Day observances are now coming to a close in this small country on the sunny shores of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Sunday night we headed up to the Andarta for the central Memorial service at 8:00 PM, then made our way to the shul to see a documentary called "The 17th Victim". It starts with a bus that was bombed by terrorists near Megiddo in 2002. One of the victims was burned beyond recoginition, and as no one came forward to report a missing person, the body was buried in an anyonymous grave. The documentary maker, David Ofek, was so disturbed by this that he began his own private investigation. Time and time again he reached dead ends, but finally, in what can only be described as a miracle, he found his needle in a haystack and discovered the identity of the unknown victim, enabling the family to rebury him and grieve.

The next morning, the kids went off to school for their respective Remembrance ceremonies, and at 11:00 AM, the sirens sounded all over the country for the traditional minute of silence. Afterwards, Imma and I headed out to the supermarket to stock up for our Independence Day barbeque and then picked up all the kids from school.

Back at home, Imma prepared our traditional and quintessential Independence Eve meal: Homemade Felafel. After dinner, we headed up to the shul for the special Independence Day tefillot (prayers). I met Shalom there, and invited him back to our place. Back home, a group of us headed to the neighbors down the block who host an annual open house. We shmoozed, listened to the music from the big concert being given in the park across the road from us, and saw two sets of fireworks, one at 9:30, the second at 11:30. Got to bed around 1:00 AM.

I was the first one up at 7:00 AM, Ezri was the only one I was able to wake up to come to the morning davening (prayer) at 8:00, followed by a pancake breakfast. It was festive! I even treated Shalom to breakfast.

Back home, Imma made fresh waffles for those who didn't get out of bed on time, and then we packed up some snacks and lots of water and headed out for the traditional Independence Day tiyul (hike). We decided to hike the trail up Nachal Dolev to the bat caves. The trails were full of people so it was slow going. After a half hour of hiking we arrived at the bat caves, but the iron gates at the entrance were locked, so everyone (well, almost everyone) was disappointed. We decided to continue our eastward trek towards Yerushalayim. We hiked for a full hour more, climbing up the hills and down the valleys, hoping to reach Mayan Sifla (The Sifla spring). The trails were crowded and it was slow going. We proceeded eastward an additional half-hour, but the ladies decided that we should start to head back. We will try to make our way up to the spring on another day when it is not quite so crowded.

The hike down was a lot quicker, we made it back to the car in under 1 1/2 hours. As soon as we returned home, we started to prepare for the big barbeque.

Not only is today Independence Day, it's also Eli's 16th birthday! We invited Saba and Savta to our barbeque, and we put up steaks, burgers, hot-dogs and chicken. Yummy.

Now it's time for us all to rest our tired feet until the next day off, which is Lag B'Omer, which unbelievably is only 11 days from now!

Chances are good that you can see some nice pictures of our hike on Lori's blog, whose link you will find conveniently listed elsewhere on this page.