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The Jordan River flows at the bottom of the Syro-African fault. It originates approximately 200 meters above sea level on the slopes of Mt. Hermon, in water sources that flow throughout all year. The river ends its course at the lowest spot in the world - the Dead Sea - at 420 meters below sea level. Along its course, the Jordan feeds two lakes: the Huleh (now almost completely drained) and the Sea of Galilee. The rabbinical literature refers to the significant difference between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, though both are fed by the same river. In analogy, the rabbis describe a man who knows both how to take and how to give (as the Sea of Galilee, which "takes" the Jordan and "gives" it), who is full of life, compared to a man who knows only how to take (as the Dead Sea, which the Jordan enters, but doesn't leave), whose heart is dead. In its course from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, the Jordan travels a winding 230 kilometers, covering just 105 kilometers in a straight line. The flow of the river has created a valley about 30 meters below the surface of the Syro-African fault. Only this valley gets water. Sometimes it floods, and the surrounding soft cliffs sometimes collapse, so that the river stops flowing for a time. Some researchers believe that this explains how the Jordan was cut off when the Israelites entered the Land of Israel (Joshua 3:17). In the story of the separation of Abraham and Lot, the Bible tells us of Lot's decision to settle in the Jordan Valley: "And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plan of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere" (Genesis 13:10). Although the Jordan river carried over 1 million cubic meters of water in a good year, the region that received water - where the vegetation was so dense that bears lived in the heart of the desert (2 Kings 2. 24) - was not inhabited. Most of the people in the area of the river were nomads, such as Lot and Abraham. In the period of the First Temple, prophets such as Elijah and Elisha found temporary refuge in this region from the fury of those they preached against. In the period of the Second Temple, many of those who wanted to disassociate themselves from Jerusalem's Roman style and its sins, such as the members of the Judean Desert cult, John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth, made their homes here. John baptized many people in the water of the Jordan. When he baptized Jesus, he saw the Holy Spirit descend in the image of a dove. According to John the Evangelist (1:28), this was at Bethany in eastern Trans-Jordan. Later, Jesus returned to the Jordan with many of his students; he baptized a large number of people, this time on the western bank of the Jordan (John 3:22). For hundreds of years, the Jordan remained desolate. Pilgrims and adventurous travelers described the descent to the Jordan, baptism and sailing as one of the most exciting events of their journey in the Holy Land. The character of the region changed dramatically only in 1932, when the Naharayim hydraulic plant was built to utilize the water of the Jordan and the Yarmukh rivers to produce electricity. At that time, the Deganya dam, located next to the Yardenit Baptismal Site, was constructed. In the 1960s, the water that would generally flow in the Jordan river was diverted through the national water carrier to the densely inhabited central region of Israel, and the Jordanians dammed the Yarmukh, the major tributary of the Jordan, diverting its water to the Ghour Channel, on the Jordanian side of the Jordan Rift Valley. Natural water no longer flows along most of the Jordan river. The northern part of the river, between the Sea of Galilee and the meeting of the Jordan and Yarmukh, where the Yardenit Baptismal Site is located, is the only place where it is still possible to be baptized in the flowing water of the Jordan river, and experience a sense of purification and spiritual rebirth.