Bus 17: Here Comes the Sun

By Dayna Pinsky

“Welcome to Maaaaasada” our fearless leader/dad/grandpa/magician/professional bongo player, Ofek, said excitedly over the loud speaker of our bus. For the past two or three days before the hike, the joke of ‘maaaaaasada’ was circling around bus 17, with all of us mocking (nicely, don’t worry) Ofek’s pronunciation of the famous mountain in anticipation of our hike. It was around 4:30am by that point, and listening to music with my new friend Noah, I was having trouble even keeping my eyes open on the bus while waiting for the gates of the park to open. Not going to lie, I haven’t climbed many mountains in my life, and was worried about climbing a mountain in a foreign country at the crack of dawn in barely any light. Ofek says, “Yeah it’ll only be a 20 minute hike. It won’t be bad.” 

Yeah. 

Not bad. 

Okay! 

Sure!

It wasn’t… that bad… but it definitely was difficult. We were all huffing and puffing like we ran a marathon after walking for a grand total of 10 minutes and questioning why we were even on a big rock in the middle of no where this early in the day in the first place. 

Eventually we made it to the top with thighs burning and walk over to a horizon with a sun anxious to rise and show its beauty to us. 

Now, to backtrack a bit, I’ve been a fan of The Beatles music for a couple years now, starting out with the basic songs like ‘All You Need is Love’ and ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ and slowly progressing to learn more and more. Of course ‘Hear Comes The Sun’ was a top favorite – I mean, who wouldn’t like such a happy song?

Returning to reality though, we approach the edge of Masada and we’re looking over the horizon trying to find something fun to look at until we’re called to the group to begin a program. Just as the program begins I look behind me to see the most beautiful and perfectly round, yellowish orange shining sun rising over the side of the mountains in the distance, and I can’t help but pull my friends nearby away from the program to look at the sun before us. 

Soon enough the whole group is looking, and the counselors give up trying to keep our attention because who could pay attention to someone talking when there’s a sun rising above mountains in the middle of Israel? It was one of the most breathtaking sunrises I’ve seen. 

Suddenly I hear the sound of a speaker firing up, and the sweet tunes of ‘Here Comes The Sun’ fill the mountain top. In that moment I felt so comforted and at home by this one simple song, and it made the climb to the top worth it. I never thought I’d be able to say I watched the sun rise on a mountain WHILE listening to ‘Here Comes The Sun’, but now I can proudly say I have. That was one of those small moments that’s difficult to forget, and a reminder that I need to get out and watch sunrises more. There’s no one stopping me from playing ‘Here Comes The Sun’ every time I watch a sunrise, and now, because of this moment, I have every intention to do it again.

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