Bobbing at Christmastime
Back in the days when I kept a daily blog, if I missed a day or two it was no big deal, because after a while in seminary every day is nearly the same. But so many unique things happen to me here in the Holy Land that when I miss two days in a row, I'm faced with quite a backlog of "pilgrimage experiences" to relate. I didn't write anything Monday night because that night was dedicated to writing up my "integration journal", which is due in class once a week. And then last night, I was feeling a little under the weather so I solved that by going to bed right after dinner, thus getting ten hours of sleep that night. So because of that, my task tonight is: What did I do Monday through Wednesday this week?
After a couple of classes on Monday morning, our afternoon expedition was to the ruins of an ancient fortress known as "Herodian". King Herod the Great built that fortress on top of a volcano-like mountain sometime around 20 BC, and it dominates the desert landscape about ten miles southeast of Bethlehem. It was later used as a holdout by the Jewish Zealots who revolted against Rome in 66 AD.
Herodian was the first place we'd gone to in the West Bank that was in a "Zone C" area. The way the Israeli occupation works here, Zone A is administered by Palestine and has Palestianian military present, Zone B is administered by Palestine but has Israeli military present, and Zone C is administered by Israel and has Israeli military present. Zone C areas are those that have the biggest visible military contingent roaming around. In fact, until I'd been to Herodian I hadn't seen a single Israeli military unit in this territory that's supposedly being occupied by them. (I've seen plenty of solitary Palestinian soldiers guarding one gate or another, and every single of them carries a machine gun. That's a bit of a shock for these tame suburban eyes of mine, but I'm slowly getting used to the sight. But then, a couple of days ago I was walking a few feet past a soldier who was leaning over to pick something up or sign something, and his back was to me. As he was leaned over, the machine gun was hanging in such a way from his shoulder that it was upside down with the muzzle pointed directly at me, and I involuntarily flinched at that sight. Firearm safety rule #2: Never have your weapon pointed at something that you're not ready and willing to destroy.)
There is an Israeli military compound at the foot of Herodian, but something special must have been going on when we got there, because the entire site was just crawling with soldiers - hundreds and hundreds of them. But upon a closer look, they all appeared to be quite young, at least under 18. Each of them were carrying machine guns, but none of them had the clips in them, so it must have been some sort of training. That "training" also seemed to be taking the form of a tourist stop, because they were all there looking at the same things as us: We were taking a long hike up the side of the mountain, up to Herod's grand fortress at the top. I never really did figure out what all those cadets(?) were doing there, but it was enough to make our Palestinian guide visibly nervous. Quite of a few of the soldiers were young, attractive women - or was the fact that they had machine guns slung over their shoulders what made them attractive? I remember friends who had been to Israel years ago commenting about how many "hot chicks with machine guns" they saw everywhere they went. I wonder what's going on with that trend?
The view from the top of the mountain was spectacular, of course. We had a full panoramic view of Bethlehem and the surrounding countryside. We could see where green gave way to the Judean Desert. And to the north we could see Jerusalem. The ruins were those of several storerooms, bathhouses, and the like. From the top, we had to descend a long ramp to get down into the bulk of the fortress inside the cone of the mountain, once again similar to a volcano. Then we entered an elaborate system of tunnels which Herod had carved out of the inside of the mountain almost all the way to the bottom. We went down one passageway after another, descending several sets of ancient stone steps along the way, until we emerged about halfway down the mountain, right next to the tomb of Herod, which had only just been discovered a few years ago.
In the little free time that I had yesterday, my task was to hit one or more local shops in an attempt to get flip-flops for today's dip into the Dead Sea, as well as Christmas gifts to give to the kids at the Creche Orphanage when we go there next week. One was a purchase I knew I'd have to make (I simply didn't have room for sandals when I packed for this trip), but the other was a surprise. I'd known for a little while before I left the USA that I would need to find three Christmas gifts for the children at the orphanage. My parents had suggested crayons as something every little kid would appreciate and which might not be readily available to them, and I thought that was brilliant. I patted myself on the back for that purchase, and they were one more thing that I crammed into my suitcase in a flight for which every ounce counts. But in one of the announcement that Sister Kathleen gave earlier this week, she said that we have to make sure that the things we give to the kids don't involve a lot of little parts that the kids can spill all over the place, and her one specific example was crayons. Blast it, that's exactly what I bought them! Of course, I'd made the same mistake a month before when I got a many-small-tool construction set for my godson on his third birthday, so this was something I probably shouldn't repeat.
So now I had to go out shopping for something else. Well, if I can't let them make a big mess, the least I can do is get them something that lets them make a lot of noise. So noisemakers it would be. The only roadblock that kept me from achieving either of those goals was the discovery that there's quite a dearth of ATMs in Bethlehem that accept MasterCard debit cards, which is what I have. I've had a bit of trouble trying to find an ATM on which my card works as a result, even though most of the other guys' cards do work (they're Visa cards). That will be my goal for tomorrow.
