Sunday in Jerusalem

Today was a fascinating day in regards to education. We began our day at Hebrew U in the Bet Kenesset overlooking the Old City (what a breathtaking view!!) to learn about Yerushalayim through the eyes of Midrash. It was a magnificent presentation by Professor Avigdor Shinan, an expert in the field. We saw the various characterizaitons of Jerusalem over the various time periods of Midrash and did some in-depth study to understand these Midrashim on a much deeper level.

Our next stop was at the Israel Foreign Ministry. Here we spent about two hours learning about the move by the Ministry to introduce a program of BRANDING Israel in the eyes of the world. Acknowledging that Hasbarah has not worked effectively at all, this concept that has been researched extensively over the past 3 years and has a time table of approximately one more year until launch will (B'ezrat Hashem!) have a major impact on the way the world views Israel.

Our final program for the day dealt with the borders of the city of Jerusalem. These borders were looked at from the perspective of 1948, 1967 and today. We discussed the security fence; the enlarging of the municipality and other current issues. It was a non-political discussion for the most part but did deal at great lengths with the demographic issues facing Israel. It was quite obvious that there were a wide and varied set of opinions in our group about so many issues relating to this subject. Dialogue is good! After this briefing, we spent about an hour and a half driving around the various areas of which we learned to see with our own eyes what we had only seen on a map earlier inthe day.

I forgot to mention a very important point the other day in my blog. While we were still in Minsk, we had the honor of sharing in a birthday celebration for HaRav Schwartz, who celebrates his birhtday every year when we are in Eastern Europe. May he be blessed with Arichat Yamim!!

Ok, that is it for today. Will be in touch tommorow. For all of you who emailed me to ask about my health since Shabbat, I am pleased to report that BH, I am feeling considerably better!