A field trip for us!
We woke up tired and groggy from the weekend we still hadn't recovered from. We had a solemn day ahead of us waht with our trip to Har Hertzl, the Cemetary for Fallen Soldiers.
I've been there before and in all honesty, I didn't think it would hit as hard as it did.
We walked to one of the graves of the Habbonim Dror founders and had our first peulah of the day. Mark gave us each a stack of information and told us to present it in a way that was creative and inspireing. Not an easy feat when you're exhausted. Daron and I attempted a pantomime interpretive dance to the information but it wasn't good at all.
It was time for lunch and we all livened up a bit after that.
The rest of the tour consisted of a stop at Theodor Hertzls grave and a quick history lesson.
Theodore's grave is my favourite in the whole cemetery. Its the design and meaning behind it that I find truly remarkable and wonderful. The fact that his grave is so symbolic to a lot of people is awe inspiring. What he did for the people of Israel, the inspiration he provided for them is one that kinda makes my brain explode every so often. Other times I just think that people put too much faith in some people.
His grave is in a semi circular formation, half white for his wife, and half black for himself. There is a candle placed in the middle that is sometimes lit. I guess it would symbolise the light that he provided for the people, or the fact that he still gives hope and that we should remember him.
That freaks me out the most. I hate the idea of death, especially what awaits us on the other side, and the fact that we know it could all end at any moment and this is how we prepare for it.
We walked around the memorial for the civilians who had died in terrorist attack or during wars. There too was space left for the future. The anticipation for more death due to war and violence prevalent in the open spaces on the wall.
Liz ran a peulah on Zionism.
The Fallen Soldiers:
The decorated graves of brave young men and women from Israel and other countries made my heart sink. I walked around the graves for a while fighting back tears, looking at the different pictures of the smiling faces that grieving parents had placed on their child's grave.
I like people. I want to know their stories, their reason for existing.
Seeing these people represented in such a way, where you could tell what kind of person they were in their lives, even after they were gone, I just couldn't handle it.
Lily told me that it was just glorifying the army and that I just didn't realise it, but I don't think it is.
There's this one grave, this young man, who made Aliyah to Israel and decided to join the army. He fought for what he believed in and died for a country that he believed in so much. Not the place he was born, and not the place where his parents live, but a place that he had decided meant so much to him, he would do anything for, even give his own life for it. I didn't stand at his grave and cry because he died in battle. I didn't stand there and think to myself: "Wow. I want to join the army. I want to fight 'Enemies'". I stood by the grave of a person who, in his own way inspired so many people through his actions. In that moment I was proud to be a part of the human race where, in some way, a young man brought people from all over the world together to support a family who had just lost their son. No matter how it happened, it is the hardest thing to watch a family be broken.
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| Thats my bracelet. The Pink One. |
I don't like cemeteries.
