מצדה

Masada

The sun and the desert, wilderness softened only by discrete points where the XXIst century reigns, is the place you can spend few days to feel in peace with yourself, your ancestors, the history and the future.

Almost 2000 years ago 960 Sicarii withstood to more than 10.000 Roman soldiers from the 10th legion for more than 3 years in this place. That spirit of sacrifice and discipline still remains in the site, and even if it is true that most of the visitors are Jewish and therefore responsive to the history that we can feel from those old stones and that absolute desert of the Dead Sea, you will be sensitive to it regardless of your believes.

After several hours travelling in a not very comfortable bus, under a pitiless sun, finally you arrive to the basis of the site. In front of you a mountain rises with steep walls. At your back the Dead Sea finish in its south limits and all around only a stony sight where no life is seen as far as your vision can reach. Information available will tell you, in several languages, that the fortress is in the top the mountain, more than 100 meters high. You will see, mainly the young people starting to climb by the narrow path that is there since the war against the Romans. In that moment you realise that if Israel is a shrine for millions of people who has religions inherited from Jews, you are now in the place of pilgrimage for the people of the story, the Jews themselves. You are in their place, in their country and if they cannot suffer to climb that mountain, they must climb it the same. The idea of what they are and what they must be can be different, but they will be what they must.

 

For your release, a cable car can transport you to the top, unless you feel your soul filled with the sense of the place, and try to climb by your own feet, by your own strength...

Any how, Masada is a place of power, strength, bravery and ardour. After that journey, you will feel that you are someone different. Visit this page to see not only why, but how you will be that different.