After I got back from that failed expedition, we walked over to the Carmelite convent right next door to our building, where we had a little tour and had some great conversations with the nuns there. It's a cloistered convent, so even though we'd been living next to them for two weeks, nobody had actually seen them. It was a group of thirteen quite beautiful and jovial young women - even the mother superior was fairly young. It was the first time I'd seen Carmelite nuns in real life, and when I saw them I couldn't help but think of my dear sister St. Thérèse, who wore the same habit. I similarly thought of her when I saw the center of their courtyard, which apparently is the same as all Carmelite convents around the world: There's a large cross situated in the middle, beside which Thérèse is standing in one of the famous photographs of her. All thirteen of the nuns there have come from other countries. They all speak and pray in French, which is the common language which has been agreed upon there (French isn't the first language of any of the sisters). Only the mother superior spoke even a little bit of English, which is why all of our foreign seminarians ended up having a much more in-depth discussion with them than the Americans. The Hispanics talked it up with the nun who came from Chile, and the nun from Poland was delighted to be able to launch into her lightning-fast native tongue with our Polish seminarian. I think the nuns there were more pleasantly surprised by the nature of our visit than we were.
As our visit was wrapping up, a couple of us had just enough time to duck out and make a dash for Manger Square, where they were going to be lighting the town's Christmas tree for the first time. Now, this I had to see! You see, a few weeks ago, I was visiting some friends in Westmont, with whom I walked into town to see their Christmas parade. I thought November 27th was a bit early for a Christmas parade, but it was the day after Thanksgiving, which in our country is fair game for such things. The parade culminated with the official tree lighting, but I didn't get to see that because we'd already ducked inside in an attempt to get the kids in line early enough to see Santa. So yes, I missed my chance to see them light the town Christmas tree in Westmont, Illinois. I guess Bethlehem would have to suffice.
Before I came here, I'd predicted that I really wouldn't see many of the standard Western secular trappings of Christmas: Trees, lights, stockings, garland, Santa, reindeer, and so on. And early on, that seemed to be the case. Other than an isolated storefront or two, there really didn't seem to be much Christmas decor around the town (I figured that the 1.25% Christian population might have something to do with that). But only in the last few days have those things started appearing. They've strung lights over all the streets, and even here in Bethlehem "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas." It's been delightful for two reasons: Not only is it nice to be getting into the Christmas spirit, but I'm also pleased to see that they almost wait until Christmas itself before starting up their Christmas season. In the U.S., of course, the Advent season becomes the Christmas season, and the Christmas season becomes the "put your tree out at the driveway for the trash man" season. But perhaps here they actually celebrate Christmas when you're supposed to?? We'll have to wait and see.
So when we got to Manger Square, the place was packed and they were performing a whole bunch of familiar Christmas carols in Arabic. After about half an hour of that, the speeches by the dignitaries ensued, which thankfully were in both Arabic and English. "We are gathered here just a few meters from where Christ was born, to celebrate the event that changed humanity forever," the mayor of Bethlehem proclaimed. After a woman gave a stirring rendition of "Silent Night" in four different languages, everyone counted down and the lights came on, both on the large tree and all around the square. The whole town suddenly seemed bathed in Christmas light. Fireworks started shooting off, and much frivolity was in the air. Even the mosque that borders Manger Square didn't start broadcasting its 6:00 PM prayers until our music had ended.
The ten hours of sleep that I got last night was badly needed, not only to drive away whatever illness I was starting to feel, but also to prepare for today's lengthy excursion out to the easternmost parts of Palestine. Today's itinerary took us down to the lowest part of the earth and many of its historically significant sites. The Dead Sea is situated 1200 feet below sea level, and it has no outlet. Its salt content is so high that it's toxic for any fish life - hence its association with death. In addition to dipping our toes into its water, we also visited the remains of Masada, Qumran, and Jericho. These were exotic places that I'd previously only read about, and today I was going to see them with my own two eyes.
The only road to the Dead Sea from here goes eastward out of Jerusalem, so we first had to drive north and enter back into Israeli territory for the first time. In fact, throughout the day we crossed the Israeli-Palestinian border several times, each time passing a checkpoint. But the only time we were truly scrutinized was when we went from Bethlehem into Jerusalem at the beginning of the day - apparently Israel takes that Bethlehem checkpoint more seriously than the others. An armed soldier actually got onto the bus and every one of us had to show him our passports. But once we were through, we then headed into the city of Jerusalem for the first time. There, I caught some of my first glimpses of where I'll be living for a month and a half starting next month: The walls of the Old City, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Wailing Wall, and of course the most recognizable landmark in the city, the Dome of the Rock. We also passed by the Notre Dame Center, which will be our home during that time. It was also interesting how almost all traces of Arabic had disappeared from the signs. Now everything was in Hebrew, and all around us were people in traditional Jewish dress. It's amazing what a difference the separation wall makes.
