Day 5

Today – Short Posts because I’m very tired.

Tommorrow – Via De La Rosa

Masada

Masada was Herod’s winter palace, out in the Judean Desert near Ein Gedi and amidst the stark barrenness and soaring mountains. The city is most famous for the End of the Judean Revolt that lead to the destruction of the temple. The city is amazing, it is so high up we had to take a Gondola to get to the top. The Jewish Rebels were able to hold out because the city had huge storehouses for food and water, and an ingenious system of gathering rainwater from the runoff of the surrounding hills. The whole city was covered with plaster and fresco’s so it would have been beautiful. In both the north and the south end of the city there were structures, with the north end having an amazing house made for Herod which juts out seemingly into the canyon itself. Jeff and I made the long and scary (at least I thought it was) climb down the stairs that lead to the lower part of the home. I cant even begin to describe how far up this thing was, and the beauty that lay before us. We could see miles and miles of the desert and the dead sea. It was amazing. Roman camp ruins surrounded the city on every side and a rampart lead up to the city which was used by the romans to overtake the city from the Rebels. There were Jewish kids everywhere and I found out that this is basically the Alamo of the Jewish people. From the fall of these rebels, until 1947 there was no Jewish power in the land.

Ein Gedi

We made a quick stop at Ein Gedi, which was the wilderness oasis where David cut off the hem of Saul’s garment when he could have killed him. This place boasts a continuous waterfall coming out of the mountains and this area of green comes springing out of the desert. We even saw the Gazelles that are often spoke of in the song of solomon, and other places in the scriptures.

Qumran

This is community that produced the dead sea scrolls. The community was a group that felt that the cities and especially Jerusalem had become totally corrupted and so they retreated out to the desert. These folks were meticulous about cleanliness, there were ritual baths just before the dining hall. They bathed at least twice per day in these mitzvahs. They also spent there time copying scriptures, and they were the progenitors of the Dead Sea Scrolls which were found in the caves surrounding the community. One of the most interesting things was that cave 4 was very close to the community while the other caves were pretty far away. Cave 4 seems to have been a library of sorts and very close. There are some questionable arguments that John the Baptist may have been an Essene for a while. Also the upper room may have been in an Essene quarter of Jerusalem (not all of them left the cities) – Jesus says go and find a man carying water – when he is directing the disciples to the upper room….some suggest only an Essene man would carry water – traditionally a female role. We found pottery shards absolutely everywhere and Jeff went on a little hiking adventure down to a cave, I have started calling him Indiana Jeff and the Caves of Qumran!

The Dead Sea

This was mostly just fun, we went down to the dead sea and 6 of us jumped in. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced. In water up to my waist, I was floating as if i were sitting on the ground in shallow water. (The dead see is more than a thousand feet below sea level and is the saltiest sea in the world) In fact it was very hard to not float on your back. The mud was deep, and is used all over the world for spa treatments. So some of us decided to cover ourselves with the mud. It was wild. We finally showered and headed back to the bus for our drive home.