This Week's Parshah and Our Visit to Beit Guvrin

Yesterday we needed to get out of the house, so we decided to take a quick trip to Beit Guvrin, where they have the cool Bell Caves, and other caves that you walk around in. It's a pretty well-known site, but the place was empty (probably because it was boiling). It's also not definitively Jewish - the caves are ancient, but there's a lot of different religious symbolism that's not Jewish. But we had a very nice time, and each of us had a different favorite part.
My favorite part is actually a פסוק from this week's parshah:

כִּי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, מְבִיאֲךָ אֶל-אֶרֶץ טוֹבָה: אֶרֶץ, נַחֲלֵי מָיִם--עֲיָנֹת וּתְהֹמֹת, יֹצְאִים בַּבִּקְעָה וּבָהָר.
אֶרֶץ חִטָּה וּשְׂעֹרָה, וְגֶפֶן וּתְאֵנָה וְרִמּוֹן; אֶרֶץ-זֵית שֶׁמֶן, וּדְבָשׁ.

As you walked on the paved path to the caves, we came across numerous fruit trees still in bloom. We had boxer (is it buxer), the we found some תאנה --



Rena, our expert tour guide and kashrut maven correctly pointed out that you have to check the figs for worms, and lo and behold when we opened them, there they were, squirming around. So we didn't taste those!

Some רמון --










and even some זית שמן!

























We also picked some Sabra fruit from the cactus - actually Abba did that. It was, in fact, rather painful, but when you opened up the fruit, it really was delicious!
We said the ברכה of שהחיינו, and dug in! The brachah was on the fruit, and much more!