The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea was long awaited but very very inspiring. Approaching the water’s edge there was sign after sign in all sorts of languages warning not to submerge your head under water!! That was freaky, swimming in water you can’t put your head into?! Come on? Haha immediately going in we could feel something different. The water left almost an oily slick feeling on our skin. You can smell the salt and mud as others played around in it.

Reaching a point where we can get in and swim we were absolutely amazed at how easy it is to float. And not just float I mean that water was almost trying to push you out of it. Normally in the beaches we swim at the water goes up to your neck and you float about there, in the Dead Sea almost all of my upper body wanted to come out of the water.

Forget about lifting your feet while you’re standing, you don’t move your feet to stay afloat but to balance you from flipping over as the water tries to push your legs up out of the water. It was quite impressive and now I understood why so many have told us “you have to swim in the Dead Sea but trust me it was my first and last and you won’t want to be in more than a few minutes.” I, being from a place surrounded by beaches and loving to swim I was like how can this be. But after a while that salt find every scratch and pour in your body you didn’t even know you had and the oily feeling becomes annoying.

And when you decide to play with the mud and rub it all over your body and let it dry, you start itching as the salt just dries right on your skin. Let me tell you I had a lot of fun, I would do it again and again given the opportunity to be in such a country ever again. But I probably wouldn’t be in more then 15-20 minute’s hahaha.

The views of the salt forming around the seas edge are very impressive. I’ve never seen anything like it. I think it should be one of the natural wonders of the world. Unfortunately we’ve seen tons of factories and private companies taking tons and tons of salt from the sea, hopefully the sea will last a few more generations.

Masada

One of the most interesting stories about the fall of an ancient city, must be the story of Masada.

Masada was built by king Herod as a safe retreat for the royal family. The High steep impassible cliffs made it ideal for the greatest of protection however it also made it very difficult to bring supplies to the city.

Herod eventual passed on the city was taken over by other empires and countries and armies of the day. The last ones to survive had to deal with the encroaching roman army. The indestructible and enormous and strong and incessant Roman army led by Governor Flavius at the time, 72ad, could not take over the city. They decided to blockade the city and starve them out. What they did not realize was that the city was so well designed by Herod that the water cisterns and food storage rooms would end up lasting months.

It wasn't until 7 months later the the army decided that this would not work and they must take the city. They began building a HUGE ramp on the western side of the side slowly dumping tons and tons of rock and debris as they got closer to the city walls on top of the mountain. Eventually with much labor and hardship they breached the first walls of the city, called it a day and told themselves that tomorrow morning the city would be theirs.

Little did the Romans know what was being conjured up inside the walls of Masada. The Men of the city and leader Eleazar went into the synagogue and had a final meeting:

"Let our wives die unabused, our children without knowledge of slavery; after that let us do each other an ungrudging kindness, preserving our freedom as a glorious unwinding sheet. but first let our possessions and fortress go up in flames. it will be a bitter blow to the Romans, that i know, to find our persons beyond their reach and nothing left for them to loot. one thing only, let us spare our food storage; it will bear witness when we are dead to the fact that we perished, not through want but because, as we resolved at the beginning, we chose death rather then slavery."

On the morning after the roman soldiers entered the city, it was quiet, they found nothing but food and 960 dead persons. 10 men killed all and then drew lots (pieces of pots with there names written on them) to begin killing the last of them to leave only one man to kill himself, because by Jewish law suicide is forbidden. Upon seeing this Flavius exited and turned away from the city, not in disgust but with honor for the people of Masada and left the city alone.