The Dead Sea!!

The next day, June 25th, we met with a friend of Professor Wing's. His name is Albert Aghazarian, a member of one of the oldest Armenian families in Jerusalem. If the goal you had when visiting this well-respected translator, was getting answers to you deepest questions about the situation in Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine, and the people who are involved, you are likely to be disappointed. In a way, I think that was his point. In the Holy Land, the answers to your questions must be found (or perhaps stumbled upon is a more opt way of explaining Albert's attitude), they cannot be given. The effect of this idea that we listened to him tell stories, jokes, and philosophy while his lovely wife Madeline showered us with hospitality. Coffee, coffee, and more coffee, lemonade, candy, and cookies. As I said, you have to love the people of the Middle East, as they all, regardless of their backgrounds, will gift you with the greatest hospitality.
Then it was off for a drive. We went to Tel Aviv and stopped for a brief photo op. Professor Wing wanted us all to see the difference between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It was striking, we were only an hour away by car, but we were a universe away in ideas, problems, and issues. Strange. I took some pictures, but I will save them for my Tel Aviv post. A few of us went back to Tel Aviv for an afternoon. There was no way I was doing one brief bus tour through Tel Aviv, its just too pretty. After a few minutes we jumped back on the bus and headed back the way we came. We went past Jerusalem to the Dead Sea.

It's rather striking really, right after you have cleared the wall between Israel and the West Bank, you enter the desert. That is truly what it is, it is dry and hot. Only a few Bedouin shacks could be seen until you get into the Jordan Valley. Its still hot, but the dry desert is replaced with irrigated fields of date palms...
You aren't far from an incredibly dry inhospitable landscape though, so it confuses me greatly why the Essenes chose the dry part for their little outpost...

Here is their view of the Dead Sea, with what is now Jordan in the distance...
The Essenes were an ascetic sect of Judaism that removed itself from society, in a reaction to the presence of the Romans and other Gentile. Fortunately for us, one of the requirements of their sect was a daily period of copying texts. Any text will do, and they included the canonical Torah, Talmud, and new testament works, but also included the apocryphal works. They stored these copies away in clay vessels hidden in caves. Collectively, they are known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. They are some of the oldest biblical texts around. You can see many caves up on the hillside in my first picture, but this little hand carved hole in the wall, cave number four, held the treasure trove. Over ninety percent of the documents came out of here...
Then it was off to the "beach." Well, not really a beach, more like hard sand and rock leading down to extremely salty water. Rule number one: water does not go near eyes, that hurts. Rule number two: water does not go near mouth, tastes bad. Rule number three: have fun and don't lose your balance floating, which is what I think I am doing here...

It was a lot of fun to stand up in the water and not touch the bottom. You can try to go down if you like, the furthest I got was up to my chin, then you just bob up and down. Here we all are doing just that; I'm on the right sitting with my calves on top of the water. It was not unlike being in a water bed..

It was really weird to be in the water for almost two hours, and not be a prune when you get out.

Another thing, mud is fun...

It was a great opportunity for us to have fun in the Dead Sea. You remember the date palms? What with the diversion of the Jordan River, irrigation to those fields, and evaporation, it is estimated that nothing will remain of the Dead Sea in 2050.