On our first full day we visited the Talmudic City of Zippori, where Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Nasi compiled the Mishnah and site of some of the most beautiful mosaics in the Middle East (with a round zodiac/tribes motif just like home). The Talmud explains this town of Romans, Greeks, and Jews perched on the top of the mountain like a bird (tzipor). We stood on the spot where Judaism rose from the ashes of the Destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman Empire. The smiling man on the right is Natanel, our fabulous youth counselor.

Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi (135–219) is credited with saying “I learned much from my teachers, even more from my colleagues, but most of all from my students.”