We headed east, and then down... and down... and down. In a relatively short distance, we drove from Jerusalem (2200 feet elevation) to the Dead Sea (-1200 feet). For being "dead", the sea actually looked quite beautiful. But the real attraction was the towering desert cliffs that dominated the sea's western edge. We skimmed the bottoms of those cliffs in our bus for several miles until we came upon our first stop of the day, the ancient military holdout of Masada.
Forty or fifty years ago when Hollywood was on its ancient Roman kick, one of the movies they made was about the rather extraordinary events that transpired at Masada in 73 AD. The Jewish Zealots who had revolted against Rome in 66 had been soundly defeated, and Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed in 70. But a group of about a thousand Jews were holding out at the Masada fortress, which was situated atop an impressive cliff that was 300 feet up on all sides. Supported with huge storehouses of food and supplies, the Jews remained there for three years until the Romans finally arrived to get them out for good. And thus followed some truly swashbuckling action.
The Romans built a massive ramp that led all the way to the top, upon which they placed an iron-sheathed tower with a battering ram. The Jews had time to prepare their defenses, and when the Romans finally breached the wall they found a new wood-faced wall in front of them. After several thrusts with the burning battering ram, the wall finally began to burn down... but then it was the end of the day, and the Romans retreated, confident that they would simply storm the fortress the next day and take all the prisoners. But during that night, the Jews decided that they'd rather die than become slaves of Rome, so they all killed each other in a mass suicide. When the Romans showed up the next day, they only found two women and four children who had survived. So the story goes.
This was the story that was told by the historian Josephus - his rendition includes a lengthy speech by the Jewish commander that would move any reader to tears, imploring everyone to die rather than be given up to slavery. Unfortunately, archaeological research in the last couple of centuries has begun to paint a less heroic picture of what happened (if want to call suicide heroic). There was definitely an attack on Masada, but it would seem that the Jews died in a more conventional way - that is, by fighting.
Regardless of whatever may have happened there historically, the view alone makes the visit worthwhile. One guide book I have here calls it "the most spectacular site in the country." Situated amidst a vast array of cliffs and crags, the whole area bears some resemblance to the planets that Spaceman Spiff frequents in "Calvin and Hobbes". The path to the top, called "The Snake Trail", zig-zags up the mountain and is obviously not meant for the faint of heart. From the bottom, I could see hundreds of tiny dots of people inching their way up the trail - they looked like ants against the vast backdrop. Obviously, I would have absolutely loved to have taken that trail, but for the sake of the group we took the cable car, which itself was pretty cool as it was. It felt very James Bond-ish.
The ruins of the fortress are very well preserved, and it would easily take a couple of hours to take all of it in fully - and that's without the amazing views from the top. There was one point when I was descending some steep stairs along the side of the cliff to look at one of Herod's "hanging palaces" notched into the side of the cliff, and if I looked directly out in front of me such that I couldn't see the steps, it looked like I was literally flying. In addition to such spectacular soaring sights, I also saw a very banal, down-to-earth show being put on for children. What was so fascinating about that show to me was that it was the first "conversational" Hebrew I'd heard so far. The only place where I've really hard that kind of spoken dialogue is the Aramaic that's used in "The Passion". But starting next month, I'll begin hearing plenty of that.
After that, we headed back north along the coast, towards the ruins of the ancient village of Qumran. This was where the Essene cult lived around the time of Christ. The Essenes are mostly known because of two things, both of which are only theories: One is that John the Baptist may have been an Essene, perhaps because of his odd manner of dress and desert living, as well as the fact that he did baptisms (the Essenes took part in twice-daily ritual cleansings). The other is that they're responsible for having left behind the famous Dead Sea Scrolls.
Four years ago a group of us from Conception went down to Kansas City to see a traveling exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I was pretty stoked about the chance to see some actual fragments of those scrolls. (It also didn't hurt that we were accompanied by Abbot Gregory, one of the most brilliant Scripture scholars I've ever known.) But that was nothing compared to the chance to actually travel out to the very place where these scrolls originated.
The most widely-accepted theory is that the Essenes desired to preserve their copiously transcribed manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures, and so they rolled them up into clay jars and placed them inside some of the many caves that dot the mountains west of the Dead Sea. The scrolls remained inside these caves for almost two thousand years, untouched and well preserved because of the salty air that pervaded the area. They can be thought of as the original geocaches. The first scrolls were discovered accidentally in 1947 by a boy who was looking for a lost goat. When scholars realized that scrolls like these could be sitting in more caves, they began an extensive search of every cave that they could. It was only in the hour-long drive from Masada to Qumran that I could appreciate how much work such a search must have taken, for it seems like every hundred feet or so there's another cave poking out from the rocks - and most of them are very high up on the cliffs.
