Thank God for Israel!! At 4:00 pm on Friday, Iyar 5th, 5708 (May 15th, 1948), David Ben Gurion (who would be the first Prime Minister of the new state) stood in the Tel Aviv Museum (today known as Independence Hall) and opened the ceremony to which about 250 guests were in attendance – by invitation[…]
Birth of the Miracle Nation Mah Nishtanah HaLila HaZeh MiKol HaLayLot …And so begins the Passover Seder as the youngest person present traditionally gets to ask what is know as “the Four Questions”. In Hebrew, we actually “sing” them and it turns out that the “Four Questions” are really four answers to one big question: “Why[…]
Life on the Edge In the last Nugget, we discussed the steep and jagged cliffs, often called the cathedral cliffs, that ring the western shore of the Dead Sea and guard the entrance to the Judaean Desert (Hebrew: מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה Midbar Yehuda). This steep and treacherous area is the home of the Ibex. The[…]
Eden in the Wilderness Steep and jagged cliffs ring the western shore of the Dead Sea guarding the entrance to the Judaean Desert (Hebrew: מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה Midbar Yehuda). The geographical term for the Judaean Desert is a “rainshadow desert”. Rainshadow deserts occur in many places on the earth and are formed when prevailing westerly[…]
The Glorious Land In all the T’nakh, the word אֶ֥רֶץ – eretz (Heb: ‘land’) occurs 2,400 times making it the 4th most frequently used noun in the Hebrew Bible! Which makes it a pretty important topic!! Eretz first occurs in the Hebrew text in Genesis 1:10 and is translated as ‘Earth’, however, the majority of[…]
The Lowest Spot on Earth Last week we studied the Jordan river which begins at Israel’s highest peak, Mt. Hermon (elevation 9,232 ft. ), flows down what is called the Jordan Rift Valley and empties into the Dead Sea (elevation – 1,200 feet below sea level). The name ‘Dead Sea’ is the English name[…]