Saturday, July 14, 2007

And you thought the birthplace of Kabbalah was Madonna's house...


I know, I know, I'm a bad blogger. In my defense, I've been trying to take care of a myriad of little life things, not to mention getting back into my writing (can we say 100 pages to go?). But, enough with the excuses, and back to the virtual tour.
On our second day (okay, technically our first full day), our buses took us down to the city of Sfat, or Safed as some spell it. Sfat is known as the birthplace of Kabbalah and the seat of Jewish Mysticism. Contrary to popular belief, it is not Madonna's house. Along with Kabbalah, Sfat is also known for it's candles and it's galleries. The most famous candle shop, Safed Candles, creates beautiful (and fun) works of art, like this candle here. I had to fight to not go completely crazy in this store. The prices were fantastic, and c'mon! They made candles shaped like tiny books!
We also visited a few of the galleries, where I managed to buy three gorgeous watercolor prints. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait to see them, because they are at the framers' right now.
The streets in town are very narrow, so thankfully we split up to go off on our own, which meant easy access to moving out of the way of on-coming groups.
The energy in Sfat is very calming; until you have to duck out of the way of a tour group. But standing on the cobblestone streets, covered up so as not to offend the sensibilities of the many Orthodox Jews in the town, you can almost understand why the rabbis came to Sfat when they were looking for a mystical center.

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posted by Erin @ 5:50 PM

2 Comments:

At 11:51 PM, Blogger Amy said...

ahh, Sfat was one of my favorite parts of Israel! We didn't get much wander time there though. Glad to hear you had a good time, must see you soon to hear more :)

 
At 6:41 PM, Blogger Jill Monroe said...

Your header made me laugh out loud!

 

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