The village of Qumran is quite small, and there wasn't that much to see. From the ruins, we could look up at the nearby mountains, and several caves were visible. Some of those caves were identified to us as actual caves in which scrolls were discovered. Now this was amazing to me - more so than the cave in which Jesus was born, or than some of the other major religious sites will probably be for me. This is because the grandeur of a site really only hits me if it bears some kind of resemblance to what actually happened there. Unfortunately, this is not the case with places like the tomb from which Jesus rose from the dead, or the spot where he was crucified. For so many religious sites, there's just a massive church now sitting on the spot, and so our imagination must be used to picture what the sights and sounds and smells of the original site must have been like. But in the case of Qumran, for years I'd been hearing about and learning about the area where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, and now that I was out here standing in that spot, it really did look just like it must have two thousand years ago. I could easily imagine where the Essenes lived and what they had to do to get the scrolls up into those caves, and so on. It was a truly majestic moment.
Our next stop was the Dead Sea itself, and this time our purposes were completely recreational. No spiritual pilgrimage here! We'd all brought our swimsuits, and we were now going to run into the water and experience a buoyancy that's not possible in any other body of water on Earth. The high salt content of the Dead Sea affected the density such that any human body would easily float at the top. After we'd all changed, we posed for a group shot of "the low point of our pilgrimage", then jumped on in. Well, we didn't exactly jump in. We'd been warned not to put our heads under the water, because the water would sting our eyes terribly. Instead, I waded in a ways, then leaned down into the water a little bit... and just like that, I was turned up onto my back, bobbing like a cork. I'd never experienced anything like it before. I just laid there with my feet, arms and shoulders poking out of the water, like I was on a raft. When I got out to deeper water, if I tried to stand upright, there was no need to tread water, because I just bobbed up and down, my shoulders out of the water entirely.
The water didn't feel any different than other water, but some guys were complaining afterwards that their skin itched from it. If we hadn't rinsed ourselves off right away after getting out, we would have all ended up with a film of salt on our bodies (which would have been really amusing for the African guys that have jet-black skin). But even now as I type this after having washed my hands at least twice, my hands still feel extremely dry. The twenty minutes that I spent floating in the water probably gave my skin a nice exfoliation.
Our final stop of the day was the town of Jericho, which also isn't far from the Dead Sea. Jericho figured into a few episodes from Jesus' life, and it's also famous as the city whose walls Joshua breached simply by marching his army around it seven times when the Israelites began their conquest of Canaan (this was brilliantly depicted in the Veggie Tales episode "Joshua and the Giant Wall"). Also near Jericho is a mountain that is traditionally where the Devil tempted Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world. That would definitely be a Category Three site, because the only rationale for identifying that particular mountain as such is that it's in the desert and it has a good view of the surrounding kingdoms. But that was enough for them to have named a nearby restaurant "Temptation Restaurant", which is where we ate a hearty lunch. Famished from all of our day's excursions, I ate everything that I was tempted to. Come on, it was an all-you-can-eat buffet at a place called Temptation Restaurant... what else would you expect?
Jericho touts itself as "the oldest city on Earth", and will actually be celebrating its 10,000th anniversary next year. I'm not sure how such a measurement is possible. There are plenty of other cities around the Fertile Crescent that claim the same distinction, most notably Damascus. It's a fairly large town today, and an army would be hard-pressed to make seven laps around it in a single day. But the ruins of the original Biblical city of Jericho are situated in the middle of the town, and we could see from its small size that a seven-lap journey around the city would have been easily doable. One of the guys even bought himself a massive horn in the gift shop. A horn from Jericho! I've since been hyping up that horn as "the actual horn that was blown when the walls came crumbling down."
Just before we left Jericho, we pulled up next to a very large, old sycamore tree, which was identified to us as "the actual sycamore tree" into which Zacchaeus climbed to get a better view of Jesus, as described in Luke chapter 19. A bunch of guys got out to take photos, but I just sat there in the bus saying, "Oh, for crying out loud." I asked our guide which category of authenticity this site would fall under, and he laughed and said, "Why, Category Three, of course!" I asked him how old the tree really was, and he said, "Oh, I'd say about two or three hundred years. Definitely no older than that." Well, there you go. The only reason it's touted as "the actual tree that Zacchaeus climbed" is because it's a large sycamore tree that happens to be in Jericho. I suppose that's good enough for me, because from now on when I read that Gospel passage, I can at least picture what sycamore trees in Jericho look like. It's a start.
So it's been a very adventurous few days. Hopefully later tonight I'll be able to get online and post this. The longer we've been here, the more the internet has seemed to be slowing down. All this week, it's been difficult to get it to even pull up a single page. I haven't been able to actually check my e-mail since Saturday (which was an usually speedy night... I was even able to send out an e-mail with a big image attached). Curiously enough, though, one page that does seem to open up no matter what is my blog page... so at the very least, I'm still able to get these posts through. Unless things improve, Facebook and e-mail are still out of the question. So for now this will have to continue to be a one-way medium of communication. If anyone out there is reading this, I send my greetings to everyone back home, and hopefully when I move on to Jerusalem next month I'll be able to get fuller internet access, and will then be able to read what people send me.
