I Have Shared A Few Other Memories Of My Trip To ...

I have shared a few other memories of my trip to Israel. We were in Israel for two weeks, which included two weekends. During that time we experienced two days of “Shabbat” which of course is the Sabbath.

For Jews, the new day actually begins with sunset. So, the Shabbat began about 6:00 on Friday afternoon, and ended about 6:00 on Saturday. At that time, all businesses closed, the streets literally were emptied, and everyone went home, and stayed. Because, Each room in our Hotel included a timer, so you could set the lights to go on and off automatically at certain times during Shabbat.

Another interesting thing, were the elevators. We were in a 20 story Hotel, so you had to use an elevator to get up. In fact, I believe it would be considered sin to walk UP the steps. So, there were two types of elevators. The normal elevators, you could push the button like any other day and go to the floor you wanted to go to. But, there were also “Shabbat: elevators, which were programmed to stop at every other level, stopping on the second, fourth, etc. You would go up, and if you were on an odd floor, you would walk DOWN a flight of steps.

I boarded the Non’shabbat elevator to go up, and had two girls on board with me. Suddenly, one of them through her hands over her mouth, and told her friend..;.Oh no, we are not on the Shabbat elevator. I looked over at the girl, and felt compassion, and said, what floor do you need to go to, and she told me. So I punched the button for her…and thought to myself…I am taking her sins on myself.