We awoke early on the morning of April 13 for a quick breakfast and the start of the tour. Our first day would take us south to the Dead Sea and then north to the Sea of Galilee.
Our tour bus takes us down the Wadi Joz and the Kidron Valley. It is more of a ravine, actually, between the Mount of Olives and the Old City on Mount Moriah. We pass underneath the Gate Beautiful on one side, and the Church of All Nations on the other. Then to our left is a large cemetery with ancient above ground tombs, white sepulchers . Soon we are passing out of the city and into the desert,
Jerusalem is like a hand with the tips of the fingers pointing to Mediterranean Sea. The roads in and out of Jerusalem are like your fingers and wrist. The "thumb" points north and leads to Samaria. The "pointer finger" points northwest and leads to Modiin. The "middle finger" points westward and leads to Bet Shemesh. The "ring finger" points southwestern and leads to the Valley of Elah. The "pinky finger" points southward and leads to Bethlehem. Following the "wrist to the elbow' route will take you east to Jericho.
As we travel down to the Dead Sea we are presented with a stark contrast. Believe it or not, but the hills around Jerusalem receive the same annual rainfall as the City of London (about 23 to 26 inches per year). But just a dozen miles away the Jordan Desert receives less than one inch of precipitation annually. As we cross below sea level the windshield wipers of the tour bus starts to function. This happens every time we cross sea level.
The landscape around the Dead Sea is much like a moonscape. But there are hardy souls, both Jewish and Arab, who are making spots here and there in the desert to blossom like a rose. Literally. Israel is the leading exporter of roses to Europe!
Our first stop is at Qumran. In the late 1940s two Bedouin boys made a significant discovery here. As the story goes, they were tossing stones into caves and then went to explore one. One of their stones had hit a clay jar that had lain unfound for almost two thousand years. There were leather scrolls wrapped in musty cloth, but they were meaningless to the boys. Eventually they sold the scrolls for a "few dollars" to a shoemaker in Bethlehem. The shoemaker then sold the Dead Sea Scrolls to a Jewish scholar, Dr. Eliezer Sukenik, for a substantial profit.
Once the Bedouins learned how valuable the scrolls were they began to comb the caves of Qumran for more to sell. Eventually the French and Jordanians moved in to secure the area and protect the antiquities.
As we stand at the overlook learning about the scrolls we each throw stones toward the caves to see if we can throw them far enough. Most of our rocks fall well short of the caves.
The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth at thirteen hundred feet below sea level. The mineral content of this great salt lake is about 27 percent, which is the maximum mineral saturation water can have at this elevation at temperature.
Rising 1500 feet above the Dead Sea is the mesa upon which Herod the Great built two large palaces. Totally isolated and without life support, this ancient Palm Springs was also a fortress to protect Herod from his enemies, real or imagined; magnificent buildings, pools, baths, and fountains defied nature. There were enormous food-storage chambers and many plastered cisterns carefully surrounded by double walls and lookout towers.
Today Masada, mostly in ruins, is accessed by a tram -- most of the way up, the last bit is a steep stone stairway. At one point, my mother turned to my wife and said "I hate these stairs."
We spent an hour on top of this mesa. At one point we all stopped and bowed our heads for a full minute while a siren blared. It was Holocaust Day in Israel.
After Herod's death the Romans used the palaces of Masada for their own enjoyment. Suddenly a band of Jewish Zealots climbed up undetected and routed the Roman soldiers. In response Romans came and laid siege to the fortress. They began to build a ramp to the top of the mesa only to be stopped by Jews who threw boulders down on top of them. To counter this the Romans brought Jewish slaves from Jerusalem to build the ramp.
When it was obvious to the Jewish Zealots that the Romans would enter the fortress they met the night before and made chilling pact. The next day, when the Romans entered, they found that all 960 men, women and children had taken their own lives.
As a World War II history buff, I had visions of American G.I.s stumbling on Nazi concentration camps. Perhaps the horror for both the G.I. and the Roman soldier were similar.
But all of this was just a story told by the Jewish-turned-Roman historian Josephus. Then excavations made between 1963 and 1967 confirmed many of the strange and almost unbelievable facts that Josephus had written about some 1900 years earlier.
Modern Jews feel a collective identity to those Jewish Zealots whose credo was, "Death rather than slavery." Israeli children and soldiers each visit Masada at least once in their military or educational years. Some boys have their Bar Mitzvahs atop the mesa. In the past some Israeli military units took their oaths in the ruins of the ancient fortress crying out, "Masada shall never fall again!"
But, even as the honor and memory of the Zealots' resolve is maintained, the youth of Israel has begun to question the necessity of their actions. The fortress had no strategic value, so taking it from the Romans (and their taking it back) was senseless.
After coming down from Masada, and after lunch at the sandwich shop at the foot of the mesa, we went to a little resort on the Dead Sea. Some of our group changed into their swim suits for a quick float in the salt lake. Still others were covering themselves with Dead Sea mud, known supposedly, for its healing properties -- mud is actually exported to people around the world.
The rest of us just got our feet wet.
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