The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea is right opposite a brutal wilderness, and is surprisingly pretty when the sun shines; the water is a turquoise green, and you can see the Jordan mountains on the other side. Unfortunately I was there on one of the rare rainy days, and only got pictures when it was cloudy!

This rock I'm sitting on, this beach I've become a part of, is alive with the sounds and sights of life. Waves crest and crash. People bedecked in summer colors float and frolic in warm water, even though I’m shivering with my hood up and jeans on and the wind’s whipping my hair. (Journal entry.)

The Salt Sea
The Dead Sea was, and is, famous for its salt; in the Bible it is often the ‘Salt Sea’, the valley south of it is ‘The Valley of Salt.’ The rabbis called the ‘salt of Sodom’ unending, which means that they dug it out of salt mountains instead of mining it deep into the ground. (Sodom being the proverbial and biblical town of destruction, which is located by the Dead Sea.)

A significant portion of the Dead Sea salt harvest must have been for preserving fish, meat and other food. These were done at salteries, one of which was in Magdala, home of Mary Magdalene on the Sea of Galilee, and some of the Dead Sea salt was probably shipped there. Magdala had the perfect combination for a salting installation: plenty of fresh water (the Galilee is a freshwater lake), salt and fish (lakes tend to have fish).

Here slaves and day laborers worked in huge vats, perhaps ten square feet and eight feet deep, that layered salt, fish and ice until the fish were saturated enough for long-term preservation. They also had vats of water to clean it and a furnace room for cool seasons, as well as drying racks for the fish.

In a world without refrigeration, salt was used heavily to preservation, to the point that it tasted disgusting, as well as for flavor. They actually soaked some of the salt out of preserved fish in order to eat it.

The Temple consumed a great deal of salt, both for purity reasons and to prevent the priests from slipping as they walked on the altar ramp, which they had to do barefoot. As a result, salt would have signified purity as well as preservation and flavor to the ancient Jew. (Fortunately Jerusalem isn’t in Alaska.)

Dead Sea cosmetics are actually a huge trade in modern times (I felt rather exotic purchasing Dead Sea deoderant) and the aristocrats probably utilized them back then as well. Tiberias was the wealthy capital and coastal port on the Sea of Galilee, and it’s quite possible ships stopping at Tiberias arrived with salt cosmetics to prevent acne.

Dead Sea Spirituals
This place makes me feel small, alone in a great big world I can’t quite understand. Sometimes beauty is deceiving; it’s creepy here, cruelty and glory side by side. I suppose that’s how it goes spiritually. As the beauty of this turquoise sea parallels an endless line of barren mountains, so my growth in God Almighty reaches into yonder tough times.

I feel trapped between a rock and a hard place, swimming down blue waters in a sea defined by death. Blessed be your Name, and maybe that’s the ticket.

Odd, there’s beauty on shores bereft of life, sheltered with barren mountains etching hopelessness into horizons near and far. So what’s the secret to this beauty, this sea of beauty lying between death and the unknown?

How can I get this God? Is it really just cast all your cares upon Me? It doesn’t make sense, that anything born of goodness can survive in a land that should hold naught but pain. Nothing lives in this piece of turqoise beauty – no schools of fish dash by, no kelp floats to the surface, no children search for shells lining the shores.

I can’t even sink here – a good thing in a sea of death. "Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid"...is that what it is, the secret to this beauty of the heart, and contentment of the soul? Is it all based on the trust of a child I can never be?


Travelogue
I was so relieved to get to my hotel night before last, after driving down Route 90 in the blackness, stopping at some roadside flea market turned permanent sort of something because my car was careening back and forth on the road I was so tired, & I didn’t want to land in the Dead Sea – people might float in it but I’m not so sure cars do - so I stopped to get a few sodas - yes, three! – the guy looked at me like I was a little nuts – and after seeing a bunch of men staring at me and having the suddenly creepy feeling, after buying the third one, that I’d better get out of there. Which I did, in a hurry – rather like a macho teenager in the movies trying to show off his hot car by pealing out of the nightclub parking lot.

Well I made it to my hotel, obviously – ugh! The guy hardlly spoke English, quite problematic since I can’t even read the alphabet let alone speak the language, finally I got some sort of receipt from him and a key, and after fifteen minutes of wandering around – well, maybe five, but it felt like fifteen – I found my room.

I felt like I was in a pre-Civil War dorm room. I actually took pictures of the room, it was such a cold piece of yuckiness. Well so I dropped my laptop and suitcase on the floor, climbed into my pajamas and sat on the bed and stared into space (it’s a little hard to sleep with three sodas in you.)

I actually slept that night though! That was a really cool feeling, after flying from America to Israel and arriving at Tel Aviv at 5 a.m.