Amit invited me to go with his family on their trip back to Israel. There, he took me on a driving tour of places in Israel with histories nearly as long as human civilization itself. As the birth place of three of the world's modern, major religions, the region has a peculiar atmosphere that I couldn't quite put a handle on. For instance, we went camping and fishing at the Sea of Galilee. To me this place had only ever existed in the mythology of Christendom as the place where Jesus walked on water. But there we were, sitting around this lake and the only miracle we saw was that I actually caught a fish.