An estimated 1700 Israelis came Thursday night to hear the traditional reading of the Book of Lamentations (Megillat Eicha) at the Herodion National Park, located 12 km south of Jerusalem and 5 km southeast of Bethlehem, in the spirit of Tractate Ta’anit 30b: “Whoever mourns for Jerusalem now will merit to see her future joy.”
Herodion is an ancient Jewish fortress and town, the only site named after King Herod the Great. Josephus described it:
This fortress, which is some sixty stadia (ancient Greek measure of length, about 200 meters) distant from Jerusalem, is naturally strong and very suitable for such a structure. … At intervals, it has round towers, and it has a steep ascent formed of two hundred steps of hewn stone. Within it are costly royal apartments made for security and for ornament at the same time. At the base of the hill, there are pleasure grounds built in such a way as to be worth seeing, among other things because of how water, which is lacking in that place, is brought in from a distance and at great expense. The surrounding plain was built up as a city second to none, with the hill serving as an acropolis for the other dwellings.
After the reading, which is a long-standing tradition of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, the gathered audience went on a tour of the site with Sde Kfar Etzion school guides.
“The site is an example of the complexity and complications that came to Jewish society under the influence of the Roman rule, full of luxury and hedonism and that led to rebellion and destruction,” the Nature and Parks Authority said in a press release. “In a later period, rebels in the destruction rebellion and the Bar Kochba rebellion also lived here in a repeated attempt to get rid of the foreign rule and hope to build the temple again. The remains of the rebels’ activity in Herodion are clearly visible and continue to be revealed even these days.”
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