Rucheli Berry

Ramapo Hike

So a few months ago, while researching ways to cope with my move to the urban jungle, I came across the website for the Jewish Outdoors Club. Based out of NYC, the JOC is a group of VERY diverse Jews who get together to escape into nature. It’s not a once a year thing; they actually have an event (sometimes multiple) almost every Sunday.

Last week I decided that I would spend my final Sunday of 5771 with the JOC in Mahwah, New Jersey. There is a forest there called Ramapo, and we were going for a hike! I prodded Chana Rosa into going with me and we managed to (at the last minute) find a ride with two other Crown Heights girls who were going for the first time also.

In short, the trip was fantastic! I’m hoping to write about it later, but for now… here are the photos … Read the rest

POTD: 21 Sivan 5771

This is the first waterfall that we saw once we made the trek down into the Yehudiya Canyon. You can see it from the top of the trail (see below) and there’s a back path to get over closer to the falls themselves. Well, not really a path… but I followed it anyway. (Also see below.) It was a great start to the hike and was just a preview of the sights to come!

Here are the other photos, enjoy!

… Read the rest

POTD: 20 Sivan 5771

Over the course of our hike through Yehudiya, I think we saw every single image from the “Windows Screensaver” image pack… one beautiful scene after another. Here’s part three of my Yehudiya hike series! Enjoy!… Read the rest

POTD: 19 Sivan 5771

One thing that Megan and I discovered along our journey through Yehudiya is that when it comes to waterfalls, you can pretty accurately tell how beautiful they are before you even see them just by the way that they sound. This was one of dozens of picture-perfect scenes that we knew were coming long before we saw them. Just gorgeous!… Read the rest

POTD: 18 Sivan 5771

The next few days I’ll be featuring photos from my favorite hike in the world… Yehudiya Falls in the Golan Heights of Northern Israel. This photo is one of the top reasons why it’s a favorite! How many hikes do you get to tie all your stuff in trash bags, climb down a slippery ladder with it, and “caulk the wagon and float”? After a challenging and freezing cold (yet very refreshing) swim across the waterfall pool, we were greeted with this gorgeous sight of our newly overcome challenge.… Read the rest

POTD: 14 Sivan 5771

Last night there was a lunar eclipse. It was a full moon and a total eclipse, the longest one in over a decade. And where was the best viewpoint in the world? That’s right, Israel. I went outside when the moon had just entered… Read the rest

POTD: 4 Sivan 5771

Today’s photo is of one of the lizards that frequented our hiking paths all over Israel. From the Negev (southern desert) all the way up to the Golan Heights, these creatures were darting in and out of our view the whole trip. Luckily, one of them decided to stop long enough to pose for me

… Read the rest

POTD: 18 Iyar 5771

Meron had more Orthodox Jews than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life. It was a crazy experience, and this was just one side of the crowd that we could see from our great vantage point. That is, before we had water thrown on us for being to close to the Biala Rebbe…… Read the rest

POTD: 15 Iyar 5771

: Knowing the Program

I can’t give too many details about the significance of this image yet, but file it in the back of your mind as foreshadowing…

Yes, it does look like something out of the Matrix. On purpose. The words in the background are the first verse in the Torah: “Bereishis bara Elokim es haShamayim v’es haAretz.” Or in English: “In the beginning, G-d created the Heavens and the Earth.

The zeros and ones are the same verse in binary. Yes, I’m a nerd. This really should not be news

Keep your eyes peeled for this image to show up again attached to a post!