Today we swam in the Dead Sea. The area around the Dead Sea is the lowest point on the face of the earth, some 1,300 feet below sea level—we were literally “as low as you can go”. The Dead Sea is fed by the Jordan River from the north. It has no outlet to the south. The water has a very high salt and mineral content, I believe about five times saltier than ocean water, and about double that of the Salt Lake in Utah. The salt content burns any openings in your skin, but I believe it is the mineral content that burns the most. When water was splashed in my mouth by the waves, it stung a surprising amount. I failed to get the message to not shave today, and when the water hit my face, it stung a little bit, because of the small abrasions caused by shaving. You did not open your eves under water, and every orifice exposed to the water burned, and I do mean every orifice. Perhaps that is too much information, lets just say that I feel like I got a harsh chemical peel over all of my body.
The minor amounts of pain from being in the water did not detract from the experience, however. We floated on top of the water; it was unreal. It was just like lying on a raft, but not having a raft underneath you. You could not go to the bottom of the sea. When I was in deep water I could stand in a vertical position, without touching the ground, and still be above the water from mid-chest up. After about 15 minutes in the water, however, the stinging became a little worse, so I decided that I had enough.
The shower felt so good.
We also visited the mountain of Masada today. Masada is believed to be the mountain-protected community occupied by Jewish zealots who were retreating from Jerusalem after the Roman invasion and destruction of the temple in 70 AD. Jewish tradition holds that some 900 Jews were held under siege there by the Roman attackers for a year while a large ramp of dirt and rocks was being built to overtake the exterior walls of the mountain fortress. The story goes that the Romans were about to finally break through the wall, when all 900 persons of the community participated in a mass suicide, preferring death to the possibility of being taken as a slave to the Romans, although there is little evidence that Romans made slaves out of the lands of their conquest. There are no reports, for example, of the Jews in Jerusalem being taken into slavery. Further, Josephus, the credible Jewish historian of the 1st century AD, is the only writer ever to report this story, his account being taken from two women who hid in large water cisterns, along with their children, who had decided not to take the path of suicide. Nonetheless, the mountain was overtaken by a siege, a huge ramp was built up to the broken back wall, and many people lived in this fortified community (having huge cisterns of water) to enable protection from an enemy for an extended period. It was a sobering visit.
We also traveled up the Jordan River Valley to the Sea of Galilee, where we will be taking a boat ride tomorrow, as well as visiting the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus is believed to have delivered the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapter 5 and following).
