Information overload!

Today was a busy day full of lots of lectures and lots of listening!
This morning we continued our studies of the Gospel of Matthew with Pino, looking at the temptation of Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount- this had much more meaning for us now that we have actually been to where this is believed to have happened.
After lunch, we had a couple of lectures from a very engaging Jewish speaker Dr. Marie Lenk. She spoke to us about the Jewish feasts of Rash Hashanah, which was celebrated last week, and the big feast of Yom Kippur which is this Wednesday. Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement is spiritually and liturgically like Easter. On this day, Jews spend most of the day praying in the synagogue confessing their sins and asking for forgiveness. Tomorrow evening we will be going to Kol Nidere the beginning of this feast at the Hebrew Union Synagogue which should be very interesting.
In the late afternoon, we walked out of the Old City to West Jerusalem to attend a mass in the Hebrew language. While I couldn't understand anything, we could still follow the parts of the mass. There was lots of singing which was really lovely. There were also 7 young priests concelebrating which was an inspiring thing to see!
We then heard from Fr David Neuhaus, a Jesuit priest who was born Jewish in South Africa, was sent to Jerusalem at the age of 15 to study and, after meeting an 88 year old nun, decided to be baptized and become a priest.
He spoke about the need for a Hebrew speaking Christian community to support the children of migrants and refugees in Israel who learn Hebrew at school. His community runs Sacramental programs and other activities for these children and their families.
After a long and tiring day, we walked home exhausted yet enriched by the amazing speakers who had shared their wisdom and insights with us.