Tuesday in Tel Aviv

Shalom Shalom,

We arrived safely at Ben Gurion Airport at 7am local time, midnight "our bodies" time and hit the ground running. Our guide, Daron, a native Kibbutznik who also grew up in Chicago and studied at Duke, is so far doing a wonderful job of speaking to his eclectic audience of clergy from the three Abrahamic faiths.

At our first stop off the bus, he told some of the history of Tel Aviv and the Old city of Jaffa which existed as a city in Biblical times and is where tradition tells us Jonah caught the boat going anywhere but where God wanted him to prophecy (Nineveh). We didn't catch sight of any whales, or more accurately the 'big fish.' We stopped in at the Church of St. Peter and all learned that this is the site of Peter's dream in which God essentially tells him that keeping kosher won't be necessary anymore and as one of the Rev. Adrien Dawson explained, this made it possible for Peter to break bread with the Gentiles who were hoping to join the community following Jesus. The rabbis on the trip (Jay Goldstein, Ari Sunshine, Daniel Berg, Dana Saroken) all agreed that when we come with Jewish groups, we've passed that church hundreds of times, but never gone inside. I am sure that will be a frequently repeated observation as we travel through this land we know so intimately, but experience it through the eyes of our Christian and Muslim colleagues.

We ate a typical Israeli brunch at Regina in Tel Aviv's newly renovated old train station, the Tachana (station), then headed back to clean up and while some of us crashed, others strolled through Nachalat Binyamin, with its sidewalk artists and cafes.

Tonight we'll eat at Liliyot, a restaurant with a mission - giving troubled young people a way to contribute productively and set themselves on a better path. I'm told the food is delicious as well. At dinner, we'll hear from Paul Liptz, one of my professors from HUC-JIR in Jerusalem and a wonderful speaker, about the current state of Israeli society. It's been a terrific first day. Just think what we'll be able to accomplish on a full night's sleep!

More to come....