The Samaritan Sacrifice

Yesterday a pretty good group of us joined with about 50 other people and had the chance to go to the Samaritan's sacrifice. Years ago there numbers had dropped down to 150 and today there are only 750 Samaritans remaining. The Samaritans have a religion of their own, they follow only the five books of the Torah and hold some interesting views. On the day of the sacrifice every family must slaughter a sheep, skin it, burn it and then eat it. It was quite an experience to witness hundreds of men dressed in white cut the throat of sheep and follows the laws set down by Moses. I can only imagine how this would have looked at the temple when hundreds of thousands of people were offering sacrifices.



As the Passover week continues we have had many of awesome experiences. Late last night seven of us went to the Garden of Gethsemane and hung out in the Garden for awhile and read the four gospel accounts. It was awesome to be so close to the place where Jesus would have been arrested and betrayed by Judas. This morning a couple of us followed the path of the Via Dellarosa, which traditionally follows the path that Jesus would have followed. We ended at the church of the Holy Sepulcher. It was awesome to go up to the most probably spot where Jesus would have been crucified this same day so many years ago.

Jerusalem is a bustling city during this week. Tonight we have a Passover seider put on by the cultural backgrounds class to give us a closer look at what the last supper would have looked like. Sunday we have a couple more event going on around here with some services at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and a barbecue for our entire campus. It has been a good time of relaxing and getting to experience some new things. In the next two weeks I only have 1 day of class surrounded by travels to a couple new places! Its a hard life here in Israel!