Olive Press

1. The millstone olive press we used to crush the olives into a brown, guppy mush. It took a lot longer than I thought it would--about 30 min for each batch of olives.
2. Once the olives are crushed you put them into baskets and place them another press.

3. The brown watery oil that drips down from the baskets flows into these holes in the ground. It's designed so that when the dregs of the oil sink to the bottom in the first hole, only the remaining top layer of oil will float into the larger of the two holes.

Jordan

Roman Theater at Amman/Philadelphia














River Jordan near Bethany. Traditional site of Christ's baptism

Jerash: Super cool roman ruins in Jordan

Jerash Theater

Jerash: Temple of Artemus











Me and Kathryn at Petra!


Mount Nebo

Olive Harvest

Olive harvest comes every year after the first rainfall. Yesterday we spent a few hours picking the olives from the olive trees around the Jerusalem Center. There were so many olives. Thousands on each tree. Brother Skinner gave us a little introductory forum on the olive tree before we picked. I thought the some of the insights he shared on the symbolism of the olive tree were really interesting:

1. The Olive tree is one of seven remaining species that are native to Israel. The tribe of Judah (also native/inheritors of the land of Isreal) is sometimes symbolized as an olive tree in the scriptures.

2. Olive tree is called the Tree of Life. Jesus Christ is also called the Tree of Life. Thus, theoOlive tree is used as a symbol of Jesus Christ

3. Olive tree is sometimes called the tree of light (because of the way the leaves reflect the sun).

4. Olive tree is a symbol of peace. Doctrine and Covenants 88 is called the Olive Leaf because it is the Lord’s message of peace. Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace.

5. The Garden of Gethsemane is both literally and figuratively an oil press.

6. Goodness and Perfection were pressed out in Gethsemane just as the good part of the olive is pressed out under an olive press.

- under the weight of an olive press the skin of the olive is first bruised and then broken

- contrite originally meant “that which was crushed”

7. Olives are incredibly bitter when you eat them right off the tree. The bitterness of the olive is pressed out in the olive press just as the bitterness of life is pressed out through the atonement

8. Olive oil was used as a healing agent

9. Of all the oils, olive oil is the purest and the brightest burning

10. Olive oil is the oil used for anointing

Eilat: snorkeling in the Red Sea

Two beach days in the same week!? Oh yeah! Eilat was a lot of fun (that was for you again Dad : ] I’m getting pretty good aren’t I). As my roommate Shannon put it, we went snorkeling off of the coast of Africa on Sunday! How cool does that sound? It was almost as cool it sounds. Eilat is one of the finger-shaped bays that juts up from the Red Sea. From where we were snorkeling we could see Jordan across the relatively narrow sea and Egypt (i.e. Africa)was just 20 miles in the opposite direction. So cool! The water was a gorgeous aqua blue. The coral reef we snorkeled around was cool but not very colorful. The best part was the fish! There were so many different kinds and colors. I saw lots of Dori’s and other fish that I’m sure showed up on Finding Nemo at some point. My favorite was these huge schools of tiny little fish that shimmered whenever they moved. If I were a fish I’m pretty sure I’d want to be that kind. It would be pretty great to just hang out with a huge group of friends all day and look like transparent sparkling curtains whenever you moved.

At Tel Aviv on Thursday I didn’t get sunburned at all. I figured I was pretty much resilient to the sun, so at Eilat in my hurry to get to the water I decided sunscreen wasn’t terribly important. I was wrong. I turned a nice berry red all over my back except for the few random white splotches that I managed to dab some sunscreen on. Whoops.

Tel Aviv

My beach expectations just got bumped to a whole new level. The beach in Tel Aviv was pristine: huge rolling waves, warm water, silky sand, and the perfect amount of buoyancy. Bobbing up and down in those waves for a few hours, a nap in the sand, schwerma from a restaurant across the street, and a golden sunset over the Mediterranean—can life get any better? I submit that it cannot.

Seder Meal (Passover)

Even though Passover isn’t for another six months, and last Saturday happened to be Yom Kippor, another Jewish holiday, we reenacted the traditional Passover dinner last Monday with our Judaism professor (for him it would be like having Christmas the day before the 4th of July). Passover dinner is so long! We started the meal at 4:30, but didn’t finish until almost 8:00. Before eating, we read several passages from the Torah and Talmud including the story of the Passover. It kind of reminded me of acting out the nativity scene on Christmas Eve. There were designated spots in the narrative where we sang Jewish songs that we had prepared the week before. “Let my people go” is one of the songs we sang all together.

Some parts of the Seder meal were really solemn, but there was also a touch of humor worked into the narrative and traditions. I thought it was really cool to see how the Jews so actively remembered and commemorated their history. Remembering seems to be an important theme in Jewish culture. This week all of the Jews are celebrating their Sukkot holiday where they build huts out of leaves and branches and eat all of their meals in them to help them remember what it was like for the Israelites during the exodus.

Yom Kippor

Yom Kippor is the Jewish holiday called the day of the atonement. It dates back to the time of Moses. Pretty much all jews, no matter how religious, recognize this holiday. They spend the day fasting and praying in a synagogue, trying to repent of all of their sins for the year. Last Friday on the eve of Yom Kippor I went to the western Wall. We thought that would be a pretty popular place at the time given that it’s an open synagogue and considered the most holy place in the world to the jews. Normally there are always a lot of people at the western Wall, but when we got there at about 4pm last Friday afternoon it was really quiet and almost empty. We talked to a few of the people there and found out that everyone was at home eating. At sunset Yom Kippor would officially begin and they would have to fast until sunset on Saturday so everyone was eating away. On Saturday I went back to the city to visit some of the synagogues. The streets were empty and quiet, but outside of there were children all over dressed in their Sunday clothes and eating bags of chips and candy. Inside, the synagogues were packed! The women and men looked so solemn as they stood praying in their separate areas. It was a sea of people rocking back and forth and muttering prayers. Apparently they spend just about the entire day in the synagogue doing exactly that. It was cool to get a glimpse of their devotion to what they believe in.

Jews aren't allowed to take any pictures on Shabbat or on Yom Kippor, so since Yom Kippor was on Shabbat this year it was a double no. While we were in the Jewish Quarter of the city one of the girls I was was with took a picture of the really cute kids playing in the street. It looked like they weren't paying any attention to us, but all of the sudden one of the boys looked right at her and yelled "no!" The parents here teach their children well.