All Episodes
Previous Next
Oct. 14, 2023 - Human Events Daily - Jack Posobiec
49:42
EPISODE 582: HOLY LAND SPECIAL
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
I want to take a second to remind you to sign up for the Pozo Daily Brief.
It is completely free.
It'll be one email that's sent to you every day.
You can stop the endless scrolling, trying to find out what's going on in your world.
We will have this delivered directly to you, totally for free.
Go to humanevents.com slash Pozo.
Sign up today.
It's called the Pozo Daily Brief.
Read what I read for show prep.
You will not regret it.
humanevents.com slash Pozo.
Totally free.
the Pozo Daily Brief.
We are in a fifth generational conflict.
A commentator, international social media sensation, and former Navy intelligence veteran.
This is Human Events with your host, Jack Posobiec.
Deliver us from evil!
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard today's edition of Human Events Daily.
So about a year ago, we did a very special episode here on Human Events.
And I say here, but it wasn't actually here, because we went to the Holy Land, and we conducted a 10-day visit, traveled to many of the sites that you might be hearing about now on the news, that you might be hearing about when you've read about Israel, read about the Holy Land, read about Jerusalem.
We went there.
It was the second time we had gone.
I took my whole family, went with Turning Point USA, and I went with my brother, and we sat down and put together an entire special called the Holy Land Special, so Human Events Daily Holy Land Special.
And on a week like this, On a week where we've seen so much brutality, so much destruction, so much evil, I wanted to show people the importance of the Holy Land and the importance of where Jesus walked with his own feet here on planet Earth.
Where he died, where he's buried, where he rose again, Why it's important, and why we still remember it, and why we still care about it.
So, I'd like to replay that for you now today.
The Human Events Special, The Holy Land.
Kevin and I are here in downtown Jerusalem.
We've just spent one week here in the Holy Land together.
The rest of the family was with us, the boys.
My wife, the beautiful and lovely Tanya Tay, my parents, got him out.
We even got dad off the couch, you know, got him in.
He came out and he walked and climbed all over, all over every site we took him to here like a champ, like an absolute champ.
great with the kids, everything else, but really give you an understanding of why it was that we came to the Holy Land, what we experienced while we were here.
Some of the, of course, if you remember when we went to Ukraine, I focused more on the political military situation, whereas Kev focused more on sort of what was going on the ground, How are supplies run?
How do people live?
How are things built and rebuilt and the construction and all of this?
And of course, that's still going on as we record this.
Even the city of Mykolaiv, where we visited, is still under attack as of right now.
This time around we had the opportunity, thanks to Turning Point USA, to bring us to the Holy Land.
So I'm so gracious for Turning Point for having the ability to help us out with that.
So essentially what we did was a Figure eight, if you want to think of it that way.
We sort of did the Dead Sea, then up to Galilee, then back down to the site of Christ's baptism, and then back across to Jerusalem for the end.
So let's say, so now I've been here once before, just to set the stage.
So Tonya and I did our honeymoon here in Israel.
But Kevin, this is your first time to the Middle East.
Sure is.
At all.
So you should tell me, what was it like What was it like just getting off the airplane, getting in the car, and driving across the desert that first night?
Because we drove the first night all the way from the airport in Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion Airport, all the way to the Dead Sea.
And then we slept on the shores of the Dead Sea that first night.
Well I tell you I mean we've done so much on this on this adventure it's hard to even recall actually but the trip driving over like a blur yeah like a blur it feels like I've been here like a month and a lot of people are actually saying that too but that's great I mean driving over though it was it was pretty beautiful I mean clear skies the stars were out like And you could tell we were definitely in the desert.
Not too much light pollution there.
No light pollution.
Nope.
But yeah, it was a lot of fun driving over.
And of course, I cranked.
It felt like when we were in Denver or California.
It wasn't like the Swiss Alps, but you could see the rolling hills.
It was night.
Yeah, it was night time, of course.
However, the one difference was that I found whatever Jordanian radio channel I could find, then plugged it in and cranked it all the way to the max.
The entire two hours of driving.
I had no idea what they were saying.
I have a theory that it's actually all just one song on a loop.
That was my theory.
It's like house music, you know, where they just do the one song, and it's loop, loop, loop, loop, loop, loop.
And of course, Dad's sitting there.
You got rhythm, you got rhythm.
Oh, we had Dad in the car, too.
That was the whole experience.
