The Judean Wilderness and the Dead Sea

Saturday was a very long day. We traveled through the Judean Wilderness to the Dead Sea. En route, we passed many Bedouin nomads, some herding sheep and goats as they have for thousands of years. I was amazed how desolate the Judean wilderness is. It begins so abruptly on the back side of the Mount of Olives - I can see why some believe that that mount divides heaven from hell.

Our first stop was Masada. Masada is an old Roman fort built by - you guessed it - Herod the Great (he did a lot of building during his time). It's situated on top of a very high mountain and is very difficult to access. For thousands of years, historians knew of Masada but no one knew where it was. Finally, sometime during the 1800's it was rediscovered. There's now a cable car that will take you to the top to explore the ruins.

Masada is most famous for what happened in about 70 A.D. The Jews had rebelled against the Romans and the Romans had responded fiercely to the revolt. This is when the temple was destroyed for the last time. A few Jewish "zealots" managed to take control of Masada from the Romans. For several years they stayed atop Masada - unable to leave because the Romans had surrounded the mountain. Fortunately for the Jews, there were years worth of provisions there.

Because the fort was so high and so inaccessible, it took the Romans years to find a way to reach the zealots. In the end they actually built a ramp all the way to the top of the mountain. The ramp remains today (though slightly eroded). It's amazing that they built it with literally millions of individual stones.

The night they finally reached the top and were ready to enter the fort to capture the zealots, the zealots held a meeting and decided they would commit mass suicide rather than be captured by the Romans. When the Romans entered the fort, they found everyone dead except two women and five children.

After we left Masada, we went to the dead sea. Here we got to swim and take a dead sea mud bath and soak in the a sulfur hot springs. It was very nice. Here's a picture of the mud monster.

We also made a few other stops in the desert (including Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were found) and then made out way back to Tel Aviv to catch our flight home.

It was a really great trip altogether. I found myself wishing I could have spent much more time there as a tourist. I felt like I barely scratched the surface and that there is so much more there to see and experience. I did "feel" a lot there - much more than I expected. Knowing the scriptures a little bit and then seeing the place really helped to solidify in my mind many of the teachings and stories from the scriptures. I highly recommend anyone that is able to take the time to travel there - it is very much worth the experience!

Jerusalem

Friday we spent the entire day in Jerusalem. Where to start? There was so much to see and experience and ponder that it is impossible to really describe and even more impossible to fully experience. This is the land where it all comes together in every sense. The old city is divided into quarters between Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Armenians. As you travel through the city you move easily between the different quarters, but it is like stepping from one world right into another. The Jewish Quarter was very peaceful and clean and quiet and well kept. Stepping from there into the Muslim quarter was quite a shock - crowded, noisy, busy, dirty (graffiti everywhere) with vendors everywhere. The Christian quarter was unfortunately more like the Muslim quarter than the Jewish quarter, not very clean and vendors everywhere.

I was thinking about the significance of how old Jerusalem is divided and how three of the world's great religions come together there and thinking about the last days and what will happen there between those religions. In an important way, it's really symbolic the way the city is established.

This is a picture from inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where many believe Jesus was crucified and buried. It was extremely ornate. This is a picture looking up in the great dome above the site of the sepulchre.

This is an arial shot of old Jerusalem from the top of the Luthern Church of the Redeemer with the temple mount in the background. The view from the top is much different than the view from the narrow winding streets below. In the upper left (white building below the grove of trees near the top of the mountain) is the BYU Jerusalem center where Tammy studied for several months before we were married. I had a chance to drive past it, but unfortunately won't get the chance this trip to visit.

One of the most impressive things that I experienced was the Garden of Gethsemane. It's hard to describe the feelings that I felt there so I won't try, but I will just say it was a very nice experience. This is a shot of one of the ancient olive trees in the Garden.

The other really impressive thing for me was what is believed by some to be the place Christ was crucified - Golgotha - the place of the skull. It wasn't so much the site as it was the guide that took us there. He was a Christian from England there serving as a missionary in the Garden Tomb area. While we were sitting in a quiet grove talking about Golgotha, the guide bore a simple and beautiful testimony about his belief in Christ. It was really touching to me.

This is of course the Garden Tomb where many believe Christ was buried and from where he resurrected.

