Our celebration of Yom HaAtzmaut began last night when we went to one of the large festive public celebrations in Gan HaAtzmaut (Independence Park) in Jerusalem.

At Ir David, the City of David, we saw some of the structures that may date back to the time of King David and where objects with names of several people mentioned in the Book of Kings were found.  It is always fascinating to see the work they are uncovering in this active archaeological site right outside the walls of the Old City.

We placed in the Kotel the notes students wrote and I was also able to deliver the notes our kids wrote to soldiers, both of which were done in our program last Sunday. 

I had two of those special "only in Israel moments".  I lost my wallet in the Old City and couldn't find it. As I was frantically searching for it, an elderly gentleman noticed me and could tell that I had lost something.  He held out in his hand my wallet and asked if this was what I was looking for.  He refused to accept anything but was happy to do the special mitzvah of returning a lost object.  

And Symcha and I walked into a store that sells paintings and fine Judaica, a shop I have patronized before on King David Street.  The store owner told us he had to step out to daven mincha and would be back in 10 minutes.  He said we were welcome to stay and look around and wait for him to come back.   Or if we needed to leave before he got back, not to worry - just leave when we were finished and close the door behind us.  

The CBT group visits the Western Wall

Rabbi Weinblatt places students' notes in the kotel

Celebrating Israel's independence with several thousand Israelis at an outdoor concert in Jerusalem