Har Tzofim - Mount Scopus

After a delicious breakfast, it was onto the bus and our first stop, Har Tzofim. We rode on Highway #443, which is located near Chashmonaim territory. We were near one of the places that Judah Macabi had a base during his battles with the Greeks. This highway is also near the city of Modi’in, where Mattityahu was from. In the Mishna it says that anyone who reached this location on the day before Pesach, Shavuot or Sukkot on their way to Yerushalayim, should turn back home. Those travelers would not make it to the Temple on time. Until the 19^th century this route was the main road into Yerushalayim.

Our first stop was a beautiful overlook of the Old City from the top of Har Tzofim. We could clearly see the Temple Mount on the beautiful sunny day. By the way, the weather is gorgeous!! In reality this mountain is actually a part of Har Zaytim, Mount Olives. Mount Olives is home to the biggest and oldest cemetery in the entire world. In the 20^th Century Jews wanted to build Hebrew University at this spot of the mountain. This was a big project and they needed funders. The founders went fund-raising to philanthropic Jews. Their reactions were one of horror! How can you build a university on the same mountain as the cemetery? That would not be expected.

As you can imagine, fund-raising was not going well. Well, you know what they say – it is all about marketing. The fund-raisers decided to change the name of this part of the mountain to Har Tzofim, Mount Scopus. Where did they get that name from? Rabbi Akiva. You might know about a famous story with Rabbi Akiva that took place after the destruction of the 2^nd Temple. Rabbi Akiva was walking with other rabbis and he looked out at the Temple Mount and saw foxes running through the rubble and laughed. He was asked how he could laugh at this and he replied that he was happy that this was part of the prophecy delivered by G-d. If that prophecy came true, so would the rebuilding. The words used to describe how Rabbi Akiva looked is the same word as Tzofim (scouting the land). This part of the mountain overlooked the Temple Mount where Rabbi Akiva was standing. With a new name, the fund-raising was successful and Hebrew University was built.