Beauty Is Pain
Rebecca Fukes
Beauty is Pain
I will never forget the beauty. The foggy, crisp air that storms your lungs as you begin your 1,800 foot trek to the top on Massada. When we all began our journey, at 4:30 in the morning, the idea of climbing a mountain to see the sunrise came with groaning and complaining. As I stood at the bottom on the rocky mass I kept telling myself I would never make it to the top and that seeing a sunrise wasn’t that important but still I started my ascent. After about 10 minutes of climbing, slipping, and crawling up the mountain my lungs were burning and my legs were about to give out. As a group we kept motivating each other, telling ourselves that since we had made it this far it was to late to turn around. By the time I made it halfway up the treacherous mountain I couldn’t take it anymore but I didn’t stop, and glad I didn’t. As I climbed the final flight of stairs my heart pounded, my jaw dropped, and I lost all words. Everywhere you look, you can see desolate, rocky beauty. While I have yet to see a part of Israel that doesn’t take my breath away, the top of Massada was beyond anything I had ever laid eyes on. Everyone scurried to take pictures as we waited for the sun to peak over the foggy clouds. I stood on the ledge overlooking nothing but pure beauty, taking in the idea that I had climbed 1,800 feet up to stand where many people had stood before. The view and the sun were not even remotely near the most amazing part of the trip. After touring the ruins and learning the history, we were given an amazing opportunity: to be Mitzvad. We walked to the ancient synagogue and read parts of the Torah and said a prayer. For someone like me who had never had a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, it was the most amazing thing I had done on the trip. Not only can I go home and say I spent 10 beautiful days in the Holy Land but I can say that I had my Bar Mitzvah on top of a 1,800 foot mountain that I climbed. I probably could have refused to hike up the mountain or take the sky rocket to the top, but beauty is pain, and standing on top of Massada was worth every moment of agony that day,
