Day 18 of Andy’s month-long ‘Spiritual Journey to Israel & Palestine… Most of Day 18’s experiences have been previously shared—the glorious Sunday Morning Sunrise float in the Dead Sea—and the personal Biblical Moment of being baptized (again) in the Jordan River, this time at Qasr Al Yahud where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist—and venturing into Jericho and riding the cable cars (or locally known as the Telepherique) up to the Mount of Temptations where the devil tempted Jesus three times after he fasted 40 days and 40 nights in the desert.
Still a day so transformational that it is vivid in my mind and spirit!
Funny how things work out or at least how we think they work out as God may have already planned it for us… so it was about 200 kilometers or about three hours driving time up along the Dead Sea from Neve Zohar to Tiberias where my bed was that night. It was a Sunday and I knew I would get up and go for a ‘swim’ in the Dead Sea, come back, shower, check out & head north. I wasn’t sure if I would leave Route 90 as I was not sure my rental car would be insured off the main highway in the West Bank. Qasr Al Yahud was likely, Jericho was not.
So I headed north hoping I would find a church service on a Sunday morning but did not. I was drawn to Qasr Al Yahud to just sit there on the bank of the Jordan River watching surges of loaded pilgrim buses coming and then leaving. It was a tranquil site duplicated to some extent on the other side of the Jordan in Jordan which is more like a stream or creek than a river. Those on the other side were a bit more organized and sang a great deal as the baptisms took place.
Quite miraculously a group of about ten young men, high school age, from an academy in Wisconsin appeared in my corner. Their priest was with them and he was there to give them a sermon on John the Baptist baptizing Jesus right here in the Jordan River. It occurred to me that he was there to give me a sermon too as this was to be my Sunday mass. He spoke about humbleness and how we were all baptized as children but now as adults we need to reaffirm, recommit our faith in God, Jesus, and The Holy Spirit. Like the rainbow above the Sea of Galilee prepared me for baptism at Yardenit only a week or so earlier, this sermon prepared me for baptism at Qasr Al Yahud which I did after the boys from Wisconsin had left.
Renewed I thought why not go into the oldest city in all of civilization and see what I could find. I found the Old City of Jericho where trumpets brought the walls down. I took the cable cars up to the Mount of Temptation and saw all of Jericho laid out before me. Haven’t I via my ego been so insidiously tempted by the Devil at times throughout my life only to be redeemed by my faith in Jesus Christ and the Resurrection! Maybe that is all there is to our human life, the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations and somewhere between the Alpha and the Omega we move on from the alpha ultimately making it to the Omega all too soon.
And then the Omega becomes the eternal Alpha, the graduation from this human life to the commencement of our eternal life. Oh what a divine life design comes to us in faith through Jesus and The Holy Spirit. Our spirited and powerful journey through life all guided by Our Father. Amen! Alleluia! This spirit of this day following the Jordan River upstream from the Dead Sea to the Sea of Galilee will remain with me forever.
(Andy Reistetter; Facebook Post with 40 Pics; 2/6/18)
The Mount of Beatitudes is right there above Capernaum on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. One could sense Jesus walking up with his disciples (many disciples including the 12 Apostles) from his home with Peter in Capernaum and sharing his heartfelt essence of the good human life! The Son of God gave his Sermon on the Mount of Beatitudes early in his ministry after being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, fasting for 40 days in the desert and outlasting the devil, and being chased out of Nazareth when he declared that he indeed is the Messiah prophesized by Isaiah in the Old Testament.
I leave and am heading out of town… planning to go west to my Airbnb bed near Nazareth… I see these unbelievable sunrays in the sky pointing to the east… I take theSsunrays as a God-Send… still an hour or so of daylight so I head east and follow them… though hill and valley… with the cows in the field… down the curvy road past the Mount of the Beatitudes… all the way to the Sea of Galilee and into Capernaum Jesus’ hometown after He left Nazareth… I visit Tabgha where Jesus fed 5,000 people with a seven loaves of bread and a few small fishes (Matthew 15:34)…… this was a 30-minute ride over 26 kms long… do you think I will be reading that book on the plane home? TROML Baby (an exclamation of joy)! Finished the day sneaking into Arbel Cliffs National Park at sunset before finding my bed in Cana—my Penthouse above the Palace!
