By Maddie Katz, NFTY in Israel Participant, Bus 8
Using a pickaxe was nothing like it is in the movies. Instead of swinging down hard onto the rocks below, we used it to gently move dirt around as we shoveled rocks, dust, and maybe 2,000 year old pottery into buckets. If we found something, some piece of a pot or bowl, we would be the first person to touch it since the time of the Maccabees. So although I didn’t find anything, the possibility of that was pretty cool. It was about 20 degrees cooler in the caves than it was outside, and this, with the addition of the fact that we could (finally) take off our hats, made our time in the caves way more enjoyable than we could have imagined. The second cave we visited was unexcavated, which meant that for the next 20 minutes we had to crawl, duck, and be in near complete darkness. The walls of the cave were cool to the touch and the rocks were crumbly. The obvious history around us was something we won’t forget. After a debate on whether or not pigeons actually were kept in the cave, the group continued to a box of pottery pieces where we were allowed to take home a bit of history (as well as buy a new t-shirt)! Although we see a lot of history on this trip, this visit to the basements of people who lived 2,000 years ago was both a memorable and meaningful experience.