Here's an opposite shot of the temple mount looking down from the top of the Mount of Olives. In the foreground is the vast Jewish cemetary. Jews want to be buried as near to the temple as possible as they believe Christ will come first to that place. The Dome of the Rock is built directly on the temple mount where the temple built by Herod was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.

Yad Vashem

Thursday evening we travelled to Jerusalem and stopped at Yad Vashem - the memorial in Jerusalem for the Holocaust victims. It was a beautiful beautiful site - so peaceful and so well done. As you can imagine, the subject could have been presented in graphic and shocking ways, but I didn't find it that way at all. While it was informative and true to the facts and definitly sobering, it was done in such as a way as to honor the victims with respect.

There was a lot of symbolism built into Yad Vashem. The museum where the story of the holocaust is presented is in a rather dark corridor. The tall walls are slanted upward and inward until they join together just above the ground - always allowing a beam of daylight into the otherwise dreary corridor.

The museum is presented with a variety of multimedia and actual artifacts from the time artifacts. Maybe one of the most memorable for me was walking across a plastic floor panel, looking down and seeing thousands upon thousands of shoes and realizing that those were shoes stripped from the people as they were taken to be killed. It was a really sobering thing.
As you progress through the museum, you gradually move upward, more toward ground level. At the end of the museum you enter a huge and beautiful rotunda library with thousands of volumes lining the shelves all around the rotunda. The volumes contain the official list of names of all of the holocaust victims.

As you exit the museum you emerge an a large platform overlooking a beautiful mountainous valley. The way the triangular walls converge with the sky force you to look to the heavens and somehow cause you to feel as if you are ascending.

Above the museum are beautiful and peaceful gardens covering a very large area. It was so peaceful there and so beautiful there and such a fitting memorial to the victims of the holocaust.

As we were driving away from Yad Vashem, I noticed a large monument overarching the road enscribed with scripture from the 37th chapter of Ezekial. It was touching to read:

"Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live and I will bring you into your own land."

Ceasarea

On Thursday we spent the morning in the office. In the afternoon, we drove to Ceasarea which is about an hour north of Tel Aviv. Ceasarea is probably most famous among Christians for the travels of Paul and his time spent emprisoned there.



Ceasarea was built by King Herod (same guy that built the temple for the Jews and killed all the babies in Bethlehem after Jesus was born there). I think it was dedicated in about 9 A.D. It was kind of a playground for the rich. Interestingly, Ceasarea is still considered a playground for the rich of Israel with some of the most expensive properties surrounding the ancient city.

One of the most impressive things in Ceasarea is the mosaics that stil remain very well intact. This was my favorite (even though there's a thin layer of dust covering it). If you look close you'll see a dog and a duck and some other creatures and objects.





These are some marble pillars that surround one of the several bath houses.

This is Herod's hippodrome. It's basically a giant chariot race course and gladiator battlefield. The structure jutting out in the left side of the field wasn't there originally so the track was more round with the pathway in the middle.


This was the most interesting thing to me. It's an amphitheatre that was built by Herod. Look familiar? It is very similar to stadiums today.

And you'll also notice that this 2000 year old amphitheatre is still used for concerts! It is 'the place to play' in Israel. You haven't made it until you've played here.

Israel

Because it's been many, many months since we've posted anything on our blog, we've probably lost all of our readers. For any of you who are still out there hanging on, I decided to record a few experiences I've had this week.

This week I'm in Israel!! I'm working with a supplier whose research and development center is in Tel Aviv so I'm here visiting this week with a couple of others from work. It's been a very interesting trip so far and will become more interesting later in the week when we actually get to be tourists for a couple of days.

Being a work trip, most of the week has been time spent in the office and in business meals - lots and lots and lots of business meals. Enjoyable, but way too much food. Tel Aviv is situated right on the Mediterranean so it seems the favorite food in the area is seafood - not my favorite! But I've tried my best to enjoy it. Sushi, calamari, raw tuna, sardines stuffed with caviar, and on and on. Some I've enjoyed more than I expected - most I've barely been able to swallow.

Our hotel is located right on the beach, so I've been able to spend some time in the water (early mornings before work). It's probably been 10 years or so since I've swam in the ocean, so that's been a nice treat - except that there are jellyfish in the water and I've had a few minor stings. I was swimming on Tuesday morning when that big earthquake (6.2 magnitude) struck in the Mediterranean near Greece. Of course, being in the water, I didn't feel anything, but oddly enough right about that time I was thinking about tsunamis - wondering if they ever happen in the Mediterranean? Fortunately for me, not this time, but it's kind of scary to think about what could have happened.

