Tiyul to Masada!

by Micah Schachet-Briskin,       12th grade,        NJ

It’s strange to realize how much we do alongside people we may never meet again. Activities such as going on public transportation, visiting museums, and hiking up a mountain at four in the morning to reach an ancient fortress. To kick off this blog post, I’ve decided to write an acrostic poem about my trip up the infamous Masada Snake Path

In hiking Masada, I faced nature’s worst

Climbing the fortress seemed easy at first

Able to sing and to laugh a full breath

Not yet believing your imminent death

Now that sounds bad, but let me explain

Overdramaticized stories of pain

Telling this true tale acrostic poem style

Back to the story and up a whole mile

Everyone fast was first to be benched

Lively and panting, our outfits sweat-drenched

I wearily sat and forced heart rate reduction

Everyone left, but my seat was a suction

Voicing my pain, I limped up past the clay

Eventually, I got most of the way

With the sun on the rise, I knew I should break

Every step I took uphill caused more ache

Sat on a ledge, our group’s growing gaps

As the sun rose, I filmed a time-lapse

When right past my seat, my friend Carson shocked,

Giant and muscular, swiftly he walked

Right when he noticed our admiring gaze

Our modern prophet uttered this phrase:

No pain no gain out here on Masada!

Kernels of truth were dropped on this cauda*

Deep breathing in and deep breathing out

Under the new day, I had no doubt

Devine intervention made this hike extraordinary

Even though I would have loved the air ferry

Hobbling uphill, I didn’t feel dread

Once his wise words were inside my head

Lighting up the end, a sky of azure blue

Yes, I climbed Masada, I saw that perfect view

Cresting from the mountaintops, the morning sun rose high

Ruby, topaz, white, and gold, all engulfed the sky

And though the ache might make you break or push you to the edge,

Pain and stress affect you less when gazing off that ledge

(*a cauda is a tail-like structure, like the snake path)

So now that I got that out of my system (WE SAW THE ROBERT JAMES GRONKOWSKI, RETIRED NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS TIGHT END IN ISRAEL, ON MASADA, AND HE SPOKE TO ME) here is the rest of the blog post.

Mesada (in English, fortress) was a fortress used by the Zealots (Sicarii) from 66-74 CE. However, the Zealots only made it theirs after two previous iterations of the land. The first use of Masada was by Alexander Jannaeus in approximately 100 BCE. There are no remains of this site, the only source we have is the writings of Josephus, which is a big deal because those writings have given historicity to several excavations. The second iteration of Masada was King Herod’s winter palace from 37-31 BCE. King Harod really built up Masada and frequently used it as his desert escape from the hardships of being king. We can see his impact on Masada through things like his tiled and heated bathhouse, a whole castle, and forboding walls. Herod saw Masada as an escape in case of a revolt and chose to build atop the mountain due to its natural defensive advantages and warmer atmosphere year-round. After the death of King Herod, the Romans took over for a while. Then came the Great Revolt.

In 66 CE, the First Jewish-Roman War broke out. The Zealots, led by Eleazar Ben Yair, overtook the Romans at Masada and claimed Masada for themselves. Their reason for choosing Masada as their home base is the same as King Harod’s: natural defenses, location, and now the added bonus of Herod’s giant walls and buildings. The Zealots only needed to do some minor renovations, such as adding in a mikveh and a synagogue. Both additions prove that the Zealots are devout Jews, if not radical extremists, and they plan on using Masada as not just a fortress, but as a communal Zealot living space. In 70 CE, the plan was in full swing when, after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple, the remaining Zealots and their families made a pilgrimage to Masada to live out their happy rebellious lives.

Sadly, that only lasted about three or four years. In 73/74 BC, after several failed sieges, the Romans figured out how to get up to Masada. They built a giant ramp, an impressive feat in that day and age, and planned on ramming down the walls and taking back Masada. When the Zealots saw the Romans creating a mountain out of thin air, as only God can do, they decided to meet and cast lots to see which two women and five children would be the sole survivors and would go on to tell the story of Masada. The seven chosen people escaped, then everyone destroyed and burned as much as they could so the Romans wouldn’t be able to use their facilities, then everyone else was killed by ten really unlucky guys, who, after killing everyone they know, kill themselves to leave no survivors. The Zealots were so extremely anti-Roman, they preferred mass suicide and destroying their community home in freedom over becoming assimilated or made into slaves. Suicide is a big fat no-no in Judaism, and the Rabbis were not big fans of the Zealots, so the fascinating story of The Siege of Masada is often swept under the rug by the Rabbis and other Jewish scholars.

Masada lay dormant for nearly 18 centuries until, in 1828, scholars rediscovered Masada, and in the ’50s, ‘60s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, further excavations were done on the site to uncover more structures. When people visit Masada, something shouted, then echoed back, is “Masada will not fall again”. This is also the end of the oath taken by those getting inducted into the IDF. This phrase basically boils down to “we will never let ourselves be put in a situation where the only two options are losing our home or losing our lives, as we did at Masada”. The fall of Masada isn’t the biggest or most impactful piece of Jewish history, but it’s remembered for what it represents. The situation the Zealots were put in was an extreme lose-lose situation. Israeli Jews have promised themselves that they will never have both options be against their favor if a situation similar to Masada arises.

Masada started as a potentially small fortress for a Hazmonian king that left no remains, then it got expanded upon and made into a winter palace/revolution escape by a power-hungry legacy-obsessed Herodian king with a fixation on giant blocks, then it was used by Romans until a group of radical Jews captured it and turned it into a Jewish rebel dream home/fortress, but then a Roman siege had the highest body count of a battle that never started due to the mass suicide of all the rebels, and now, after being excavated, Masada is a tourist attraction where the only ways you can go up and visit is by choosing between suffering in the sweltering sun for what feels like 5 hours while hiking up an ancient path that is so awful to hike that over 20 centuries ago, the fortress that the path leads to became highly coveted for its snake-like and rediculously steep “natural defense”, or you could use the wonderful, air-conditioned modern technology of a gondola to get shakily hoised up 190 feet with nothing but a thin wire preventing you from a sudden and fatal plummet. All joking aside, Masada is a cool place with a cool story.