Judea and Samaria

After the rains and flash floods, the desert
hills turn green.

While It is clear by the difference of language that I am far away from home, much of the time, Jerusalem feels like any city in the world. There is the hustle and bustle of city life. The sound of sirens and motors, the smells of bakeries and back alleys, the local diversity of people; there are differences, but on the whole, Jerusalem is a city like any other.

In several places during our hike, there were
ladders we had to climb. They were often quite
steep.

The real differences come when you leave the city behind and travel East towards Jordan. As soon as you cross over the Mount of Olives into the Judean Valley, you know that you are in a different world. The mountains of Jerusalem melt into the desert valley where the difference between the rainy season and the dry season becomes suddenly clear. This is a land with no room for grey, only black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. It is a land where you either know how to survive, or you die. It is not, in this time of globalization, an empty land; in fact it has never been an empty desert, but it is a land of dust and rock and history.

Looking back on the hike from above.

This small stretch of desert land has more history in it for more people than (probably) anywhere else on Earth. This is the land of Judea and Samaria. The biblical promised land. The first place the Hebrew people walked when they came out of Mitzriem. In the eyes of many Orthodox Jews, this is the land that God gave to the Jewish people.

According to Christian tradition, this is the site of Jesus'
baptism. It is a popular site for Christians to be re-baptized,
and a lovely place for anyone to eat some lunch and get within
a stone's throw of Jordan - seen on the other side of the river.

This is also the land where Jericho stood, and stands again. This is the land of Canaan and the land of the Bedouins. This is the place where Jesus lived and the place where David fought Goliath. This is where the Zealots ran to when they were driven from Jerusalem. This is a place where every, ever-changing hill and valley has a story  known by hundreds. This is a place where the bible ceases to be mythology and becomes pure history.

This week, we traveled to the Judean Desert twice. First we spent a day hiking in a Wadi; a canyon in the desert crated by the flash-floods of the rainy season. This particular hike is a part of the Israeli National Trail. We had a beautiful morning with lunch at the Jordan River. We ended the day at Wadi Prat which is a natural spring and oasis.

View to the South East from Mitspe Yeriho overlooking the Dead Sea.

The second time in the desert was at Mitspe Yeriho, an Orthodox settlement overlooking Jericho and the Dead Sea. We went for Shabbat, spending the night with families in the settlement and getting a tour of the area.

A camel in the distance...

Back in Jerusalem, I am thinking about what it means to be in a different place. My time here is still just beginning, with three months still to go. There is no real prospect of seeing any of the things that are familiar to me until then, so I have to embrace the different. I can either mourn what I do not have and what I am missing, counting down to birthdays, or holidays, or festivals; or I can do my best to find the things that make this place special. While I already know that I am having an unforgettable experience, I need to remember to truly enjoy it for all that it is.

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