So far, we haven't really gotten to see much of the tourist sites. We did walk through the ancient city of Jaffa (it's mentioned a few times in the bible and is one of the oldest port cities in the region). That was a very interesting walk - ancient walkways, old churches, cavernous buildings filled with hundreds of huge bats and so on). Perhaps most interesting was that during the walk we came across a traditional Jewish wedding and were able to watch the last 15 minutes or so of it. It was awesome! I loved the symbolism in the ceremony and the beautiful and lively music and the obvious love the young couple had for one another. I felt a little like I was intruding, but was glad for the experience.

The down-side of business travel is that since we're here doing business, there is little time to be a tourist. The up-side of business travel is that we get to interact a lot with people most familiar with the area and people that are living normal lives in the region and are able to share their country on a much more personal level. Our hosts have been great! They share very openly what it means to live here in Israel.

Following are some things I've learned and thoughts I've had about the country. Disclaimer: I've been in Israel for 3 days. I'm no expert. These are just some thoughts and impressions that I've had. I have no idea how accurate any of them are.

The people
I've really enjoyed working with the Israelis. They are very direct and open in every way. Quite opposite from my recent experience working with Indians who are generally very indirect. The Israelis are very talented and skilled in their work and enjoyable to be around.

I was surprised to find a wide mix of people from all around the world living here. A fair number of oriental people and African people. The Jewish Israelis have gathered here from all over the world, so there is strong influence from many different regions. I was especially surprised to find a very strong Russian influence here. Many signs are in Russian and there are two Russian television stations. Apparently, in the 90's there was a huge influx of Russians into Israel (I think someone told me more than a million Russians came to Israel during the 90's). Israel's total population is only 7 million, so this influence is substantial.

Also - you probably already know this, but it was never clear to me until this trip - but there is a difference between an Arab Israeli and a Palestinian. There are many many Arabs living in Israel and are Israeli citizens and generally live in harmony with the Jewish Israelis. The societies seem to integrate without much problem. That is different from the Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank under the governance of the Palestinian Authority. They are not considered Israeli citizens and there are of course substantial political tension. Just a little tidbit of information I never really understood before.

The culture
Keeping in mind that I've only so far seen Tel Aviv, I find Israeli culture very very very much like American culture in nearly every way. Of all the places I've ever traveled outside of the United States, I think I am most comfortable being an American here. I feel like I fit in very well. Israelis are very welcoming to Americans and there are quite a lot of Americans here (both as tourists and as permanent residents). I was surprised when our waiter at one of the restaurants switched from Hebrew to nearly perfect American English. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing he is a child of American emmigrants. The styles of clothing, the music, the mannerisms, and the food are all very similar to what you might find in America. The buildings remind me more of Europe but most everything else reminds me more of America. Traffic here is more agressive than traffic in the U.S., but it's not nearly as bad as India or Mexico.

I've only on a few occasions seen Orthodox Jews in their traditional dress or Muslims in traditional clothing, but I expect I will see much more of that in Jerusalem.

The politics
Politics is of course a major thing here in Israel. We hear about it nearly every day in American news and of course the same is all over the news here. There seems to be a lot of national pride here - I see Israeli flags hanging everywhere. You don't see flags too often in other countries (besides the U.S.) but they are everywhere here. Everyone (men and women) are required to serve in the military for a couple of years with few exceptions.

Now for security. I saved this one for last intentionally because it is such a non-issue here. Everyone upon everyone was questioning my sanity when I started planning this trip. "But that's such an unsafe country - there is so much violence there." The truth is, Israel is a very safe place to visit. I've not once felt the least bit uncomfortable or unsafe. There are millions of people living here. Yes, there are occasional acts of violence and terrorism that affect a few people, but they have become so rare and the odds of being in the wrong place at the wrong time so miniscule that really there is not much cause for concern. Overall, violent crime rates are much lower than in the U.S. Because of that, I think a person is generally safer here than in America. We'll see if I feel the same way after visiting Jerusalem.

So, enough typing. If you made it to the bottom, congratulations! It's been a good trip so far. I'm excited to start some real sight-seeing in a couple of days and will write more then. Hopefully I'll get some pictures out soon too.