By Liz Dainichev and Meghan Umansky

We all got ready for Shabbat and then jumped onto the bus that took us to the old city. We first stopped off in a small empty place in the old city where Rabbi Rael gave us a beautiful talk. He compared the jewish people’s relationship with G-d to a bride’s relationship with her groom. He said that once a couple is married, in order to re-kindle and maintain their love, they take a day out every week to have a romantic date in a special place. In the same way, the Jewish people dedicate a day to G-d every week, and our special place is Jerusalem, although we can’t always be in that special place… Many of us got really inspired!

We all lit candles whilst Ayelet, our Advisor, gave us a short inspirational speech about the significance of candle lighting. We then excitedly made our way down to the Kotel for some fun praying and dancing! On the girls side, we prayed as a group and sang and danced together, which everyone really enjoyed and got excited about! Other people joined us in our dancing and we joined other groups. On the boys side, they danced with Israeli Airforce soldiers, which was an incredibly inspiring experience! It was so beautiful to see so many Jewish people together dancing as one and singing together, everyone feeling like they could jump into the circle and be part of the group! Alas, it had to come to an end and as we bid farewell

After the Kotel, we all gathered together to share a Shabbat dinner. We prayed, and all enjoyed the wonderful food. Then we took the hour-long walk back to the hotel, talking and singing as we went.

We slept in until 10 and did the morning prayers and then enjoyed some cereal, Shoko and cake. We davened in the same room and then had lunch. We had resting time until 4:30pm during which we were allowed to sleep or “chill” in the hallway. They were serving watermelon and other treats downstairs, but most us were sitting on our landing speaking to Rabbi Rael. We fell into a really interesting long conversation about fascinating topics, including sexuality in Jewish law, conflicts between science and Torah, artificial intelligence and the existence of aliens.

After this relaxing time, we all met to walk to the park, Gan Sacher. It was a lot of fun; we got to go on the swings and feel like little kids again. When our shoes were overflowing with sand, the advisers called us back to play an intense game of wah and bang; very cool games in which we shoot at each other and get other group members out.  After the park we had a small dinner (Seudat Shlishit) and closed off Shabbat with more songs as we watched the breathtaking sunset over the hills surrounding Jerusalem. We ebbed away the Shabbat (said goodbye to it) and then did a musical havdalah- our sceurity guard, Elazar, played his clarinet for us! We then quickly changed and walked towards Ben Yehuda to shop till we droped!……or until 11:30pm after which we proceeded to walk back to the hotel. Most of us went to sleep pretty late because of packing. All-in-all we enjoyed our last night in Jerusalem tremendously!