PS: earlier in the trip I witnessed a 180 degree rainbow on the Sea of Galilee (video included)! How does one interpret this experience? From Ascent Synagogue to Jesus’ Miracles?… our religions are so spiritually intertwined… I was hosted by a warm & loving extended Muslim family that evening… I think all religions and spiritualties are intertwined… ALL including Baha’i, Hinduism, Buddhism, ETC., ETC…
Move—Out Day; Moving—On Day after two nights in the luxurious ‘Penthouse on top of a Palace’ in Cana! First though I have to pay my parking ticket! So off I go to find the DMV! LOL, no DMV in Israel! Sort of a Ground Hog Movie sort of day but this time I pass by Mash’had on my way up the hill out of Cana to the South. 
So the adventure continues. People are out walking, I am taking my pictures, minding my own business, driving along a nice parkway and trying to find the Post Office of New Nazareth to pay my parking ticket! Then I get pulled over by Israeli Police. I play tourist surprised that one cannot be taking pictures while driving along. I plead my ignorance, they let me go and give me better directions to the elusive Nazareth Post Office. Imagine that almost got another ticket while trying to pay the first ticket. At least I know better now that parking at the McDonald’s in New Nazareth is not free! Things have changed since the days of Jesus! I probably would have been stoned by now and I do not mean happily being on morphine when I check out of this world!
I recognize the neighborhood where I am and see the dome of the Church of the Annunciation where Mary learned that she was to me the Mother of Jesus. I go around the traffic circle with the fountain in it a couple of times for good luck and to get me headed back in the right direction! I park and pay and go into the Post Office. All business, no opportunity to plead my case that parking directly outside a McDonald’s anywhere in the world should be free! I pay the fine and can no longer recall the amount though it was substantial for a parking ticket.
On the way to Acre I saw an exit sign for Kefar Masaryk. Masaryk is a name familiar to me from my Czechoslovakian heritage. Sure enough the founders were Jewish immigrants from Czechoslovakia and Lithuania, who settled in Israel in 1932. In 1940 the kibbutz moved to its present site and was renamed Kefar Masaryk after Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first President of Czechoslovakia! Definitely a stop on my next visit to Israel with the home of finding some tasty kolachi!
After I paid my respects to Baháʼu’lláhm inside his shrine and toured the lovely gardens I headed west to Mediterranean Sea and then North to the Lebanon border. The drive north was only about 15 miles. Everything is close by in the Middle East, at least in the western portion of the Middle East!
Interesting enough up ahead in the other direction, towards the sea, it appears t be some sort of scenic lookout so this is the direction I decide to continue on a bit. Signs of welcoming lead me to the Rosh Hanikra Grottoes, a tourist destination! I pay the entrance fee, take a very short gondola-like ride down to sea level and go inside the Big Grotto.
I decided to take a ride east, as North as possible, through the mountains back to Safed. When I was there two days ago I did not have a copy of my books for Rabbi Leiter who runs the Ascent School. Only 30 or so miles but because of the terrain it would take an hour or so. Once there I dropped off the inscribed books and took the main road 85 back west to the Mediterranean Coast.
As it turns out my timing was perfect to have a latte and catch the sunset at the beach in Acre. A spectacular sunset I may add and sort of a celebratory one too! I would be leaving in less than a week and spending three nights in the Old City of Jerusalem. For the most part, I knew the cross-country trip to Safed would be my last open exploration in Israel. I had covered most of the country and gone to some distant parts such as the Golan Heights and Negev Desert. But I also knew my inner exploration was not over by a long shot as I would be living in the Old City with 20,000 other Christians, Jews, and Muslims for three nights!
On the beach in Acre I could see over to the North the ancient and biblical city of Old Acre. Sure to be fascinating, I added it to the list of things to see and experience for my next Spiritual Journey to Israel and Palestine!
