Shavua Tov to all! My ascent to Jerusalem has begun, there are so many thing to see that you do not know where to start. The pictures are many and I have not had a real sorting. So by the time I chose some insight or detail to try to make you understand the air you breathe. I hope you understand this emotion even with pictures. The love you let me know! 
the evening fell on Jerusalem, which seem to doze off slowly after the Shabbat evening prayers, silence fell too on the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre after the Via Crucis, which is repeated every Friday by Franciscan friars. 
This morning I went to Bethlehem to visit the Church of the Nativity. Well yes I carry forward in Advent ..
altar from the nave under the Orthodox, there is a small door with stairs leading to a small chapel / underground cave where you can breathe a strong smell of incense and the temperature is much higher for the effect of the numerous candles.
E 'was a great experience one of the most important of the Earth is in a small cave from the ceiling blackened by the candles and incense. It 's true that the smallest things in the most beautiful things are born. There it all began:
From the Gospel according to Luke: [1] In those days a decree from Caesar Augustus ordered that a census should be of the whole earth. [2] This was the first enrollment made when Quirinius was governor of Syria. [3] all went to be enrolled, each to his city. [4] Even Joseph, who was of the house and lineage of David, from the town of Nazareth in Galilee for Judaea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, [5] to be enrolled with Mary his wife, she was pregnant. [6] And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. [7] she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the.
Yes, after the initial hesitation to understand the new laws of physics that ruled the Dead Sea. Floating here has its rules that Archimedes would have found it hard to understand. It 's even hard to stay upright. 
The fort was besieged by Legio X Fretensis Flavio Sergio and other 7000 men for the most part slaves, as inaccessible as an eagle's nest, for almost three years, was built a rampart (sort of limes often two feet, still visible today) and an embankment seventy feet that rose up from below the walls of the fortress.
Realizing the imminent defeat, since the Romans were finally able to open a breach in the walls, the Zealot leader Eleazar Ben Yair, spoke to his people by inducing them to a collective suicide by the sword (drawn at random to groups, are in fact were still pieces of earthenware with written names drawn by lot, the men of the community, killing women and children then took off his life story) and this seemed to be a lot preferable to a secure state of slavery.
When the last resistance fell while the city was in flames, were to save only a few children and two women who had been hiding in a ravine to escape death. The Romans were thus able to enter Masada in now without defense, surprised to what happened, become a silent tribute to the brave resistance.
After his seizure, Masada remained in the hands of the Romans to the Byzantine era to be discovered over a century and a half ago to become a symbol the Zionist cause. Israeli army recruits today are conducted on site to take the oath of allegiance to the cry of "Nevermore Masada fall" .
Masada was partially reconstructed and has become one of the most important archaeological sites in Israel thanks to the excavations carried out since the early '60s under the guidance by the archaeologist Yigael Yadin. Were brought to light the remains of the fortress are clear signs of Roman military camps, with mosaics of high quality bathrooms and even boulders launched from catapults. As a sign of employment zealot is only a small synagogue, while more recent, dating from the fifth century. is a basilica built by Byzantine monks of penitence.
