Half an hour’s drive from central Jerusalem is a deep wadi with a hiking trail going through it. The streambed runs in a cleft between sandstone cliffs so sheer and close that you can’t tell whether the ravine is twenty yards deep or a hundred. Although the trailhead is less than a mile from the main drag between Jericho and Jerusalem, the high walls block out the noise. It feels like stepping back in time, as if at any minute one might encounter a burning bush.

Somehow, the wilderness seems to be the place to find God again.