What are you stopping here for?
No, turn.
No, go this way.
No, I go that way.
What are you doing?
The backseat driver.
The definition.
If any of you guys out there have a Polish dad or, you know, a Slavic father, you'll know exactly what it is.
Totally.
Like, yeah, no dad, I'm good.
Captain Google right here is taking care of me.
Got the SIM card.
You know, I've been here before, as a matter of fact.
So, you know, I have a basic idea of my bearings.
Stubborn as a rusty nail, I guess.
Exactly.
Ladies and gentlemen, one of the best ways that you can support us here at Human Events and the work that we do is subscribing to us on our Rumble channel.
Make sure you're subscribed, you hit the notifications so you'll never miss a clip, you'll never miss a new live episode, and we're putting them out every single day of the week.
When I grew up in the hood, I rolled with Bloods, and them boys had a saying.
You can't be listening to all that slappy whack, Trimada's all it's a bam ship, nippy bam bam, like Human Events with Jack Posobiec.
And we're back, Human Events Daily.
For 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider.
And when I say only, trust me, I mean they are the only one.
Glenn and the team have been great supporters of this show.
That's why I am proud to partner with them.
Patriot Mobile offers dependable nationwide coverage, giving you the ability to access all three major networks, which means you get the same coverage you've been accustomed to without funding the left.
When you switch to Patriot Mobile, you're sending a message that you support free speech, religious freedom, the sanctity of life, the Second Amendment, and our military veterans and first responder heroes.
Their 100% U.S.-based customer service team makes switching easy.
Keep your phone or upgrade.
Their team will help you find the best plan for your needs.
Just go to patriotmobile.com slash poso and you'll get free activation when you use promo code poso.
Join me, make the switch today, patriotmobile.com slash poso.
That's patriotmobile.com slash poso.
So we finally stopped at Beersheba, the first place, which was of course where Abraham dug the well.
It was a watering hole back in those times, back in biblical times.
And in a sense it kind of still is today because that's your main stop while you're going across the desert.
So I thought that was interesting.
It made me think a lot about how... So when you come to the Holy Land, you actually traverse
This terrain you it gives you an understanding of the Bible that it's hard to have without having this this tactile feel of what it actually means to cross the desert of Samaria what it means to go from Galilee to Judea to Jerusalem to come from Nazareth to to be in Bethlehem right this idea that you know when you're when you're coming through a desert
And there's only one well, you know, of course, everybody's going to be fighting over that.
Of course, that's going to be extremely important.
It's going to be something that it makes sense, right?
So it makes sense why that well or Jerusalem or some of the other main sites have become so many friction points back then, even as, in a sense, as they still are today.
Maybe not for the same exact reasons, but early on, You really get that understanding of the whole Jordan River Valley, and then some of these wells, some of these areas where you could have water, or could have just any kind of sustenance.
Because you gotta imagine, they're not driving the Mazda, or I don't even remember what we had, all the way through the desert.
They had nothing.
They had camels, they had donkeys, and that's it.
Horses?
Not really.
Probably not.
So you're just traveling through and that's all you got.
It gives you more of an appreciation, too, for understanding.
For us, it was a long night.
But imagine them actually having to sleep out there.
But then again, that's where the Desert Fathers were.
Right.
From the Book of Hebrews.
Exactly.
Where they gained much of their wisdom and experience.
Well, you learn a lot, right?
And there were some days where You know you couldn't even compare it but just some days where we were out walking a lot and getting up maybe we should we should even talk about the next the next we'll talk about in a second but what it was like Getting a little taste of that, just a little taste of that.
Nothing major, but what was it like when, I remember, because we stayed in that guest house that we found on the Dead Sea, and I don't think you realized how close we were when you woke up.
So what was it like waking up, stepping outside the front door of the courtyard, turning right, and then boom, palm trees, the Dead Sea is sitting right there, Jordan across in the mountains.
Yeah, it was it was breathtaking.
I mean, honestly, I went out the night.
That's right.
You went out the night off.
It was a full moon.
I brought my rosary with me.
Went out on this little man-made peninsula.
Watched the guys working and I got to see all like the calcified rocks along the shoreline.
It was pretty moving.
And the wind was blowing.
Very romantic.
I get a criticism of that.
Romantic kind of guy.
The atmosphere was very special and moving.
But yeah, I just took my time out there.
And prayed, and it felt very different.
