Monday February 25

Dead Sea Region

By Linna Ettinger

Today was a beautifully warm sunny day, perfect for a visit to the Qumran site and the Dead Sea.

For me, the Dead Sea Scrolls were a fascinating, mythic story that defied logic - it was unbelievable to me that so many scrolls could survive two thousand years! I have studied the Essenes with Professor Jonathan Klawans (Professor of Boston University) who I hired to teach some courses at Temple Emunah in Lexington.  For me, the Yachad sect, Dead Sea Scrolls and the Essenes were limited to the confines of my imagination and the classroom in Temple Emunah. But today, we were actually going to visit the Qumran site, home of what some people refer to as the "Yachad" sect, a group of religious Jews often associated with the Essenes who spent their days in study, prayer, and copying ancient texts.  Qumran is the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but we were not planning on climbing the cliffs to see the caves where they were preserved for so long.

From the limited number of photos I had seen of the Qumran site, I was only expecting some archeological remains.  However the site came to life as our guide, Kayla Ship, told us about the site and the Yachad sect. Originally the site was occupied in the Iron Age (8-7th centuries BCE). A deep cistern was dated to this period.  It is estimated that in 130 BCE, the Dead Sea Sect cleared the Iron age cistern and built on top of it.  The archeological stone remains were all remnants of public spaces. No residences were found, but nails from sandals along a path to an flat area where perhaps they had pitched their tents were found.  The Yachad sect copied the Torah scrolls and also wrote about themselves - how they celebrated holidays, their theology and philosophy, the Temple scroll describing what the third Temple will look like, apocalyptic literature ushering in Ha Olam Haba, and they also wrote a copper scroll.

Regarding their calendar, interestingly, the Yachad sect used a solar calendar, so their holidays fell on the same day every year. In this way, the Yachad sect was totally out of sync from the rest of the Jews, from which we can infer that they really wanted to separate from what they considered corrupt mainstream Jewish society. To emphasize their belief and contempt, they faced East to the rising sun for their prayers, which resulted in their turning their backs on Jerusalem.

The day was perfectly sunny, balmy, and warm, so we could clearly see the outlines of numerous mikveh baths. Purity was an important feature of the Yachad sect members. We saw numerous water cisterns - the water engineering  required to design the aqueducts to fill their mikvehs was very impressive. They were so committed to preserving the purity and sanctity of the Torah, and because of their devotion, we now have the Dead Sea Scrolls, comprised of some 950 different scrolls.

After our travel back in time at the Qumran site, we set off to float in the Dead Sea. I was looking for Flat Stanley, that I had unfortunately left behind in 2017, but didn't find him. It was hot and we enjoyed floating for a bit, and tried a little Dead Sea mud on so we could tell the students at home about it.

We returned to Jerusalem to see the new King David Light Show at the Tower of David. It was a beautiful ending to a remarkable day traveling back in time.

Some remains of the Qumran site. This is the pottery shed.

Mikveh steps.

Walls of one of the mikvehs.

Do I see some caves carved into the cliffs?

Looking East from the archeological remains, we see the Dead Sea in the distance.

Floating in the Dead Sea