We rose early (6:00 AM was the usual wake up call) to pack suitcases and place them outside our room by 7 AM. Following another fine breakfast we said goodbye to Jerusalem and drive one hour south towards Masada in the Judean wilderness. This is an arid and severe land with precious little protection from weather or bandits. This road from Jerusalem to Jericho is the setting for Jesus’ famous Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 15. Aladin made a fun game of looking to be the first to find a mountain animal that ‘looks like a deer with a goat’s attitude!’ Velma was the first to spot one of these stubby and sturdy Ibex. Masada is a high butte where King Herod built a military base guarding the southern main route. Later abandoned after his death, it was ‘squatted upon’ by some 960 Jewish men, women, and children who fled the persecutions around Jerusalem in the 60’s A.D. Not to be shown up, the Roman army was ordered to lay siege and starve/dehydrate them. When this failed (because the dissidents were self sustaining) the Army Commander used (mostly) Jewish slave/prisoner of war laborers to construct over a period of 1 ½ years a huge earthen and rock ramp to reach and defeat the dissident Jews. You can imagine the army’s stunned surprise when they were greeted with silence as (nearly) all the men, women, and children died by mutual suicide, preferring a death by loved ones to the anticipated humiliation and certain suffering. We ascended in a modern tram; other wise it would have taken hours to walk. The view was spectacular and the history of this site is still haunting and daunting.
Retracing our steps back about 15 miles, we visited the Dead Sea Scrolls site at Qumran, a religious community from 100. B.C. to 70 A.D. called Essenes. This group of Jewish people were strict, focused on the end time battle between the sons of Light verse the sons of Darkness, and were along the NW corner of the Dead Sea. Most of the scrolls were found in Cave #4 in this steep, barren mountain sides and cliffs of limestone. Having seen some of the scrolls at the museum in Jerusalem, this was an interesting follow up stop. I wonder, did Jesus come to this community either with or to see his cousin John the Baptizer? We ate lunch here at Qumran at a kibbutz-run dining room.
About half of our group did swim and float in (on!) the Dead Sea, which is ten times as salty as the ocean. What a unique and fun event on a very pretty and warm day. Going north and into the West Bank, we arrived at the historic city of Jericho made famous by how the Lord directed Joshua to capture it with only 300 men. This victory began the history and hostilities of the Israelites into the ‘Promised Land’. We walked up onto the ancient Tel at Jericho, and saw the ancient Canaanite stone tower unearthed in the 1930’s.
Today we went through five Israeli/Palestinian check point sites as we went from and to Israel and Palestinian territories. Leaving Jericho, we drove 1 ½ hours north along Jordan River in the West Bank (with the country of Jordan right across the river) to the Sea of Galilee and to the Royal Plaza Hotel in Tiberias, along the west shore, in time for dinner. We all enjoyed the discoveries of the day, and got a good lesson in check point realities that are so restrictive, yet protective.
Randy
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