Hey, everyone! We're in Deir Hajla.
And this is an ancient place that dates all the way back
to the late Roman time,
and it's full of history, unexplored, untouched.
And we're wearing...
- Ancient clothes. - ancient clothes.
Why? Because there is someone special with us here.
Shalom! Shalom, friends!
♪ (music) ♪
(Sergio)
Israeli singer-songwriter, Shilo Ben Hod.
Man, it's so good to see you!
- I can't believe I finally get to meet you. - Yeah, finally!
I've been listening to your music for years.
And we were invited here to take part in the filming
of the Passover special music video for one of his latest songs.
It's a worship song that is called "Before."
And the song actually speaks about
how we are in a reality that we are before our Heavenly Father,
but we are still before the world.
We are in the presence of this world.
(Sergio)
Two miles north of the Dead Sea, and a few hundred feet from the Jordan River,
where the ruins of an ancient monastery lie
with archaeological artifacts that date back as far as the 6th century.
(Shilo)
So, he took me here, and this place just looks like Goshen...
like Goshen, where the Israelites were in Egypt.
(Sergio)
a place where it is believed Jesus was baptized in.
The place where the Israelites crossed the Jordan River
into the Promised Land.
They passed through into the Promised Land.
And it's also where Elijah and Elisha passed back and forth.
Yes.
(Rhoda)
(Sergio)
Shilo decided to make a Passover special music video
in this very spot,
and he invited his family and friends to be a part of it.
And despite the fact that Rhoda and I had never acted before,
we conquered our stage fears
for the sake of taking on this great opportunity
to meet Shilo and his family.
♪ (music) ♪
BETWEEN SEASONS UPDATE
Man, it's so good to see you!
- I can't believe I finally get to meet you. - Yeah, finally!
I've been listening to your music for years,
and this is one of the most exciting days this year for us.
For us the same. For me the same.
(Sergio)
If you're familiar with the famous concert from Jerusalem
called "Praises of Israel,"
then you have most likely seen him
and heard at least a few of his 22 songs
that he has released in the past two years.
But, the song he's filming the music video for today
is one of the most unique worship songs I have ever heard.
It's a worship song that is called "Before."
And the song actually speaks about
how we are in a reality that we are before our Heavenly Father,
but we are still before the world.
We are in the presence of this world.
And how we see the darkness increasing,
and we respond by increasing our worship to our Father.
So, it's a song of contrast. It's a song of actually warfare.
But it's a worship song because we worship God
and He is the victorious One in the end.
Amen. This is so cool.
The first verse of the song starts with "Jesus,"
and you're singing it in Hebrew, you're saying "Yeshua."
(speaking Hebrew) In front of Jesus we'll lift our hands
and won't stop glorifying.
Wow.
We will not stop glorifying Yeshua because we are not ashamed in Yeshua.
He is the only name that has salvation through that name!
Wow. I get goosebumps just hearing that.
This is awesome.
♪ (music) ♪
Wow, okay.
And the idea for this music video clip, how did you get to it?
(Shilo)
And then we were thinking, "Well, we can't do all the story,"
but we were thinking about the two last plagues:
the darkness plague and the firstborn plague.
Because this was, like, the climax of all the story
right before they are leaving.
It's a very intense part of the story, and we wanted to capture it.
We wanted to capture it because we are actually...
it's an image of how we are in the world right now.
Like, we know victory belongs to Yeshua,
but we are still in this darkness,
and we still need to be strong, and we still need to worship.
So, I wanted to capture it in the video that we are still...
we are still here fighting.
Victory is... we know victory is there with Yeshua,
but we are here on the Earth.
Oh. Wow. This is so cool!
♪ (music) ♪
So, it looks ancient, this place, and the houses look ancient,
but it's not that ancient, actually.
What you see above the ground is...
- Pretty recent, like 70 years. - Yeah, 20th century.
- Yeah. 70 years, right, they said? - 1950's or 30's. Something like that.
There was a sign, like, 1953 it was built.
- (Rhoda)
So, the buildings you see on top of the ground are pretty recent.
(Rhoda)
But, what's under the ground is quite ancient.
Over 100 years ago,
this site was surveyed by J.L. Federlin,
and it was identified as an ancient monastery.
At that time, they actually had to dig down into the soil to find it.
Today, only a few remains can still be seen.
And even though we've been told
that this could be the original monastery of Saint Gerasimos,
this theory is not confirmed.
So, about 500 feet from here there is a monastery that we filmed
about two years ago.
You can check out the video. It's called Saint Gerasimos Monastery.
(Rhoda)
This place, they believe, used to be the original Saint Gerasimos Monastery,
but it's kind of disputable.
However, a good presence of Byzantic pottery
was indeed found at this site.
(Rhoda)
just as close, is the Qasr El Yahud,
- (gasps) Yes! - which is also the place where the Israelites
supposedly passed through into the promised land.
And it's also where Elijah and Elisha passed back and forth.
(Sergio)
(Rhoda)
- (Sergio)
and we'll link it down below so you guys can check that out.
(Sergio)
Well, we were thinking about filming something for Pessach, for Passover,
and my father said, "Oh, I know the right place!"
So, he took me here, and this place just looks like Goshen...
like Goshen, where the Israelites were in Egypt.
And it's a perfect place to film a Passover music video.
(Sergio)
No. We hope the music video will come out in a week,
about a week and a half.
In a week, you're gonna edit all this?
Okay. They've taken, like, maybe thousands of videos.
Listen. This is a crazy thing that our producer,
Michael Hilsden, agreed to do,
but our purpose is to release it on Passover Eve.
because I think it will be very relevant.
Wow, this is awesome!
Okay, so make sure you subscribe to his channel
so you will be able to get a notification when he releases this video.
Rhoda and I are gonna be in there.
Probably you don't wanna see that. Skip those parts.
- No. - But listen to the rest of it.
It is absolutely good and incredible!
We already heard this song. It is beautiful.
It is very moving and it's very powerful.
The words, make sure you enable the subtitles,
because there will be a translation in English, right?
- Yes, there will be. - And we can't wait.
And we are just so excited, and we love you guys so much.
Aw. Love you too, brother.
- Yeah. Thank you, Akhi. (brother in Hebrew) - Thank you! All right.
♪ (music) ♪
Having a break. Now, time for food.
All right. So it looks like it's a wrap.
They're done filming for the most part.
They've still got some B-rolls to do, but our job is done,
and we're heading back home.
But before we go, we just wanted to say
thank you for watching this small, little in-between seasons video,
-
- God bless you all. - God bless you all.
And don't forget to subscribe to Shilo's YouTube channel
where this music video will come out.
It won't be on our channel. It will be on Shilo's YouTube channel.
So, make sure to click on the link below. It's in the description of this video.
So make sure to listen to his other songs. They're absolutely incredible.
- (Rhoda)
- for almost a year or more. - Yep, pretty much.
Yeah. So you can imagine how excited we are to be here today.
And we hope to see you next time. God bless you!
Look at the house. Look how well preserved it is.
Let's go check it out.
(Rhoda)
the material, like what was the binder between the stones that they used,
is very soft.
So you can see that they...
What do you see?
Well, it's just a house, but look how it's built.
I mean, it all kind of crumbles down.
- (Rhoda)