And that's kind of the theme of this whole trip.
You can ask the whole group.
Everybody is saying this is a lot different than any other previous event.
There's like a spirit in the air.
Absolutely.
And even there, that's the lowest point, the Dead Sea, the lowest surface point on the face of the Earth.
That you can walk, and then that sea of course doesn't hold anything, but in the southern end, we were staying on the southern end, and they actually have a lot of excavation that goes on there to get the salt out.
Yeah.
So that they get it up, and that's what we saw was dredgers and excavators, and they were just pulling the salt out.
Yeah, I didn't read too much about that yet, but there's apparently some work being done now to convert it to energy.
There is.
I forget the name of it, but that came up as I was So they've divvied up with Jordan, who's on the other side, and they're finding ways to actually try to turn that into electric plants.
Because of course, energy, just like before, living in the desert has its own set of realities that you have to figure out if you're going to spend time out there.
It's unlike any other body of water I've ever been in.
I put my hand in and it felt like there's like, there's, remember back in the day there's machines like you put your hand in and it like covers it in wax?
No.
Okay, well.
What were you doing covering your hand in wax?
Not a lot of things.
Okay.
You don't know about that.
But it just felt like oil, or like hyssop, anointing oil.
What else did you get waxed, Kev?
What else did you get waxed?
Well, I got something on my shoulder last night.
Yeah, I know you got something.
I heard mom talking about that.
You might have to subscribe to get to see that.
Subscribe, that's an Instagram exclusive?
Yeah.
Okay, did you actually film it?
A number of people did, yeah.
Oh boy, here we go.
Instagram exclusive, folks.
Coming out pretty soon.
Okay, I've got some new bumper stickers.
So we're coming through the Dead Sea, wake up, first morning, we're there.
And I think we got a great photo, actually, of Mom and Dad just sort of walking towards the Dead Sea, and I just thought it was great for them, for everybody, and I would say this for the rest of the trip, but You gotta come at least once.
You gotta come at least once, see it, experience it, walk those stones, see those places.
There's so many variables.
Everywhere is so close to a border, and you look across and you see Jordan.
Multiple times throughout the trip.
But there's, yeah, so many, so many... It's not big.
...moments like that.
Right, it's not, the whole country's about the size of New Jersey.
Yeah, Jersey.
It's not, it's not big.
I mean, you can do the whole thing up and down in a week, ten days, give or take.
We stopped at the Cave of Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.
There's various stories about how they were discovered.
But the idea was back in the 1940s, they went into this cave, and they found that this group of I'm talking about the Essenes.
So the Essenes had preserved these scrolls at this time and did so in such a way on leather.
And because, again, this is right off the Dead Sea, one of the driest places in the entire world.
So because it was on leather, they were preserved in clay jars, and it's one of the driest and most arid places in the world, plus in a cave, so protected from the elements, that these 2,000 year old scrolls were found, and to the point where you could even still read them.
It's ancient Hebrew, but you could still read them, and they contain the oldest copies of the Bible that we still have, that have ever been found.
Yeah, just tying in the fact, like, the theory comes out, and then about the cosmic airburst.
Right.
But they find the Dead Sea Scrolls, and then bring the oldest translations to the Dead Sea Scrolls, put them together, And the words match exactly.
Right, that's exactly right.
So they brought the translations of the current Bible, as we have it, and compared it to Dead Sea Scrolls, so obviously if there were some, hey, these are receipts, and so we'd now be able to know these are the closest to the actual source writings that exist.
And it turns out that guess what?
It was the same writing.
So that means that the process of the preservation of the Bible that went on through the centuries, through the ages, the Middle Ages, and in the Middle Ages in Europe, for example, I mean, it really was the only people that were doing reading and writing.
That was the priests.
That was the monks.
That was the monasteries.
They were the ones, the Franciscans, the Benedictines, they were the ones that were keeping all of this going on for hundreds of years at that point and really carried that light all the way through those ages.
Yeah.
So you didn't have, you know, printing presses and this is where you get your illuminated manuscripts and your codexes.
Illuminated stained glass too.
Stained glass, that's true.
For people who were illiterate.
Right.
And the magnificence of the structure itself.
Gothic architecture and mostly just sustained glass.
I don't want to get into like different styles, but the paintings, the large paintings.
Or at the Vatican, the statue, everything.
Everything.
The most gorgeous artwork in the world.
They relied on art rather than literacy.
