The Desert at its Finest

Woaaaaah best weekend in a long time and I’m not going to recover from sleep deprivation.

The past few days, the point of interest has been in the desert – Masada and the Dead Sea, to be precise. We’ve been doing a lot of Second Temple studying in JHist the past week or so, and we just went through the חורבן – the destruction during the Great Revolt of 66-73 CE. (Yeah I’m getting good at this JHist thing). Our first point of interest, Masada, had everything to do with this revolt and the Roman period that we have been talking about for days on end. First off, the fortress of Masada was originally King Herod’s winter palace before it was later on the home field for the rebellious Zealots, who defended with all their might until the year 73. But before I even get into atop Masada, climbing up it was an experience of its own.

Before we went on this extravaganza, my teacher Yair who is also in charge of leading services asked me if I wanted to lead services atop Masada. However, I knew I couldn’t just lead it a capella, so I made probably a terrible decision worth the wonderful memory it would lead to be – I agreed to carry my guitar, heavyweight case and all, up the winding path to the top of the fortress and lead services literally five or so minutes after sunrise. Terrible idea for my physical state, but emotionally I was completely and entirely satisfied. At risk of sounding incredibly cheesy, I really felt a connection with the world, even with God as the sunlight shone on my back and into the eyes and faces of my fellow students. (Keep in mind this was also a little before 6 AM after waking up a little before 4). After services and convincing my madrichim to let my guitar take the cable car down, the classes split up and we toured the Roman palace/rebel fortress. Although I’ve been atop Masada before, to go through in real detail and be able to picture the Romans in their bath houses and the Zealots in their sanctuary really got to me and made me think about the importance for standing up for what you believe in even when it comes to be that someone is oppressing you for your beliefs.

After the climb back down, we piled on to the bus and travelled to a beach on the Dead Sea where we quickly changed into our bathing suits, ready to chill out and float in the desert weather. DSol (David Solomon, our assistant principle) bought us all mud to smear on our bodies – definitely a huge part of the experience and I’m very happy with my “baby bottom smooth” skin. Being in the Dead Sea with all of us as a kehilah – a community – it really finally sank in to my brain: that I’m in Israel, that I’m with 80 other kids in Israel, that I’m traveling Israel, that I’m learning Israel – that I’m becoming Israel. Quite the statement to think about.

We then drove to the Ein Gedi youth hostel (we stayed at the Masada one the night before) and relaxed and cleaned up for Shabbat. I tried to go to bed earlier because I was waking up early to Skype with NFTY Convention in Dallas, Texas, but I didn’t do too well. (To all NFTY-ites, NFTY NAR in particular: it was nice to somewhat hear your shouts and I can’t wait to see you when I get home!) Once again I was up for the sunrise, more beautiful and breathtaking each day. After Shacharit and lunch, most of the kids (myself included) packed up for our Ein Gedi hike – a hike I’ve enjoyed every time I’ve gone. In my eyes, Ein Gedi is the epitome of paradise in a land that can be filled at times with such hatred and war. We only got to swim for a minute or so once we reached the waterfall but it was definitely worth it. After what seemed like the longest and best weekend ever, we piled back on the bus, returned to Tzuba, and were given new roommates – I’m now rooming with Ben from Vegas, Sam from San Fran, and Ariel from outside Tel Aviv. Really looking forward to the next week, feeling a little sick but slowly flooding myself with fluids. All’s well and will be for a long time.