Week 10 Theme: distance, framing, alienation

Before his magical powers were revealed he was always in Kerens’ room, buried under a growing pile of plush animals, and contributing his share to what always seems to me as a carefully choreographed mess. So I couldn’t, even if I wanted to, supply a sufficient explanation to this mystery.

I can tell you; however, that it was an unusually gray morning and it was starting to drizzle. This did not stop the driver, a young volunteer, from parking the ambulance on the side of the road, leaving my husband lying there, and walking to the other side of the road to look at the car. I went with him. It was not a pleasant sight. The car was lying on its roof that caved in, almost touching the front seats. The ambulance driver, completely unfazed, started to search the car from top to bottom explaining to me that it was as good time as any to retrieve all valuables before they will disappear forever.

Knowing the desert rules, and our nomad neighbors, I couldn’t argue with him. Anything left unattended in the desert, except for livestock, tends to disappear within minutes. After what seemed forever he emerged from the other side of the car with two trophies; my husbands’ glasses, completely intact and dubi Varod, visibly unhappy, but otherwise unharmed. Only when I pointed out to him that we were clearly drawing too much attention, he stopped his scavenger hunt and climbed back into the ambulance.  By then at least fifty cars stopped to inquire if we needed help, seeing the ambulance on the side of the road and the smashed car.

My husband rather upset, left by himself in the back of the ambulance and unable to see much without his glasses, cheered up considerably when his vision was returned to him. But when he saw the teddy bear he was completely taken aback and insisted of holding on to him. I have a hunch that because of that we were released from the ER extremely fast. Perhaps the medical personnel seeing a grown man, lying on the gurney and hugging a pink teddy bear, thought this was a matter for another, more qualified, professional evaluation. Be it what it may. Within an hour we were on our way back with instructions for a lot of rest and plenty of water.

 When we stopped, again, next to the car on the way back, he kept going on and on. He was by himself on the road that morning, he was completely alert and had no idea what made the car fly to the other side of the road and land on its roof. When I showed him where we found his glasses and the bear, on the back dashboard of the car, he just mumbled something about a miracle.

The story of the car mysteriously going off road was told in my family many times since. How the car new, shiny, and black, was driven only few times before the accident. How unhappy I was with the color, how lucky or even headed my husband was to keep his cool and let himself out of the car, being still attached to the safety belt and his head pointing down almost touching the floor. But in the end we all agree, if not for Dubi Varod this would have ended completely different.

Week 10 prompts :49. Doesn't matter where you begin, you'll end up back here.

Returning after all that time felt like traveling back in time. On the surface there were no visible changes but everything and everybody looked worn-out, disillusioned and somewhat desperate. The only thing still unchanged was the desert with its breath taking views. A meeting over lunch with my former employer, talking about new money generating ideas for her nonprofit organization and later an afternoon coffee with my old friend Rachel. All very pleasant, comfortable and so familiar, known scripts and words I heard so many times before.  After only twenty four hours I am convinced more than ever before, I am not ready to come back. Arad is a closed chapter.

In the newly built Tel-Aviv airport, everything looks bigger, showy, with chrome and glass everywhere. Three weeks have gone by so fast.  I watch the huge water fountain in the center of the departure hall, rising and falling, while reading the colorful signs around. Most of them variations on the same theme” there is no place like home,” It is so easy, to slip back into the known and familiar. Almost like sliding your feet into old worn house slippers, comfortable but not very exciting. Maybe it is time to stop, breathe, look around and choose a different path.

Sitting on a rock, my legs in the water I’m tossing small pebbles across the shallow tide pools. Each one creates, as it lands, a series of small waves, circles within circles. Pronounced at the center they become gradually less distinct until they fade. The rhythmic movement is calming; bend and pick up a stone, toss it in the air, the soft splash as it is touching the water surface, creating concentric waves. The sun so warm on my back, the water licking my feet leaving wet marks, the ocean face rise and fall and as the tide moves in, I need to retreat towards the shore. 

I remember when He looked at me and said. “You can only know who you are if you know where you came from,” I wondered then if he realized that we came from the same small neighborhood, in Jerusalem. Actually from the same four stories apartment building. I was not sure, though, if he knew that our apartments shared a common wall, my bedroom wall, and yet we had nothing in common.

So sitting with my legs in the water marveling at the tide, I ponder, is it really about a place, about where you came from, where you begin, or taking yourself with you to wherever you go.

Week 10 prompts -46. None of the people fallen on that field of battle were as real as I am /retake

It is spring again and as I am getting ready for Passover, the old stories come back to life.  Stories that were passed to me as lessons that needed to be learned, stories that I was entrusted with to pass to my own children.  Praising the heroes and denouncing those perceived to be cowards.