And so the point though is that They were able to find these scrolls.
The scrolls matched.
So it says, hey, the translations were correct.
It was handed down to us properly.
We can now go back.
We can roll back that clock another 2,000 years.
They were even scared to publish it.
Remember he said that too?
For like four or five years.
Well, that's pretty much any academic study, though.
Sure.
They'll be that way.
But if the Bible had different stories in the beginning, it would change the foundation.
Well, there is one interesting angle to this that One of the scrolls found at Qumran was the Book of Enoch.
the scroll of Isaiah, they had all the major prophets, but one of the scrolls found at Qumram was the Book of Enoch.
- You mentioned that.
- Yeah. - And the tour guide said that was a little valagon.
Yeah, he said it was a balagan.
So, one of the issues with this, of course, is that the Book of Enoch is considered apocrypha by every major church, every major Jewish sect that doesn't, you know, doesn't consider it to be valid.
These are influencers, and they're friends of mine.
Jack Posobiec.
Where's Jack?
Jack.
He's done a great job.
We're back.
Human Events Daily, Jack Posobiec.
I want to tell you guys about today's sponsor, Chalk.
Chalk is the one supplement on the market that boosts strength and testosterone in ways that haven't been seen since 2016.
It boosts your energy, balances your hormones, it's organic, it's all natural.
You'll feel the difference.
Trust me, they have the clinical studies to back it up.
And I use it myself.
Watching human events, it's going to strengthen your mind.
Chalk is going to help you strengthen your body.
Chalk has been on my radar since they had their Instagram deleted against them because they were speaking out against communist censorship.
So if you're looking to improve your energy levels, chalk should be on your radar too.
Right now, you can try their male vitality stack for 35% off.
Just go to chalk.com Chalk.com spelled C-H-O-Q and use promo code POSO for 35% off any Chalk subscription for life.
They're manufactured in the US by Patriots so that you can reclaim your energy and vitality from the deep state, the globalists, or big pharma commies.
That's why Chalk.com is there for you.
Chalk.com, C-H-O-Q.com, promo code POSO.
The Essenes clearly thought that there was some importance to it and so they kept it safe.
And one of the interesting pieces of the Book of Enoch, and we can find in the New Testament and Old Testament, there are references and words that seem to have been taken from this Book of Enoch, which You know, that makes sense.
I mean, I've got books at home that aren't the Bible, right?
Sure.
You know, so it certainly was something that was floating around at this time, but probably one of the most One of the passages in it that stands out the most, and one of the writings, is the fact that it talks about the dealings of the creation of demigods.
This idea that fallen angels were co-mingling, if you will, with human women and creating a race of hybrid beings.
And if you go to Genesis 6, Genesis 6 says that these were the Nephilim.
And the Nephilim, which the King James Version translates.
Translates as giants.
Yeah.
That they were the great heroes and the great warriors of old.
And then there's other versions, there's other subdivisions of the Nephilim.
The Rephaim is one of these.
And there's thought that Goliath was one of the descendants of the Nephilim at one point.
And it says that this was in the days before the flood.
So it could be, and there's a lot of scholarship on this, it could be that one of the reasons of the flood was to wipe out the Nephilim in the first instance.
Because they were never intended to be created.
That this was something that was outside of God's creation, that the angels And the fallen angels and humans were creating together.
I guess that would fit into the context of like the world was like covered with sin.
It's plausible.
Yeah, right.
And then so the theory goes a little bit further even that the reason that the fallen angels were doing this was because they knew that the Messiah was to come from humanity and that to come from men and that They knew that the Messiah would have domination over them, and so because they didn't want that to happen, because they thought that maybe they could put a wrench in
God's design because, of course, you can't... It's interesting.
If you want to overthrow God, they talk about the rebellion of heaven.
So, of course, you couldn't defeat God.
Nothing could defeat... What are you going to do?
Are you going to throw something at him?
You know, you can't but you could come into creation and of course we know the first instance of being deceptive, the serpent, tempting you with sin, of course these are ways to
To defile creation and to tempt humans into sin, but another way that at one point the Bible says, and this is, Genesis 6 is in the Bible, the Nephilim, and this is referring to this idea that a hybrid race was created in order to try to stop the creation of the Messiah.
You keep mentioning the word creation too though, but what did Noah bring on the ark?
Right.
And what didn't he bring?
What didn't he bring?
Yes.
