Sunday

Busy day today.
My little brother had a baby boy, Purim bris. As I said to him, "Lets hope the shochet isn't drunk." Actually, the bris will be taking place in Jlem, so it is not purim for them. Our purim plans have changed, we will probably be feasting in ramat bet shemesh. Maybe I can score a drink with Rafi G.

We had a couple yeshiva boys up for shabbos from Jerusalem. At the end of shabbos one of them asked if there were any graves nearby that were worth visiting. Our entire region is filled with the graves of pretty much every tzaddik in the book. But he didn't have a car, so there was no way for him to get to Shmaya and Avtalyon, who are resting in peace about 10-15 minutes away.

Our tiyul on Friday was excellent, we went to Nachal Galbon (Jalba'own). The weather was perfect and I am sure the children learned more then they would have learned in school. Especially during Adar, where they dance and have shtick more then class. We walked through a former Syrian military camp and down to the first waterfall, Mapal Devora. We then heded upwards to the other side of the bank to the ancient village of Daburah. This was a Jewish village in the time of the Mishna and the Gemara, they found the address of R' Elazar Hakapar's bet midrash, written in Hebrew when we redeemed it from the Syrians in 1967. The address stone is now located in the museum of Katzrin, so we didn't see it this time. The village was very cool. It was basically ruins, but we saw how houses used to be built, and I showed the children what a shared chatzer was. It was like a walled city. But there were a bunch of them. You walk into a doorway and then there are houses inside with a big courtyard.

We went back down towards the waterfall, and then crossed over the river a number of times walking on rocks, following the red trail. At one point I left the wife and kids to head back to get the car and meet them at the exit point. They saw 2 more waterfalls and had a very steep climb up from the wadi.

I highly recommend this tiyul, but it is well worth reading up the history before going, so that you understand what you are seeing.