Samaria Trip!

Last weekend we traveled to the land of Samaria. For the first half of the day we went to a Zionist colony and were led around by one of its settlers. It was very interesting to hear many of the struggles that they are going through in regards to being a Jewish settlement. The colony is about 28 years old and there are 300 families that live there and they have come from all over the world. They are very orthodox Jews. Within the community there are two elementary schools, high school, and a seminary, medical facilities, post-office, factories and stores for shopping. They refuse to gate in the community because they believe that it would indicate that the land is their and the land on the other side of the gate is not, when in reality they believe all the land is theirs and they are just waiting to get it back.
After hearing from this man, we went to the town of Samaria and actually spoke to a current day Samaritan Priest who gave us background on who the Samaritans are and what they believe. In my opinion they have some very interesting and very off base beliefs. They only believe that the first five books of the Bible are inspired and the rest are not even holy writings. They will have nothing to do with the rest of our Bible. There are only two groups of Samaritans, one group in Samaria and the other in Tel-Aviv. They hold to all the Old Testament laws and many of the land markers are different. They believe that there were only two mountains where God did any of His works, Shechem and Geriziem. All the mountains in our Bibles have been changed to one of these two. They are very conservative, so much so that they still intermarry. As we were walking through the town and you could tell that some of these children did not quite look ok. There five tenants or beliefs are: 1. Only one God 2. Moses was holy and mighty 3. Everything centered around Mount Gerezim not Jerusalem 4. Only the five books of Moses 5. The messiah will come some day. They only recognize three holidays as well, Rosh Shanna, Yom Kippur, and Passover. Passover is a very big deal for them because they do still hold to the letter of the law in the book of Moses. Each family must have a sheep to slaughter as atonement for the sins of each member of the family. The Samaritans that live in Tel-Aviv must come to Samaria for the sacrifice. In the middle of the town there is a court yard which this all takes place. This portion of the trip really made me think about how privileged I am to be one of Jesus Christ’s children and to live free from the bondage of the law.
In this same place we saw the location of the well where Jesus went and ministered to the Samaritan woman and gave her living water. Then being silly my friends and I acted it out. I was the unclean woman…eeek. There was also a store that was called the Good Samaritan, of course named after the Bible story. It was a fun day.
Internet is really slow...I will post pictures when the internet will allow me to.