After a couple of classes on Monday morning, our afternoon expedition was to the ruins of an ancient fortress known as "Herodian". King Herod the Great built that fortress on top of a volcano-like mountain sometime around 20 BC, and it dominates the desert landscape about ten miles southeast of Bethlehem. It was later used as a holdout by the Jewish Zealots who revolted against Rome in 66 AD.
Herodian was the first place we'd gone to in the West Bank that was in a "Zone C" area. The way the Israeli occupation works here, Zone A is administered by Palestine and has Palestianian military present, Zone B is administered by Palestine but has Israeli military present, and Zone C is administered by Israel and has Israeli military present. Zone C areas are those that have the biggest visible military contingent roaming around. In fact, until I'd been to Herodian I hadn't seen a single Israeli military unit in this territory that's supposedly being occupied by them. (I've seen plenty of solitary Palestinian soldiers guarding one gate or another, and every single of them carries a machine gun. That's a bit of a shock for these tame suburban eyes of mine, but I'm slowly getting used to the sight. But then, a couple of days ago I was walking a few feet past a soldier who was leaning over to pick something up or sign something, and his back was to me. As he was leaned over, the machine gun was hanging in such a way from his shoulder that it was upside down with the muzzle pointed directly at me, and I involuntarily flinched at that sight. Firearm safety rule #2: Never have your weapon pointed at something that you're not ready and willing to destroy.)
There is an Israeli military compound at the foot of Herodian, but something special must have been going on when we got there, because the entire site was just crawling with soldiers - hundreds and hundreds of them. But upon a closer look, they all appeared to be quite young, at least under 18. Each of them were carrying machine guns, but none of them had the clips in them, so it must have been some sort of training. That "training" also seemed to be taking the form of a tourist stop, because they were all there looking at the same things as us: We were taking a long hike up the side of the mountain, up to Herod's grand fortress at the top. I never really did figure out what all those cadets(?) were doing there, but it was enough to make our Palestinian guide visibly nervous. Quite of a few of the soldiers were young, attractive women - or was the fact that they had machine guns slung over their shoulders what made them attractive? I remember friends who had been to Israel years ago commenting about how many "hot chicks with machine guns" they saw everywhere they went. I wonder what's going on with that trend?
The view from the top of the mountain was spectacular, of course. We had a full panoramic view of Bethlehem and the surrounding countryside. We could see where green gave way to the Judean Desert. And to the north we could see Jerusalem. The ruins were those of several storerooms, bathhouses, and the like. From the top, we had to descend a long ramp to get down into the bulk of the fortress inside the cone of the mountain, once again similar to a volcano. Then we entered an elaborate system of tunnels which Herod had carved out of the inside of the mountain almost all the way to the bottom. We went down one passageway after another, descending several sets of ancient stone steps along the way, until we emerged about halfway down the mountain, right next to the tomb of Herod, which had only just been discovered a few years ago.
In the little free time that I had yesterday, my task was to hit one or more local shops in an attempt to get flip-flops for today's dip into the Dead Sea, as well as Christmas gifts to give to the kids at the Creche Orphanage when we go there next week. One was a purchase I knew I'd have to make (I simply didn't have room for sandals when I packed for this trip), but the other was a surprise. I'd known for a little while before I left the USA that I would need to find three Christmas gifts for the children at the orphanage. My parents had suggested crayons as something every little kid would appreciate and which might not be readily available to them, and I thought that was brilliant. I patted myself on the back for that purchase, and they were one more thing that I crammed into my suitcase in a flight for which every ounce counts. But in one of the announcement that Sister Kathleen gave earlier this week, she said that we have to make sure that the things we give to the kids don't involve a lot of little parts that the kids can spill all over the place, and her one specific example was crayons. Blast it, that's exactly what I bought them! Of course, I'd made the same mistake a month before when I got a many-small-tool construction set for my godson on his third birthday, so this was something I probably shouldn't repeat.
So now I had to go out shopping for something else. Well, if I can't let them make a big mess, the least I can do is get them something that lets them make a lot of noise. So noisemakers it would be. The only roadblock that kept me from achieving either of those goals was the discovery that there's quite a dearth of ATMs in Bethlehem that accept MasterCard debit cards, which is what I have. I've had a bit of trouble trying to find an ATM on which my card works as a result, even though most of the other guys' cards do work (they're Visa cards). That will be my goal for tomorrow.
