Dream of En Gedi
 
He dreamed they lived in En Gedi in the shade of its lush foliage drinking water from the rocks and feeding each other the skin of dates. They slept in caves with floors covered in dark, comfortable moss and awoke each morning to the fragrance of henna blooms and balsam. Their girls were there too, playing a game of tag with the small furry hyrax that inhabit the grassy meadows of the canyon's seam. Over the echo of their giggles, he could just make out the clip-clop of the ibex making their way up the rocky crags to forage for sweet, juicy sprigs.

In his dream he knew things that I did not remember learning. For instance, he knew that the stream formed by the waterfall was called the Nahal David, "the stream of David," and that twenty miles to the north was the ancient community of Qumran where the famous scrolls were unearthed by a shepherd boy in 1947. He knew too that ten miles to the south, there appeared on the horizon the imposing rock fortress of Masada, built long ago by Herod the Great.

He knew leopards were reported to live in the area but were never seen.