We all know who took out Goliath though, right?
King David.
Who just got back from there.
Who just visited his tomb, that's right.
So this is a connection.
This is a connection to some of the stuff that goes even further back.
I mean, everything here is connected.
After the flood.
That's after the flood.
It was after the flood.
And so the theory goes a little bit further even that says that if you did the book of Joshua, if you take this reading of it, then that means the book of Joshua, they're not just fighting other tribes.
They're fighting giants.
And they're clearing the land of Cana of these giants.
And so that some had survived, and maybe not giants in the, you know, sort of cartoon version, but maybe just larger, stronger, more powerful, perhaps having some kind of supernatural or spiritual... Yeah, well, even in our life, not our lifetime, but Andre the Giant wasn't even a hundred years ago.
Well, so there's two... It's gigantism, or it's a scientific mutation.
There's two translations.
Even on Goliath, there's two translations of his height.
One of the translations has his height as about six foot nine.
So, big.
Very big.
The other translation has his height as about nine foot nine.
Which would be an actual giant.
Yeah.
Something Not human.
And so, it's an interesting take, and I don't know that I endorse it, but that's the explanation of it.
But getting back to it, so, away from the Dead Sea Scrolls as we're going through the land... By the way, we did go to Mount Bental, so I did look for King Og while I was up there in King Og's Bed.
Another one of the potential giants.
The land of Bashan.
That...
So we climbed Masada.
We did.
We climbed Masada.
We definitely did.
Actually, that was one of my first reflections of seeing the history of Masada and reading Maccabees along the way, is that these people fled from Romans, but they still fought with such ferocity, with nothing.
They didn't have cell phones, they didn't have technology.
They barely had water, they had food, they had family, and they had traditions.
And that's all what Maccabees is about.
Defying the king.
Let's explain what Masada is for people who don't know what it is.
So Masada is this huge castle fortress, it's actually a resort of King Herod the Great, that was built on the banks of the Dead Sea.
It was built just after, or, well, I should say it was built just before the time of Christ.
So it's about 2,000 years old.
It's concurrent with Christ.
But this revolt that Kevin is talking about took place just after, about 70 AD, one of the Jewish revolts.
And this is, of course, when the temple was destroyed by the Romans.
First temple was destroyed by the Babylonians.
But during this time, King Herod had built a giant palace on top of a mountain, all the way out in the desert, all the way overlooking the Dead Sea.
And it's still there today.
The ruins are still there.
You can go.
You can visit.
There's a path on the way up that you can climb.
It's called the Snake Path.
We did it!
We did the snake path.
There's another path that's even longer.
It takes like three hours to get up.
And then there's the Roman ramp, which is around the backside.
So when the Romans attacked, they built this ramp.
You can still see it today.
And there's a cable car, of course, for the kids.
And so when the Zealots, who were there essentially staying away from the Romans, they We're able to hold out for three years, three years, under siege from the Romans in this palace on the top of a mountain in the middle of the desert, middle of the desert, with nothing other than the supplies that they had brought with them.
So they had a cistern up there, but no running water, keep in mind, just on the top of Masada.
Yeah, it just brought this up too.
This is from the Tomb of King David.
Just to emphasize how they fought.
It says, and I should merit to be bold like a leopard, light as an eagle, run like a deer, and strong as a lion, to do the desire of our Father in Heaven.
I don't know if that's... Is that from Maccabees?
It's from this prayer.
They give it to everybody that enters, but comparatively to the United States of America, and like, if we had an enemy force, like, attack us.
We kind of mentioned it in the last podcast, but like, where's our unity?
Where's our, like, pride?
And if anything, it's a fantastic example.
You probably have half the people in the U.S.
basically say, oh, well, it's probably better than our stupid racist, anti-immigrant, anti-woman, capitalist government.
And you'd almost think that some of the people in the U.S.
today might welcome a change of government.
Right.
Right.
Which, of course, is As you go through the Holy Land, you find out that one of the pieces of history here, and obviously gets into the current situation, is that You know, we are, this land has gone through so many changes in terms of who's in charge of it, whether it be the Israelites, whether it be the Babylonians, whether it be the Neo-Babylonians, whether it be Rome, whether it be Byzantium, whether it be the Ottoman Turks, the British, okay?
And now it is a sovereign state again.
And so it's really a story of just constant cycles of change.
It's an example of Having faith and your traditions till the end, like how how the battle ended, even when the Romans came, they did not surrender.