After I got back from that failed expedition, we walked over to the Carmelite convent right next door to our building, where we had a little tour and had some great conversations with the nuns there. It's a cloistered convent, so even though we'd been living next to them for two weeks, nobody had actually seen them. It was a group of thirteen quite beautiful and jovial young women - even the mother superior was fairly young. It was the first time I'd seen Carmelite nuns in real life, and when I saw them I couldn't help but think of my dear sister St. Thérèse, who wore the same habit. I similarly thought of her when I saw the center of their courtyard, which apparently is the same as all Carmelite convents around the world: There's a large cross situated in the middle, beside which Thérèse is standing in one of the famous photographs of her. All thirteen of the nuns there have come from other countries. They all speak and pray in French, which is the common language which has been agreed upon there (French isn't the first language of any of the sisters). Only the mother superior spoke even a little bit of English, which is why all of our foreign seminarians ended up having a much more in-depth discussion with them than the Americans. The Hispanics talked it up with the nun who came from Chile, and the nun from Poland was delighted to be able to launch into her lightning-fast native tongue with our Polish seminarian. I think the nuns there were more pleasantly surprised by the nature of our visit than we were.
As our visit was wrapping up, a couple of us had just enough time to duck out and make a dash for Manger Square, where they were going to be lighting the town's Christmas tree for the first time. Now, this I had to see! You see, a few weeks ago, I was visiting some friends in Westmont, with whom I walked into town to see their Christmas parade. I thought November 27th was a bit early for a Christmas parade, but it was the day after Thanksgiving, which in our country is fair game for such things. The parade culminated with the official tree lighting, but I didn't get to see that because we'd already ducked inside in an attempt to get the kids in line early enough to see Santa. So yes, I missed my chance to see them light the town Christmas tree in Westmont, Illinois. I guess Bethlehem would have to suffice.
Before I came here, I'd predicted that I really wouldn't see many of the standard Western secular trappings of Christmas: Trees, lights, stockings, garland, Santa, reindeer, and so on. And early on, that seemed to be the case. Other than an isolated storefront or two, there really didn't seem to be much Christmas decor around the town (I figured that the 1.25% Christian population might have something to do with that). But only in the last few days have those things started appearing. They've strung lights over all the streets, and even here in Bethlehem "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas." It's been delightful for two reasons: Not only is it nice to be getting into the Christmas spirit, but I'm also pleased to see that they almost wait until Christmas itself before starting up their Christmas season. In the U.S., of course, the Advent season becomes the Christmas season, and the Christmas season becomes the "put your tree out at the driveway for the trash man" season. But perhaps here they actually celebrate Christmas when you're supposed to?? We'll have to wait and see.
So when we got to Manger Square, the place was packed and they were performing a whole bunch of familiar Christmas carols in Arabic. After about half an hour of that, the speeches by the dignitaries ensued, which thankfully were in both Arabic and English. "We are gathered here just a few meters from where Christ was born, to celebrate the event that changed humanity forever," the mayor of Bethlehem proclaimed. After a woman gave a stirring rendition of "Silent Night" in four different languages, everyone counted down and the lights came on, both on the large tree and all around the square. The whole town suddenly seemed bathed in Christmas light. Fireworks started shooting off, and much frivolity was in the air. Even the mosque that borders Manger Square didn't start broadcasting its 6:00 PM prayers until our music had ended.
The ten hours of sleep that I got last night was badly needed, not only to drive away whatever illness I was starting to feel, but also to prepare for today's lengthy excursion out to the easternmost parts of Palestine. Today's itinerary took us down to the lowest part of the earth and many of its historically significant sites. The Dead Sea is situated 1200 feet below sea level, and it has no outlet. Its salt content is so high that it's toxic for any fish life - hence its association with death. In addition to dipping our toes into its water, we also visited the remains of Masada, Qumran, and Jericho. These were exotic places that I'd previously only read about, and today I was going to see them with my own two eyes.
The only road to the Dead Sea from here goes eastward out of Jerusalem, so we first had to drive north and enter back into Israeli territory for the first time. In fact, throughout the day we crossed the Israeli-Palestinian border several times, each time passing a checkpoint. But the only time we were truly scrutinized was when we went from Bethlehem into Jerusalem at the beginning of the day - apparently Israel takes that Bethlehem checkpoint more seriously than the others. An armed soldier actually got onto the bus and every one of us had to show him our passports. But once we were through, we then headed into the city of Jerusalem for the first time. There, I caught some of my first glimpses of where I'll be living for a month and a half starting next month: The walls of the Old City, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Wailing Wall, and of course the most recognizable landmark in the city, the Dome of the Rock. We also passed by the Notre Dame Center, which will be our home during that time. It was also interesting how almost all traces of Arabic had disappeared from the signs. Now everything was in Hebrew, and all around us were people in traditional Jewish dress. It's amazing what a difference the separation wall makes.
