Masada, Ein Gedi & Shabbat

Dad woke up early to take advantage of the shuttle to the Dead Sea and Mom noticed that he was up an hour earlier than the first shuttle. She mentioned this to him and groggily, they discovered that their clocks were somehow all different. Upon Google-ing it, they realized that it had been daylights savings overnight and Dad was right. This meant that we had a bit of a frantic and earlier-than-planned start to our day after a less than ideal previous day.

Dad missed the shuttle by a minute but was able to walk and soaked in the Dead Sea while Mom and the kids packed up and after brunch we all headed to Masada, a fortress built by King Herod in 30BC. Masada is atop a mountain and is most famous for almost 1000 Jewish people committing suicide here instead of allowing themselves to be captured by the Romans in 73AD.  (For our Latin-following-friends, the Roman's approach was "Veni vidi vicci!")  We rented audio guides and walked individually around this gigantic complex exploring and learning about Herod's plans for this place and the people who inhabited it. Interestingly, Herod never actually visited Masada, it was built as his hideaway fortress, which he never needed.

It's truly incredible all that they were able to build with stones brought up this mountain from far away with only man power in the year 30BC! Inside Masada were gardens, animals, beautiful mosaic tiled floors, and a spa/bath area that channeled steam through pipes in the floor to create heated floors & then this heat rose through clay pipes to create a sauna! Such amazing forethought and engineering went into this mountaintop fortress in the desert, that at Masada there was the ability to store enough water for 1000 people for 3 years along with filling an Olympic-sized swimming pool and the bath houses!  Rain water was collected through a system of dams and aqueducts as well as from nearby streams and carried up the mountain by animals.  Once at the top, the water was poured into a  system of channels leading to cisterns throughout the mountain.

Exploring the ruins - the black line designates where the original structure was prior to restoration.

G listening to the audio tour as he studied the Masada complex

SJ & G pouring water into a model of the Masada fortress to observe how water
channeled down and was directed to cisterns for maximum storage.

G standing between the double-walled fortress with chambers built between the 2 walls 

The walls served multiple functions - a watch tower up high and a dovecot below.
Doves roosted in these holes providing food and also fertilizer for the crops.

G looking down into one of the many bath areas with the original mosaic floor

Because our previous day got away from us, we were trying to cram two days of activities into one. While this, along with our late start, was not ideal, nothing could be done and we elected to move as quickly as possible to try and fit it all in.

Our next stop was En Gedi, which is the very mountains where David walked and hid from Saul while fearing his life and writing many of the Psalms. En Gedi is more like a national park than anything else, with enough hiking trails and wilderness to get us excited. It was amazing to walk and ponder the history and what it might have looked like during David's time. We hiked up several waterfalls and read Scripture as we passed various places. The kids were struggling to have positive respectful attitudes as we climbed, which was frustrating, as there was so many Biblical scenarios we were wanting to contemplate as we hiked.  We tried to encourage everyone to work together and by the last part of the path down, we were in good shape.  However, we realized that being Friday, it was Shabbat in Israel and most places were closing early.  This meant that the Qumran caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, was closing in a few minutes, and we weren't going to get to visit it.  We were disappointed but tried to cut ourselves some slack and rested a bit with an ice cream snack before heading towards Jerusalem.

Rock Hyrax with babies that we spotted as we climbed

Scenic waterfall area below David's cave

Hiking where David hiked!  Dead Sea in the background

Cave where David cut Saul's cloak - 1 Sam 24

Mom and Dad were giddy on our drive into Jerusalem, to think that we were actually getting to visit this historically meaningful sight in time for Easter was amazing.  Being that it was Shabbat, which is the Jewish version of Sabbath from sunset Friday until sunset on Saturday, much of the country rests - meaning they do not use electronics, work, or write. They don't greet or welcome you into your rental apartment or allow you to return a rental car (which meant two extra days of unnecessary fees for us). We got settled in our apartment which had a great setup for our stay here and seemed to be in a great location so that we were able to walk most places.

We'd arranged to celebrate Shabbat with a local couple for the evening and we walked to meet our hosts.  It ended up being our family, a family from Beverly Hills (yes, seriously) who had two boys, and then our hosts, David and Ayo, as well as Ayo's parents, younger sister, and older sister and her two kids.  It was such a treat to be a part of this weekly special meal and we learned a lot over great food and conversation.  The Shabbat meal consists of several courses, prayer, blessing the children, singing, and hand washing.  All of this as well as the foods served are intentional and symbolize the values of the Jewish faith.  There definitely is something beneficial in unplugging from life and spending an intentional 24 hours with your family reflecting on your faith over good food!  We felt so privileged to have wonderful people that we truly enjoyed visiting and sharing a family meal with.  The kids enjoyed the dinner and were great sports, especially as our already long day turned into a late night as we were having such a great time and we found ourselves walking home at 1:30 in the morning!

Walking the streets of Jerusalem at 1:30AM