No, they did not.
And so at the end, rather than surrender, rather than being taken into captivity, they did.
They decided to take their own lives in Masada.
And it was I think there were some some women and children were the only ones at the very end who were left when the Romans came up.
So we climbed it, and we made sure that we weren't taking no cable car.
That's for sure.
And that being said, we took the Snake Path.
Honestly, Snake Path wasn't that bad.
Do you think it was that bad?
No, it was easy.
It was about a mile, but maybe half a mile up, and it took us 35 minutes, I believe.
35 minutes, yep.
Stop buzzing in my ear about the boring people at your office.
I'm trying to listen to the new human events with Jack Posobiec.
Alright, Jack Pacific back.
Folks, any day now, Big Pharma and Biden, they are going to pull the trigger on another drug that doesn't deliver.
Meanwhile, there are a ton of health supplements out there that underperform, which is why I am excited to tell you about StrongCell.
StrongCell is a daily liquid supplement that combines the power of NADH, CoQ10, and collagen.
Now, why is this important?
Studies show that NADH has been known to improve mental clarity, alertness, concentration, and memory.
And because of its role in energy production, NADH is also used for improving energy production and treating chronic fatigue.
But that's not all.
NADH has been used to slow the overall aging process, reduces cravings, it boosts your immunity, and it works.
Just ask Joe Rogan.
I use StrongCell and I want you to discover the benefits today.
Being that StrongCell works in your body at the cellular level, we recommend you try the one month option so you have time to feel the difference.
Go to strongcell.com slash poso and get 20% off today with promo code poso.
That's strongcell.com slash poso.
I don't know that I would have taken the kids, even Jack-Jack at age four.
We did take both the kids through Hezekiah's tunnels.
Yes, we did.
That was just an amazing experience.
You know, this ancient aqueduct under the old city of Jerusalem.
Actually doing a pilgrimage too is like walking and yeah, that's kind of lost in the modern day, but like Working and sacrificing as like a way of penance and like a prayer to God even without your words without all like your beautiful phrases or Instagram posts or whatever just like Just walking, you know, as like an offer to God.
Like up the mountain and doing things like that.
Hezekiah's Tunnel, by the way, the water comes up to your waist just about.
Without accolades, right?
Without accolades.
I felt like it was pure.
And the kids loved it up there.
They loved the castle.
They loved the ruins.
They were having a great time.
They loved Ein Gedi a little better.
They did.
And so after that, we went to the beautiful and very special oasis of Ein Gedi.
If you have time, if you're visiting the Dead Sea, do not skip Ein Gedi.
This was, so this was by the way, the oasis where King David hid out after King Saul was going after him.
And it's this gorgeous oasis right off the, essentially the side of the Dead Sea, about halfway down from the northern part of it.
And you walk in and you climb through.
It's, it's some of the most It's pure, fresh water that you'll ever see, and it's coming through the desert, it's filtered all the way through, through the sandstone, and it's fresh.
So it's not like the saltwater of the Dead Sea.
It's all fresh.
I think it's the closest large freshwater source to anywhere near the Dead Sea.
And so there's trees there, there's plants, and you walk up and there's a series of about a dozen waterfalls as you go all the way up.
And then the final waterfall you arrive at is King David's Waterfall.
Yeah.
And so we went through... It was fit for a king.
It was fit for a king, yeah.
Quite majestic.
So we went through and we saw, we took the kids in, and oh yeah, we went in the water, we did all of it, and drank the water, and... Yeah, there's like bushes I had growing over the stream, and they like cut through, so it was like a tunnel.
It created basically like a natural cave, almost.
Like a natural cave and a tunnel, that at some point you had the water, I was glad I had my waterproof boots, that You walk through the natural tunnel.
And then at one point, of course, there was two routes.
And it said one was the wet route, one was the dry route.
Yes.
And we took Jack... I took Jack-Jack on the wet route all the way up the waterfalls.
And then to the point where you actually had to use handholds just to climb up the face of this waterfall.
And I had him holding on to me like a spider monkey.
Really?
Yeah.
I didn't go that path.
Yeah, you didn't go that path.
I didn't.
That's right.
I didn't.
That's all right.
You know.
Some of us go a little extra, but it's okay.
It's okay.
Well, we're both pretty extra.
Yeah, I really enjoyed that.
