Winepress

"He will shout 'heidad' like the treaders of grapes" (Jeremiah 25:30).
The ancient winepresses scattered throughout the reserve are solid evidence that grapes were grown on these rocky hills. The special "heidad" shouts of the grape-treaders, silent for 2,000 years, echo here once again.

Flour Mill

"The sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp" (Jeremiah 25:10)
Like the shouts of the grape-treaders, these age-old signs of life and joy have returned to the once-barren hills.

This is, to the best of our knowledge, the only water-powered flour mill in Israel that actually works.

Olive Press

Olives in ancient Israel were grown for oil, and oil was used for light.

Pick ripe olives in the winter, produce oil in a reconstructed ancient press, and kindle a clay lamp—the light bulb of antiquity.

Hanukkah, the Festival of Light, comes at the height of the olive harvest—and we are located in the heart of the Modi'in region, homeland of the Maccabees.

Threshing Floor

"Those who sow in tears reap with songs of joy" (Psalm 126:5).

Experience the 11 tasks the Talmud (Brakhot 58a) lists to "bring forth bread from the earth":
plow, sow, reap, bind the sheaves
thresh, winnow, seive, grind the grain
sift the flour, knead, bake

Cistern

"You shall draw water with joy…"(Isaiah 12:3).

Israel's ecological issues can be summed up in one word: water. Rain is our only major source of water, and the rain comes, at most, six months of the year. How did people survive the dry months? Cisterns. Hewed laboriously out of solid rock, the cistern functions as a bank. You deposit every drop in the winter, and withdraw, very, very carefully, during the summer.

Try drawing water from a restored, re-plastered cistern.

And climb down into an empty one, like that where Joseph's brothers deposited him.
"And they took him [Joseph] and cast him into a bor (cistern), and the bor was empty; there was no water in it" (Genesis 37:24).

Water Wheel

"The land that you are about to enter…is not like the land of Egypt, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your foot" (Deuteronomy 11:10).

The foot-operated water wheel also appears in rabbinic literature as a wheel-of-fortune image: one day you're full, one day you're empty; one day you're up, one day you're down. If you're the one on the top, help the ones on the bottom--for tomorrow, the wheel will turn…(Ruth Rabba 5, 9).

It's About Time

The Mosaic of Time

This 25-meter square mosaic calendar shows the relation between the natural cycles of the earth and the units of time determined by human beings—specifically, how the Jewish calendar deals with the discrepancy between the solar year and the lunar year. A revolving inner circle shows the 12 lunar months of the Hebrew calendar. The outer circle shows the months of the solar-based Gregorian calendar. Synchronizing lunar and solar time is at the heart of the Jewish calendar. Turn the wheel to rotate the inner circle and see exactly how the rhythm of our year works.

Human Sundial

The large mosaic tree set into a cement floor is marked with the months of the year on the trunk and the hours of the day on the branches. Stand on the appropriate month, and your shadow will fall on the correct hour with amazing precision. Not only fun, but illustrative of talmudic discussions of the summer and winter paths of the sun.

The Sundial of Ahaz

A story related in both II Kings 20 and Isaiah 38 mentions "ma'alot Ahaz." These mysterious ma'a lot have been widely interpreted as a time-measuring construction of steps like those used, according to archaeological evidence, in ancient Egypt. See how this step-based sundial actually works.