Here we are on Shabbat at the King David in Jerusalem. Tomorrow's a free day to explore and we'll walk to the Jaffa Gate and into the Old City again. Today was another great day, although we did have to say good-bye to Isaac, our guide. We get a new person on Sunday for the trip to Eilat. Isaac was great and we will miss him. One of the things we learned about this kind of trip is that guide books can only tell you so much and you can't ask a guide book questions. The other thing is that it's worth it to spend extra so you are in a small group, rather than a bus with 30 or 40 other folks. For our first week here, we never had more than 4 other people in our group. So what did we do today?
Our first stop was a ride out of Jerusalem to Qumran, the place were the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. We saw a short film that was kind of hokey about the folks that were living there then. The Essenes lived in that area; the last settlement there was around 68AD, when the Romans (them again) destroyed the settlement (I think I'm getting this right). The Essenes lived a kind of monastic life: prayer, ritual immersions (mikvahs) several times a day, no women, and lots of record keeping about their community and spiritual beliefs. The area in Qumran is preserved well and you could get a feeling for how they lived. We saw the caves in which the scrolls were discovered. The story is that a Bedouin shepherd threw a rock to get a goat out of a cave and hit one of the jars that held the scrolls and that's how they were discovered, centuries after there creation. Hmmm, then the gold rush happened. Some of the scroll were split up to be sold, so it's good that the Israel Museum has preserved so many of them. I didn't know much about the Essenes before; just that some back to nature folks in the 60s and 70s in the US started what they called an Essene movement. Not sure they got since there was a lot of drugs and sex, not quite a monastic life. They did make good bread though.
When I first thought about coming to Israel, there were three places I knew would have a strong meaning for me: the Western Wall, Safed, and Masada. Today was Masada. Riding alongside the Dead Sea on the highway, as soon as I saw the shape of the cliff, I recognized it. It is now managed by the Israeli Nature and Park Authority (who, by the way, do a much better job with clean restrooms than the Department of the Interior's National Park Service). To get up to Masada, there is a 3 minute ride in a cable car, or you can walk up the "Snake Path", no snakes, just a zigzag route up the side of the cliffs. We took the cable car. Short version is that during the Herodian era, Jerusalem was under siege.and destroyed in 70AD with the Jews driven from the city. Herod had built another McMansion at the top of Massada but left to go to Jerusalem. During the siege, a group of Jews (cheerily referred to as Zealots) moved to Masada and lived off of the water and food left behind by the Herod crew. The Romans built camps at the bottom of the cliffs and surrounded the site (see the movie with Peter O'Toole for drama) and trapped the small group (93, I think). The Romans built this huge scaffolding thing and were pushed back by the Jews for awhile who seemed to have only huge boulders for defense. Trapped, the Jews knew that the Romans would slaughter them, take the kids for slaves, and assault the women. A suicide pact was made and lots were drawn to decide who would kill their wives and children first and then commit suicide. Tragic end. 3 women survived and the story was told. Isaac filled in a lot of details including showing us the synagogue that was created out of one of Herod's rooms and a Byzantine era church where some monks lived until an earthquake (I can't remember the dates).
Masada draws a lot of visitors and the Israelis have made it as accessible as you can with a huge cliff with lots of rubble. Isaac spoke about how Massada and the Holocaust are the symbols for Israelis that explains their determination to keep Israel secure as a Jewish state. Something I always knew, but it hit home with me to hear it again at this sacred spot, where Jews died rather than be taken into slavery or to be slaughtered for being Jews.
We then went to the Dead Sea where I chose not to float in the salt, but Michele did and said the rocks hurt her feet, but that she loved doing it. It was a lovely spot, but sad to hear from Isaac that the Dead Sea is losing water due to the need for water for irrigation.
So today was a success. Leaving Masada, I realized, like Yad Vashem, I could have spent much more time there. I would have like much more time at Masada. Isaac did a good job there and jammed as much as he could in, and I know the 3 women traveling with us had a physical challenge up there, but, selfish me, I could have spent another hour there, maybe just to clear my brain and try to imagine what it was like in the silence. It is a holy spot, a place to say Kaddish and to offer homage to the destruction that has been perpetrated over and over again in this amazing country. Never again, indeed.
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