And to speak to just, like, nature and the Desert Fathers and having nothing, like, you still cannot escape the spirit.
It was a quiet place.
It was a very spiritual place.
It was quiet and you could just get in touch, get grounded.
You could easily pray, meditate.
No cell phone service, any of that stuff.
So we finished up there, so King David's Oasis, hit the Dead Sea, and then drove up through the night all the way north to the Sea of Galilee.
We did.
We get up to the Sea of Galilee and of course, well I guess we stopped in Nazareth first, didn't we?
Yeah, I was getting it confused with Bethlehem.
In Nazareth, they have a great sort of recreation.
We had a cool recreated experience of what it would be like to walk around the village in the biblical times, to eat a meal that would be similar to Christ's meal.
But then we went to really I think the first Holy site in Christianity that we visited on this trip.
And it is, when you pray the rosary, it's actually the very first one.
The very first mystery.
First joyful mystery.
First joyful mystery of the rosary.
Saint Gabriel.
The annunciation of Archangel Gabriel to Mary the handmaiden.
At a little stream, a little well.
And they have Mary's grotto.
And where she said yes.
So how did that feel, actually knowing that you were standing on the very hill where that took place?
Where the word was made flesh.
So, in Latin, it has the entire, the entire piece there.
It was moving.
I was beside myself.
I couldn't help it.
I kneeled down and started, just started up the rosary and yeah, it just got really welled up and I just stayed there.
It's like sometimes, I don't know from my personal experience, but time stops and you kind of feel like a weightlessness to you.
I actually felt it earlier today too at the Western Wall, which is interesting.
But yeah, it was amazing.
And then to have you guys come and join me too, that was like a very A very special moment for our family.
Prayed the Rosary right there.
Beautiful Basilica by the way.
Completely international.
Almost every country in the world had a mosaic or a fresco.
That's true of Mary.
Of the Blessed Mother that's shown there.
It's just incredible to see a complete outpouring of Actual globalism.
Yeah.
That's the other kind of globalism.
That's not globalism, that's universalism.
That's right, that's right.
That's the difference.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Guilty to the king of the universe and his mother.
So after that, that was when we went to Galilee afterwards.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And visited, did some political stuff as well, went to, you know, political historical stuff, met with some IDF soldiers.
If anyone do something serious, we are the one who will take him down.
We just, we don't just go to the fence with a tank.
I see.
We had our grandfather, he was, he worked on American tanks in World War II.
He was a mechanic and part of a scout, so he would go out And help clear the land, make sure the maps were correct.
First Armored Division in North Africa.
During World War II, yeah.
So I appreciate what you do.
Got to see one of their newer tanks, an Al-Qaeda tank.
Got to go to the Golan Heights, which was obviously a highly disputed area, something I'm very familiar with.
Got to an outpost.
So the Golan Heights, for those who don't know, Syria considers it occupied land, Israel considers it their land, having been won in the Six-Day War in 1967.
That it's right on the border, the borders between Israel, Lebanon, and Syria.
So you look over one side, you see Lebanon, you look over the other side, you see Syria.
It's right there.
Syria, of course, considers it to be occupied by Israel.
And Megiddo.
We stopped by it too.
We also stopped by Megiddo, that's right.
So Megiddo, of course, the site of Armageddon.
So Megiddo is the place of In Revelation, what we are told will be the area where the armies of demons meet with the armies of the Lord.
We're told that in the final days, that's where it will come.
Intense.
Great book to read about just the archaeological background on Megiddo because people have been living on that hill for something like 10,000 years and it goes all the way back to the Stone Age.
And to add like this whole time I've been like Trying to figure like what I can take away from this trip and what I can do as a contributor to bring like my experience back to the United States and one of the things I observed was They take care of their river border, their border crossings.
Well, all their borders.
Yeah, I mean, here's the thing, right?
When you're talking about borders and border security, go look at the way Israel takes care of their borders, both externally and internally, because, of course, there's a massive wall that we drove past between the Israeli-controlled territory and the West Bank, so the Palestinian territories.
And we're not talking about this thing with the slats and the little stuff.
Concrete, barbed wire, watchtowers, spotlights, the whole nine yards.
This country, they're not messing around when it comes to that stuff.
Iron Dome is another part of that of course for anti-air defense, or air defense I should say.
Same deal with their northern borders their southern borders.
It's militarized.