I woke up in Haifa heading to my last 3 nights of the Spiritual Journey to Israel & Palestine in the Old City of Jerusalem! A spiritual ending to a Spiritual Journey!
I was very interested in seeing the Stella Maris Monastery right across the street! Also called Our Lady of Mount Carmel, it is a 19th-century Carmelite monastery. It all started right here on the slopes of Mount Carmel in the 12th century with religious hermits (my kind of people) began to inhabit the local caves imitating Elijah the Prophet. Fast forward to 1836 when the current church and monastery was opened. Three years later Pope Gregory XVI bestowed the title of Minor Basilica on the sanctuary, and it is now known “Stella Maris”, meaning Star of the Sea. My Roman Catholic parish back in Ponte Vedra Beach is Our Lady Star of the Sea too! Just a different sea!
One sign read “Mount Carmel—A Temple to Encounter God Face-to-Face so right there and then I decided that while I missed out on The Cave of Elijah I would not miss out on an Encounter with God Face-to-Face and decided to venture up to the top of Mount Carmel on my way to Jerusalem! No easy driving task I would find out but then again nothing should be easy when seeking God!
It was a slow winding road passing cyclists along the way. What I thought was my destination was a Memorial to the victims of the worst natural disaster in Israeli history—the December 2010 Carmel Forest fire which killed 44 people and burned 12,000 acres and turned five million trees into ash. Close by is where fire trapped and burned a bus carrying cadets from the Israel Prison Service sent to evacuate prisoners from the path of the blaze. Quite a moving Memorial Site.
The pavement turns into a dirt road. I find myself in some sort of park with a circular dirt road along the edge of the mountain top. Beautiful scenic views but definitely not Mount Carmel. Time to head to Jerusalem and on my way back through town I learn a little but more about the Druze and their Hospitality Houses!
Before taking that left turn to Jerusalem I stop on the highway for gas and have lunch at another one of my favorite restaurants—the Green Cafe. Not the best ambiance at a highway stop but the food is good, fresh, & healthy! 
My first find after exiting is the Orthodox Jewish Enclave of Kiryat Telshe Stone or Kiryat Ye-arim which is mentioned in the Bible as the site where the Ark of the Covenant had been kept for 20 years before being taken to Jerusalem by King David. It is Saturday now, the Sabbath and being an ultra-Orthodox Jewish town neither my car nor I am allowed entry. I park down the street and walk back to observe and take in this place of immense Biblical proportions. The Ark of the Covenant was basically the traveling Temple for the nomadic Jews coming out of Egypt on the way to the Promised Land.
Per Wikipedia; this modern community was established in 1973 by a group of students and teachers from Yeshivat Telz in America. Despite the official name of “Kiryat Yearim”, it is widely known as Telz-Stone, after the yeshiva and American Greetings founder-chairman Irving I. Stone, who helped to finance the community’s early development. Our world is a very diverse and integrated, highly connective place!
I follow the signs to a dead end on top of the hill. Two beautiful ladies, one young and one old, full of life, somehow communicate to me that this is the back entrance and I need to go back down the hill to find the visitor’s entrance. Which I do and then ring the bell and the gate opens wide. Life is good, life is easy when you are lost and ask for help!
Holy Ground indeed plus a large, oversized Statue of the Blessed & Holy Mother holding Baby Jesus! The Virgin Mary rendition of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro! Wow, an intact 5th Century mosaic floor! No, I did not walk on it. I obeyed the sign! Thank you Sister for the beautiful tour of the Church of Notre Dame.
Onward to Jerusalem to find my bed for the next three nights inside the walls of the Old City at the Christ Church Guesthouse. This being my fourth journey to Jerusalem, the last two weeks ago, also arriving on a Saturday Sabbath. 
There is a lot more of history, religion, and spirituality to take in over the next three days. Arriving after dark I took a stroll to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Then I passed by a Shishkebab restaurant which reminded me of my Dad because he used that word all the time. I chose Al Sultan Restaurant and Cafe and had a wonderful dinner of sheep cheese fried, a falafel, and baklawa and Arabic Coffee for dessert. Maybe you can read my fortune in the bottom of my coffee cup?
