October 28, 2007

Bailey Porter
October 28, 2007
Old Testament
Journal for October 25, 2007

Today after our Israeli class, Hebrew was cancelled, and everyone started studying as quickly as they could. Our Ancient Near East midterm had been postponed to the 26th and we still wanted to get some last minute studying in. Jessica, Jenessa, and I were still at it until one in the morning and we weren’t the last ones to go to bed.
Earlier that day we picked olives at St. Victoria’s for a service project. We spread out tarps and just let them drop. When we got home we started getting ready for the Seder dinner. It kinda felt like we were having dinner before a formal dance…without dates or dancing. I was impressed at how nice everything was. It’s much easier to remember the traditions of a religion when you have somebody of that faith going through it with you. Many things in the Jewish faith have symbolism; the meal for Passover is no different. Everything has a purpose, even when it is hitting each other with branches. After reading, eating, and singing, Archie and Sam performed a song for us. I don’t think it is a traditional song, but Ophir liked it.
One thing from this semester that I learned and liked was the effect we will have on this earth. Are we going to build or destroy? Will the earth be uglier or more beautiful? When we leave this earth we should have left it better than we found it. We want to leave the people better than when we met them. Many times in order to help people we have to step out of our comfort zones which makes us feel vulnerable. Brother Ludlow talked about how Satan’s plan was to make sure we all got back to the celestial kingdom with no tests. It’s like never riding a bike because you might get hurt. We can’t let fear rule us. We need to take those chances of getting hurt and being vulnerable so we can help others and make our own imprint in this life.