We headed east, and then down... and down... and down. In a relatively short distance, we drove from Jerusalem (2200 feet elevation) to the Dead Sea (-1200 feet). For being "dead", the sea actually looked quite beautiful. But the real attraction was the towering desert cliffs that dominated the sea's western edge. We skimmed the bottoms of those cliffs in our bus for several miles until we came upon our first stop of the day, the ancient military holdout of Masada.
Forty or fifty years ago when Hollywood was on its ancient Roman kick, one of the movies they made was about the rather extraordinary events that transpired at Masada in 73 AD. The Jewish Zealots who had revolted against Rome in 66 had been soundly defeated, and Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed in 70. But a group of about a thousand Jews were holding out at the Masada fortress, which was situated atop an impressive cliff that was 300 feet up on all sides. Supported with huge storehouses of food and supplies, the Jews remained there for three years until the Romans finally arrived to get them out for good. And thus followed some truly swashbuckling action.
The Romans built a massive ramp that led all the way to the top, upon which they placed an iron-sheathed tower with a battering ram. The Jews had time to prepare their defenses, and when the Romans finally breached the wall they found a new wood-faced wall in front of them. After several thrusts with the burning battering ram, the wall finally began to burn down... but then it was the end of the day, and the Romans retreated, confident that they would simply storm the fortress the next day and take all the prisoners. But during that night, the Jews decided that they'd rather die than become slaves of Rome, so they all killed each other in a mass suicide. When the Romans showed up the next day, they only found two women and four children who had survived. So the story goes.
This was the story that was told by the historian Josephus - his rendition includes a lengthy speech by the Jewish commander that would move any reader to tears, imploring everyone to die rather than be given up to slavery. Unfortunately, archaeological research in the last couple of centuries has begun to paint a less heroic picture of what happened (if want to call suicide heroic). There was definitely an attack on Masada, but it would seem that the Jews died in a more conventional way - that is, by fighting.
Regardless of whatever may have happened there historically, the view alone makes the visit worthwhile. One guide book I have here calls it "the most spectacular site in the country." Situated amidst a vast array of cliffs and crags, the whole area bears some resemblance to the planets that Spaceman Spiff frequents in "Calvin and Hobbes". The path to the top, called "The Snake Trail", zig-zags up the mountain and is obviously not meant for the faint of heart. From the bottom, I could see hundreds of tiny dots of people inching their way up the trail - they looked like ants against the vast backdrop. Obviously, I would have absolutely loved to have taken that trail, but for the sake of the group we took the cable car, which itself was pretty cool as it was. It felt very James Bond-ish.
The ruins of the fortress are very well preserved, and it would easily take a couple of hours to take all of it in fully - and that's without the amazing views from the top. There was one point when I was descending some steep stairs along the side of the cliff to look at one of Herod's "hanging palaces" notched into the side of the cliff, and if I looked directly out in front of me such that I couldn't see the steps, it looked like I was literally flying. In addition to such spectacular soaring sights, I also saw a very banal, down-to-earth show being put on for children. What was so fascinating about that show to me was that it was the first "conversational" Hebrew I'd heard so far. The only place where I've really hard that kind of spoken dialogue is the Aramaic that's used in "The Passion". But starting next month, I'll begin hearing plenty of that.
After that, we headed back north along the coast, towards the ruins of the ancient village of Qumran. This was where the Essene cult lived around the time of Christ. The Essenes are mostly known because of two things, both of which are only theories: One is that John the Baptist may have been an Essene, perhaps because of his odd manner of dress and desert living, as well as the fact that he did baptisms (the Essenes took part in twice-daily ritual cleansings). The other is that they're responsible for having left behind the famous Dead Sea Scrolls.
Four years ago a group of us from Conception went down to Kansas City to see a traveling exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I was pretty stoked about the chance to see some actual fragments of those scrolls. (It also didn't hurt that we were accompanied by Abbot Gregory, one of the most brilliant Scripture scholars I've ever known.) But that was nothing compared to the chance to actually travel out to the very place where these scrolls originated.
The most widely-accepted theory is that the Essenes desired to preserve their copiously transcribed manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures, and so they rolled them up into clay jars and placed them inside some of the many caves that dot the mountains west of the Dead Sea. The scrolls remained inside these caves for almost two thousand years, untouched and well preserved because of the salty air that pervaded the area. They can be thought of as the original geocaches. The first scrolls were discovered accidentally in 1947 by a boy who was looking for a lost goat. When scholars realized that scrolls like these could be sitting in more caves, they began an extensive search of every cave that they could. It was only in the hour-long drive from Masada to Qumran that I could appreciate how much work such a search must have taken, for it seems like every hundred feet or so there's another cave poking out from the rocks - and most of them are very high up on the cliffs.
