Day Two in Israel

3/21/2008
Early this morning, my body revolted and woke up around 1 am. I didn’t fall asleep again until 3 am. Ugh. Jet lag. The thing that we couldn’t get over was the dead silence in the desert night. Not even crickets were chirping. Nothing. It was fitting given the starkness that I woke to this morning. It reminds me of the deserts in western US: rocks, scrub brush, and sand.


On our way to breakfast this morning, two little boys were running after one another. The first boy had on a spiderman outfit, including mask. The second boy was wearing a knight’s outfit, and was wielding a sword. I laughed out loud when I heard a string of words in Hebrew come pouring out of their mouths. I’m sure they were saying “hi-ya” and “I’ll get you, bad guy!” I’m convinced that there is something attached to that Y chromosome that crosses all barriers!


We saw the Wilderness of Zin, where Hagar and Ishmael wandered after being turned out from Beersheva by Abraham (Genesis 21:14). I can understand Hagar’s distress. It wasn’t the first time she fled into the wilderness either (see Genesis 16). That Sarah could be persnickety! This was the area in which the Israelites wandered for forty years as well (Numbers 14).


We visited the ancient ruins of Tel Beer Sheva. When we ascended the watch tower in the city, the circular layout became obvious. When the area was under siege, all of the people living outside the walls would run to the city for refuge. The storehouses were massive and numerous, as was the water storage system. I also understood the importance of the city gates, defensively and politically. All of the dealings of the court were done in the public eye, at the gates. Quite a contrast with the methods of today. We also saw a tamarisk tree (Genesis 21:33).


We pointed east and headed to Tel Arad (mentioned in Numbers 21:1, Joshua 12:14, and Judges 1:16). There was a temple inside the fortress (Josiah destroyed this temple), complete with a women’s court, an altar and a Holy of Holies. Within the Holy of Holies, there were two memorial stones (like the one described in Genesis 28). Interestingly, our guide stayed in the Women’s Court.


Heading further east, we stopped at Masada, the fortress for Jewish freedom fighters fighting the Romans. At its inception, Masada was a winter palace for Herod the Great. The opulence was obvious even after thousands of years. Hubs hiked the snake path (I took the cable car) that hundreds of Jews would have used to flee the Romans. Imagine being pregnant or elderly, carrying that which was most important to you, hiking up the steep slope to your salvation. Then, watching every single person around you dies, by their own hand, rather than be taken prisoner by the Romans. Wow. What a history.

We followed the coast of the Dead Sea north to Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. This place was home to a sect of Jews called Essenes. They were quite devout in their practice and left evidence of their extreme lifestyle. There were ritual baths, a large hall for dining, and other artifacts. Obviously, there attention to detail resulted in the preservation of the entire book of Isaiah along with numerous other scrolls, lending textual reliability to the ancient Hebrew texts. It was incredible to see the cave where the majority of the scrolls were found.








We traveled just a few miles north to the town of Kalia where we took a dip in the Dead Sea. It was beautiful from a distance, given that you could see the salt formations under the water.








However, up close, the water was yucky. It felt a little bit like mineral oil. Blech.








We continued north along the Jordan River to the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee to our Kibbutz at Ma’agan. On the way, we passed by the probable site of Jesus’ baptism (scholars believe that John’s ministry was between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea). We couldn’t visit though because it is under Palestinian control. We also saw the lights of Jericho. I would have loved to visit there!