I roll them in my head over and over again, for some reason I have a need to search for loose threads and tug at them. In the end I end up at the same place. It’s the story teller more than the story, the man behind the tale that gets my curiosity flared up, trying to comprehend his choice in that vast battle field where so many had fallen.

So many, but not him, after all he was to become the one last standing and thus able to deliver the testimony. All the gory details, the frustration when all hope was lost, the sheer heroism and the glory of those who, unlike him, chose to die as a way to maintain their freedom.

“Masada shall not fall again”

Which part of all of this am I willing to take on as my own?

Is it the part in which six million weak Jews, did not know how to fend for themselves and perished, or the one where nine hundred and sixty extremists thought they can stand up to a force much bigger than themselves and at the end were defeated by natures’ whimsical behavior. The few opposing the many, live free or die, black and white, right and wrong, strength and weakness all so clearly defined.

Or perhaps, I wonder, there are more shades than one?

I close my eyes and I can see them clearly, the palaces and the remains of the fortified walls of Masada, almost a stone throw away from my home. I have been there many times and heard the story told time and time again like any kid in Israel.

 Every year in late spring I went up the Roman ramp with yet another group of students as part of the symbolic passage from childhood to adulthood, strengthening the bond with the land reciting the promise .Numerous times I climbed up at dawn to see the sunrise over the Dead Sea and watch the young soldiers being sworn at the end of their basic training.

“Masada shall not fall again”

And yet we keep on falling in more ways than one.

Is it because death is not the only way to leave your life behind? Or maybe because those who make less favorable choices can, in the long run, generate a bigger difference, by telling the stories that never really die.

Week 10 Prompts - 46. None of the people fallen on that field of battle were as real as I am.

Some will say it’s about treason and betrayal of the worst kind, but in the end we might all agree that it’s about leaving  your mark on history by telling a good story.

It’s also about the story teller.

In fact it’s the story of the story teller that gets my curiosity flared up and my mind to stretch to its limits, trying to comprehend one persons’ choice in that vast battle field where so many had fallen.

So many but not him, after all, he was the story teller, the one last standing and able to deliver the testimony. All the gory details, the frustration when all hope was lost, the sheer heroism and the glory of those who chose to die as a way to maintain their freedom.

 Had he fallen too, in more ways than one?  Or perhaps death, as it turned out, is not the only way to leave your life behind.

Betraying his heritage of nobility and priesthood he acted as a collaborator. An army leader, who in the midst of a battle deceived his own people and topped this act of disloyalty by defecting to the enemy’s camp. To his people he was a dead man, as he should have been had he not convinced his closest comrades to kill themselves and then walked away unharmed.

****

Titus Flavius Josephus,  also known as Joseph ben Matityahu in his former life, refused to die, or disappear. He reinvented himself, with a different name and a pen instead of a sword. He owes big part of his claim to stardom to his account of what happened on the last night, on top of Masada.  Familiar, from his own personal experience, with the act of group suicide, he was the best men for the job.

 Ironically his new occupation, documenting the big events of his time, granted him eternal life.

****

Every spring no matter where I am, as I am getting ready for Passover, the old stories are coming back to life.  Stories that were passed to me as lessons that needed to be learned, praising the heroes and denouncing those perceived to be cowards, black and white, right and wrong, strength and weakness being defined.

But in the background are those who might make less favorable choices and perhaps generate a bigger difference. I think of them too.  Once the dust settles and we can look around once again, we might be thankful for them for the story told. For the memories kept alive. 

Week 10 Prompts--51. Just calm down and begin at the beginning.

He continued for years to go through the motions, the candles on Friday night with the traditional meal, and the ritual marking the symbolic end of Shabbat. “Blessed are you, Lord, who distinguishes between the sacred and the secular."Passing around, and smelling the spices in their small silver container and concluding with the loud hiss of the braided candle dunked into the red wine.

“Why? “I asked him one day.

“There is a story,” He said after a long pause. “It is about this Rabbi who used to go to a special place in the forest with his followers light a fire, sing and dance. When he died his students would still go to that place and dance but did not know how to light the fire. When they passed away, their ancestors would still dance but the place was forgotten and the fire was long dead. What was left you ask? The story is left, of this Rabbi who used to go to the forest…”

“Is it about keeping one’s faith?” I asked, feeling put off like I did many times before when we had this talk.

 “It’s about holding on, relentlessly, to an old story that over the years became a pale shadow of itself.” He said, his voice brimming over with bitterness.

“They could have been saved, most of them, if they were willing to let go,” he added softly as if talking to himself but I knew what he was talking about.

