More pictures coming, I promise. I just need to spend some more time with them to get them up here.
Today, we woke up early and drove to Masada. Man was it HOT. We took the cable car to the top, and viewed the ruins of King Herod’s palace. King Herod was an ostentatious king with a lot to prove, so he built palaces wherever he could. This was at the top of hill so could be seen from far away. He developed this ingenious way of bringing water up the mountain. Even though it only rains seven days a year, they built big cisterns to trap it, and also diverted the nearby river down the hill and sent donkeys to carry up water 24 hours a day.
Later on, when the Jews were scattered a group of about 900 Zealots (a sect of Jews) lived at Masada. They stayed fairly safe until the Romans turned their attention to the hill. 900 against 10,000 Roman soldiers was no match. They kept them out as long as possible by building up the walls of the city, but soon it was inevitable. Instead of dying at the hands of Romans, they all killed themselves. When the first Roman arrived in the city, the Jews were already dead.
Our tour guide posed an interesting question - is that noble or should they have fought? His feeling is that we need to learn from them and dedicate our lives to live now for God. They made their decision back then. We can think they made the right or wrong decision but we can all choose life now.
From Masada, we traveled to a Dead Sea resort. Actually it wasn’t much of a resort. You can find better locker rooms at most gyms in the US. But that wasn’t the focus. When you go in the Dead Sea you can’t help but float. There’s so much salt in it, it’s hard to do anything else. And if you have even the most minor cut it stings pretty bad. We expected to find mud made from the Dead Sea minerals to rub all over us, but there was none to be found. What struck me most, was just that this place is mentioned in the Bible, and here I am floating in it. Pretty cool.
Now we’re headed to the Wall for Shabbot (Sabbath).
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