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• After the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, the Zealots - those who still wanted to rise up and defeat the Romans, and gain back their homeland - fled to Masada, a fortified mountain-top near the Dead Sea. Knowing that this was the last bastion of Jewish resistance, the Romans knew they had to destroy it. Otherwise, there would always be a remnant of Jews who could rise again. And so, the Roman army camped around Masada with 15,000 troops, and for many long months they besieged it. In a fascinating story which is outside the scope of this lesson, in A.D. 73, Masada fell to the Romans. The ruins can still be visited to this day. History records that the remaining Jews, around one thousand in total, committed mass suicide rather than be crucified, or raped, or tortured, or killed, or become slaves to the Romans, as had happened to so many of their loved ones. The story is a tragic one, of how a religious people wanted to remain free to worship the God of Heaven.