He showed me their pictures in a falling apart album, the man, dark haired tall and good looking, his young wife next to him, holding their year old baby. It was during the war, he said.  In the face of the world crumbling around them and the facts he gave them, of Jews being taken away and killed, they refused to listen.  They would not leave their home town and hanged on, hoping against all odds that it will never get so bad. They were devout Jews and believed god will protect them.

“I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah. And even if he tarries, even in the face of that, I still believe.” He muttered the known tune and I knew the conversation was over. There was no need to repeat the words, I heard them many times, I could repeat them in my sleep.

I knew I could never fully understand this dichotomy, never resolve the ambivalent feelings, not his nor mine.

 I still can’t

So I continue to hold on to the old story, trying to breathe new life into it. Like my father before me I go through the rituals, like my mother I braid the challa and when the smell fills up the house I light the candles. Looking at the two small flames dancing in the candle sticks I feel every Friday like I begin at the beginning.

_______________________

* The story - Inquiring of god - Yair Caspi

41. You never know what you have until it's gone.

Biur Chametz (Removal of chametz)

In the morning, getting dressed, I look at my closet, push back in few shirts, pull out others, turn them from side to side and shake them, they look worn but I can’t remember when the last time I wore them was. I am sure that at the time I invested a lot of thought in picking each one of them so I push them back in. I will need to make the painful decision one of these days but not today.

 The book shelves on the other side of the room are overflowing with books; I keep them for these desperate times when’ I will have nothing to read’. Paperback novels recommended to me, authors I used to like, just random books I picked in garage sales for pennies. Self –help books I purchased at this time or another, on a whim, none of them touched in the past years.

 On the desk a mounting pile of letters I need to answer. Brochures I couldn’t bring myself to throw as the information regarding motel amenities, furniture, novelties and gifts might come handy one day.

 On the couch a stack of folders representing the second step of my elaborate filling system, here it is in a nutshell. When the pile of loose paper (letters, bills, brochures) becomes too high to manage and keep sliding to the floor, it is time to push everything into a folder. This is a cleansing act in and of itself. The folder is then being laid on the couch (originally in the room for those moments in the future when I will sit, relaxed and look over the back yard) with my best intention to look at it at a later date.

Some other ends and odds; one TV that could be working if it had been hooked to the cable (too far) one DVD (the TV isn’t working). The plants I pull in every winter and fill up almost third of the room. My old desktop computer (too slow), few boxes of books in Hebrew I already read (definitely have to up my efforts to find someone to take them off my hands). Few unidentified plastic bags in the corner, I give them an inquisitive look, trying to assess the content without opening them, and give up. 

I am all geared up for the task. Sorting out the truly valuable from the piles of trash (chametz) collected over the past year.  I run in my head the three traditional methods of performing this undertaking.

Burning one's chametz – seems a bit drastic

Selling one's chametz – yeah, right

Nullifying one's chametz – Bingo!

 I recite the Aramaic statement that no one truly understands (it always feels like crossing ones fingers behind his back), nullifying all the chametz, letting go while holding on, brilliant.

42. Try one of these lists about yourself:

Life’s challenges

When I decided, at the end of my high school, to join the army and not exercise my option to get a deferment based on religious background my best friend, whom I was supposed to join on a kibbutz, felt I was betraying her.

I thought I was following my heart and being truthful to myself.

When at the end of my senior year in college, just before finals, my friend Dorit and I decided, on a moment’s whim, to buy a flight tickets and travel across Europe; just the two of us, my parents thought the timing was odd.

We thought we were being very brave, traveling like that when it was not yet the’ in’ thing to do.

When after a short, less than thirty minutes interview, I accepted a job that was clearly below my skill level so I can stay in Arad. My new boss while accepting my application, on the spot, raised an eye brow; my mother nodded her head as she did so many times before and after.

 I was excited and sure of myself, I knew I was in the right place.

When my husband and I pulled our youngest daughter out of school in the middle of her sixth grade and let her stay home, some of our best friends thought it was a challenge while others considered the act foolish, irresponsible, not to say illegal.

We thought it was the correct thing to do and that there was no other way.

When we decided after more than twenty years in one town and one house to pick up, tear our roots, and walk away, some people thought we were brave while others, while not saying anything to our face, thought we were cowards and running away from our commitments.

We thought we owe it to ourselves to try new things as we only have one life to live. 

When we decided to put all our savings into buying a small motel in Ellsworth Maine our children didn’t even flinch, they are used by now to us making off the wall decisions.

We spent many sleepless nights thinking, and rethinking this move, and then closed our eyes and jumped.