Mottel in the Holy Land II - In the Desert of Judah

A View of the Dead sea and the Judean Plateau.

Part Two of my Trip in Israel.
Click on the link to see the amazing photos.

Tuesday:

We left Jerusalem Tuesday morning and began our journey to the South.
The first stop was at Mitzpah Yericho, a small settlement that looks out onto the town of Jericho . . .


The view from Mitzpah Yericho.

Throughout the trip our guide, an ardent Zionist, made constant reference to the amazing natural phenomena found around Israel and their status as being the most unique in the world. Ein Gedi, our next stop, was one of such.
The truth is, that I can not say in all honesty that the beauty of the Land of Israel is one unsurpassed by that of any other land in the world. To say that, I dare say, is foolish.
What I can, however, attest is that the beauty of the land is one that is uniquely ours. My love of the land, the energy that I felt was not one that stems from grandeur beyond that of the rest of Earth (though many of the sites are truly amazing), but rather one that is deeply personal -it isn't perfect, but it is the only place that is mine.

This doesn't mean that I subscribe to many of the Zionistic ideals held by the wonderful soldiers that joined us on the trip - of those I will write more about at some future point . . .

Walk with me, then, through Ein Gedi.


An Ibex


The burbling brook as it rushes through the rocks.


Notice the Dead Sea in the background





A group shot

We took a moment to sing one of the many Psalms composed by King David while in the area . . .

[A psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.]

For you my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts, Like a land parched, lifeless, and without water.

So I look to you in the sanctuary to see your power and glory

A Hyrax

-Of note, and I quote Wikipedia:

Early Phoenician navigators mistook the rabbits of the Iberian Peninsula for hyraxes (Hebrew Shaphan); hence they named it I-Shapan-im, meaning "land of the hyraxes", which possibly became the Latin word "Hispania", the root of Spain's modern Spanish name España and the English name Spain.

Masada:



By the entrance via the Snake Path


View of the Dead Sea


A Bird's Eye View


The remains of the Roman encampment






The ruins of the synagogue


I got into taking candid pictures of people around Israel . . .

Our final stop for the day was the Yam Hamelech -the Dead Sea . . .



. . . and then went off to Mamshit to spend the night in a Bedouin tent.

See Also: Part 1

Technorati Tags: Ein Gedi, Masada, The Dead Sea, Israel, Birth Right, Nature, Photography, Travel