A menorah that is carved from Olive wood. It isn't a correct one and it is intended to be decorative. The real menorah has nine places for candles representing the eight days of the siege of trying to make the Jews give up their beliefs or die. They refused to assimilate. The center candle is lighted first and then that candle lights all of the others, each one night after another.
We were in Jerusalem and stopped by this shop that had all carved items from olive wood. This is the back view of the piece that we bought. We didn't look too closely at the piece so it does have a lesser quality than we thought we had purchase.
It is a great piece for what it represents. There were large carvings there and we wanted a representation of what we saw at the shop. The carvers were all in the basement of this shop working with many pieces of wood sitting around them. There were wood chips everywhere.
Olive trees live for a very long time so I don't know where they harvest their wood. I suppose some of them die and they could cut them down. These trees are in the Garden of Gethsemane and they are not cut down. We were told that these are offsprings of the trees that were originally growing there. I think I remember some do live to be hundreds of years old.
While visiting the area of Nazareth where the recreated a village was, we were given oil lamps. They were used at the time of Jesus and some potters of today quickly created these things in order to resemble the days of old. The oil is poured into the container and the string wick soaks up the oil. The wick is lighted so that it will burn on the spout. I think they look like a fire hazard.
Snowing here today lightly and it is slick driving conditions. We are in for the rest of the day. Thanks for stopping by today.
2 comments:
I see a fire hazard, too, specially with these cats. I would have loved to see the carvers at work.
Interesting about the carvers! The piece you bought looks lovely and it is nice to have a keepsake of your trip!
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