Lessons From Israel - Part 5
On Saturday, October 23rd, we spent most of our day in the Judean wilderness. We visited Qumran, the Essene community where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Next, we hiked the En Gedi, the hills wherein David spent much of his time hiding from Saul (and where he wrote many of his psalms). And, we went to Masada, the fortress in which almost 1,000 Jews killed themselves, believing it was better to die as freemen than to live as slaves of Rome. It turned out to be a very emotional day as we considered what it must have been like for the Essenes living in the dry hills of Qumran, separated from friends and family; for David living in the caves of En Gedi, running for his life from an insane king; for the Jews who desperately tried to fight off the Romans but who eventually took their lives at Masada. As we walked through these various places, it was almost as if one could see the faces and hear the voices of those who had once lived there, suffering so intensely under evil regimes . Yet