The village of Qumran is quite small, and there wasn't that much to see. From the ruins, we could look up at the nearby mountains, and several caves were visible. Some of those caves were identified to us as actual caves in which scrolls were discovered. Now this was amazing to me - more so than the cave in which Jesus was born, or than some of the other major religious sites will probably be for me. This is because the grandeur of a site really only hits me if it bears some kind of resemblance to what actually happened there. Unfortunately, this is not the case with places like the tomb from which Jesus rose from the dead, or the spot where he was crucified. For so many religious sites, there's just a massive church now sitting on the spot, and so our imagination must be used to picture what the sights and sounds and smells of the original site must have been like. But in the case of Qumran, for years I'd been hearing about and learning about the area where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, and now that I was out here standing in that spot, it really did look just like it must have two thousand years ago. I could easily imagine where the Essenes lived and what they had to do to get the scrolls up into those caves, and so on. It was a truly majestic moment.
Our next stop was the Dead Sea itself, and this time our purposes were completely recreational. No spiritual pilgrimage here! We'd all brought our swimsuits, and we were now going to run into the water and experience a buoyancy that's not possible in any other body of water on Earth. The high salt content of the Dead Sea affected the density such that any human body would easily float at the top. After we'd all changed, we posed for a group shot of "the low point of our pilgrimage", then jumped on in. Well, we didn't exactly jump in. We'd been warned not to put our heads under the water, because the water would sting our eyes terribly. Instead, I waded in a ways, then leaned down into the water a little bit... and just like that, I was turned up onto my back, bobbing like a cork. I'd never experienced anything like it before. I just laid there with my feet, arms and shoulders poking out of the water, like I was on a raft. When I got out to deeper water, if I tried to stand upright, there was no need to tread water, because I just bobbed up and down, my shoulders out of the water entirely.
The water didn't feel any different than other water, but some guys were complaining afterwards that their skin itched from it. If we hadn't rinsed ourselves off right away after getting out, we would have all ended up with a film of salt on our bodies (which would have been really amusing for the African guys that have jet-black skin). But even now as I type this after having washed my hands at least twice, my hands still feel extremely dry. The twenty minutes that I spent floating in the water probably gave my skin a nice exfoliation.
Our final stop of the day was the town of Jericho, which also isn't far from the Dead Sea. Jericho figured into a few episodes from Jesus' life, and it's also famous as the city whose walls Joshua breached simply by marching his army around it seven times when the Israelites began their conquest of Canaan (this was brilliantly depicted in the Veggie Tales episode "Joshua and the Giant Wall"). Also near Jericho is a mountain that is traditionally where the Devil tempted Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world. That would definitely be a Category Three site, because the only rationale for identifying that particular mountain as such is that it's in the desert and it has a good view of the surrounding kingdoms. But that was enough for them to have named a nearby restaurant "Temptation Restaurant", which is where we ate a hearty lunch. Famished from all of our day's excursions, I ate everything that I was tempted to. Come on, it was an all-you-can-eat buffet at a place called Temptation Restaurant... what else would you expect?
Jericho touts itself as "the oldest city on Earth", and will actually be celebrating its 10,000th anniversary next year. I'm not sure how such a measurement is possible. There are plenty of other cities around the Fertile Crescent that claim the same distinction, most notably Damascus. It's a fairly large town today, and an army would be hard-pressed to make seven laps around it in a single day. But the ruins of the original Biblical city of Jericho are situated in the middle of the town, and we could see from its small size that a seven-lap journey around the city would have been easily doable. One of the guys even bought himself a massive horn in the gift shop. A horn from Jericho! I've since been hyping up that horn as "the actual horn that was blown when the walls came crumbling down."
Just before we left Jericho, we pulled up next to a very large, old sycamore tree, which was identified to us as "the actual sycamore tree" into which Zacchaeus climbed to get a better view of Jesus, as described in Luke chapter 19. A bunch of guys got out to take photos, but I just sat there in the bus saying, "Oh, for crying out loud." I asked our guide which category of authenticity this site would fall under, and he laughed and said, "Why, Category Three, of course!" I asked him how old the tree really was, and he said, "Oh, I'd say about two or three hundred years. Definitely no older than that." Well, there you go. The only reason it's touted as "the actual tree that Zacchaeus climbed" is because it's a large sycamore tree that happens to be in Jericho. I suppose that's good enough for me, because from now on when I read that Gospel passage, I can at least picture what sycamore trees in Jericho look like. It's a start.
So it's been a very adventurous few days. Hopefully later tonight I'll be able to get online and post this. The longer we've been here, the more the internet has seemed to be slowing down. All this week, it's been difficult to get it to even pull up a single page. I haven't been able to actually check my e-mail since Saturday (which was an usually speedy night... I was even able to send out an e-mail with a big image attached). Curiously enough, though, one page that does seem to open up no matter what is my blog page... so at the very least, I'm still able to get these posts through. Unless things improve, Facebook and e-mail are still out of the question. So for now this will have to continue to be a one-way medium of communication. If anyone out there is reading this, I send my greetings to everyone back home, and hopefully when I move on to Jerusalem next month I'll be able to get fuller internet access, and will then be able to read what people send me.