There's military outposts on all of these things No jokes when it comes to that stuff And so when you're a country that wants to defend its sovereignty or a country that wants to defend its nationalism It's kind of interesting how Totally fine when it's a country like Israel or Ukraine, but when we come back to the United States and say, I want to be able to defend my country that way, suddenly you get labeled every name under the sun, you get all sorts of crazy things said about you.
You're wondering, wait, I'm confused because you said those things were good in those places, but now I come back home and say, I want that, and I want to defend my border, and I'm not allowed to.
Yeah, that's what I wanted to highlight.
Following that site of Christ's baptism, we made it all the way into the holy city of Jerusalem itself.
And so the very first morning.
We are downtown.
That's where we still are.
And so the very first morning of that, I woke up early, grabbed the kids and grabbed mom.
And we walked all the way down from where we're staying into the old city.
And it was open already.
It's about maybe 7.45 a.m.
You know, no tourists were around.
And we got to have some quiet alone time in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
And so the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, for folks who don't know, is the spot, the church that was built.
It's a massive church complex which is venerated and recognized by both the Catholic Church The Orthodox Church, as well as the Coptic Church, as the site of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ.
This was the church that Saint Helena, who was the mother of Emperor Constantine, founded all the way back in the 300s AD.
in the 300s AD.
Then in 1006 AD, the Muslim Caliphate came and attacked the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
So they built this giant church over the site, over where the cross stood, the Rock of Golgotha, and then you can walk up, even today, and there's an altar on top of the Rock of Golgotha that you can put your hand under, touch the rock, touch where the cross stood, then come down on the other side, you walk across, you see the slab in the middle, and then the actual tomb of Christ is still there.
And the word sepulchre means tomb.
And this was the church that in 1006 AD that the Caliphate attacked, sacked the church itself and led into motion the events that would later be called the Crusades when all the Christian soldiers, the knights and the kings came from Europe from all across Christendom to return to Jerusalem and retake the Holy Land.
Amen.
Amen.
And as well, we did the Via Dolorosa on the way and the Stations of the Cross.
That's right.
So later on, you and I went and we did the entire Via Dolorosa.
So the Via Dolorosa is the way of suffering, dolorous.
And on that, it is the 14 Stations of the Cross.
1 through 10 are outside on the street.
And then the last four, 11 to 14, are all within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself.
And so, the last four stations, of course, where Jesus is nailed, where Jesus is crucified, Jesus is laid, and then where Jesus is entombed.
And we did, I don't think I've done an actual Stations of the Cross and said it all the way through since confirmation.
Family that prays together, stays together.
Family that prays together, stays together.
Amen.
Patrick Payton.
Amen.
But yeah, I mean that was... And the full Stations of the Cross like that.
That was the whole shebang.
Mom was bawling, Dad was crying.
When Dad got in and saw the slab, he just started... I couldn't even look at Dad.
I was gonna lose it.
And the fact that we were able to be there, and I of course had done it before with Tanya, but... What he continues to do.
That's right.
He exists beyond space and time.
To be there with Mom and Dad, with you, with the kids.
That was very special.
The Bible is not just a book.
And if you think it is, then you're missing half the story.
In fact, you're missing the large part of the story.
And I would say this as a message to Even folks out there who are agnostic or even atheists and non-believer types that, look, you know, not everybody's going to be like Kevin and I, kneeling and praying in Latin inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Although you should be, but...
Just understand that you can't really understand Western civilization, Western society, our history, our institutions, our way of life, unless you understand all of this.
Because this has been a massive part of the creation of Western society and Western culture, whether you want to believe in the supernatural metaphysical aspects of it or not, that You have to at least acknowledge that this is a major, major part of what got us to where we are now.
Where what is directing us still as we're going their traditions that are being passed on certainly from from father's son.
And in this case I was able to take my two children to all of those sites along with us.
Some cases literally carrying them on my back if I had to.
But the point being that that's something for the sake of the Pilgrimage.
That's something that hopefully that one day they'll be able to do with their children when I'm older and my knees are getting bad and I'm complaining in a backseat.
That they're taking their kids as well.
My final thought is, this is my second time to Israel.
Just come.
Just come.
Just hop on the plane and come.
Just come do it.
Visit the Holy Land.
You will not regret it and you will always be able to say that every time that you turn a page in the Bible, you'll realize, wait a minute, I remember exactly what that was like because I was there.
Amen?
Amen.
Hey, what are you doing?
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
▲
Export Selection