Israel, July 15, 2013I

Today we got an early start as we faced steadfastly to Jerusalem. Three major sitetis were on the docket today, including Masada, Ein Gedi and Qumran, and the temperatures were going to be stratospheric. As I checked the weather report, the high for Jericho was listed as 102, and Jerusalem, 86. We knew we were in for it! Our first site Masada, is not mentioned in the Scriptures. Here is where almost 1,000 Jewish rebels, although outnumbered by more than 15:1, defied the Roman army. The story of the struggle comes to us through the writings of Flavius Josephus. Masada, like Herodium and Machaerus, was the site of a fortress palace developed by Herod the Great. Located in an isolated area near the S tip of the Dead Sea, Masada was a place of final refuge for Herod in case he ever needed it. It was built on a flat-topped mountain that rose about 800 ft. above the Dead Sea on its W side. Around the fortress palace, Herod built a massive defensive wall. Nearby were storage buildings for food and weapons. He also hewed out a huge cistern in the solid rock to store water for Masada's defenders in the event of a prolonged siege. As it turned out, Herod never had to flee to Masada. Seventy years after his death, however, a group of Jewish nationalists did. When Jerusalem fell to the Roman army in 70 A.D., these rebels succeeded in occupying Masada. They packed in stores of food and water, then proceeded to make life difficult for the Roman army by conducting guerrilla raids against them. Finally, the Roman army, 15,000 strong, moved against the Jews entrenched there. A direct assault was impossible because of its mountaintop location. So the Romans spent several months building a salt ramp up the mountainside with rock and dirt. When they broke through the defensive wall at the top, they were greeted with nothing but smoke and silence. The Jewish defenders had set their buildings on fire and had committed mass suicide. They preferred death to capture and enslavement by the Romans. According to Josephus' account, only two Jewish women and five children survived. The Israeli government has excavated the site and has restored some of the ruins. I got a sense of how the defenders must have felt as the Roman army inched its way up the face of the mountain. We were shuttled up by cable car, but three of our number, including Father Houk, hiked to the top. As it was already steaming, I did not do that myself. Hani, our inimitable guide, made the story once again come alive, and, as at Dachau, there was definitely a pall of humanity, a gloom that existed even on a cloudless day like today. Our next stop was En-Gedi, an oasis on the W shore of the Dead Sea. It is only one of two freshwater springs that bubble up along the W shore of the Dead Sea before running down the steep cliffs to join the salty lake. Many springs exist in this area, but most of them send out water tainted with salt and sulphur. During his fugitive years, while on the run from King Saul, David hid in one of the numerous caves among the cliffs that surround this spring. Saul and his troops followed David to this site. By chance, the king went into the very cave in which David was hiding, to relieve himself. David crept up on Saul and cut off a piece of his robe. When Saul came out of the cave, David confronted him from the safety of a nearby cliff. He displayed the cloth he had cut from the king's robe to show that he did not intend to harm him, although Saul was trying to kill him. The spring at En-Gedi is still visible today, issuing from beneath a rock more than 400 ft. above the Dead Sea, and rushes down a cliff into a pool before finally continuing on its way to the Dead Sea. This green oasis, which we climbed up to in 100+ degree temperatures, is made all the more spectacular by its contrast with the drab desert on its W side and the barren Dead Sea to the East. Upon our return to the Visitor Center, we had lunch at En-Gedi (focused on vegetable salads), and while there I bought an Ahava Dead Sea masque and some eau de toilette indigenous to the Holy Land. Our next and final stop before Jerusalem was Qumran, overlooking the Dead Sea. Here in 1947, in one of the numerous caves dotting the landscape, the first of the Dead Sea scrolls was discovered. Today this it is still considered one of the most important archaeological finds of modern times. An Arab shepherd boy looking for a lost sheep accidentally discovered the first scroll. After his find, archaeologists combed the area. They found more than 800 manuscripts in 11 different caves. More than 200 of these writings were copies of Old Testsment books or book fragments. Most of these copies were dated to the 1st or 2nd c. B.C. What made these discoveries such a big deal is that they were the oldest copies of biblical manuscripts that had ever been found. The most famous of the Dead Sea Scrolls is a complete manuscript of the book of Isaiah, written in Hebrew. All the manuscripts had been wrapped carefully, then placed in airtight clay jars, and the hot and dry climate of the area had therefore protected them. Qumran was home to a group of people known as the Essenes, meaning "pious ones," who rejected the secularization of Jewish society and withdrew to this wilderness in 150 B.C. Here they established a communal way of life, copying the Scriptures, waiting for the arrival of the Messiah and living quietly apart from a world they considered immoral. The Romans destroyed their settlements in 68 A.D., but not before they had hidden some of their precious scrolls in nearby caves. The ruins of the Essene community could be seen--cisterns, ritual baths, a refectory, for instance. A very awe-inspiring site. From Qumran we drove on to Jerusalem, and on the way stopped to view the remains of the road from Jericho to Jerusalem, and the absolutely otherworldly St. George Greek Orthodox Monastery,which practically hangs off a cliff. And then in a few minutes, passing through a tunnel, we were greeted with a stupendous view of Old Jerusalem. Tomorrow, our first site, which we will enter at 6:00 a.m., will be the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as we want it to ourselves before the hosts of tourists get here. Our hotel is the Golden Walls, and Marthe and I have a room facing the city walls built by Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent. Still pinching myself that I am here. Watching the BBC documentary on Jerusalem tonight to freshen my memories in preparation for the onslaught tomorrow!