2007
Day after day I plunge into another time-period of
my life,
copying still relevant documents and scanning still interesting photos.
With the following essay and its 1985 "motto" of the Biblical
command about how to shit outside the camp
a stunning coincidence happened today, 2007_03_24:
the most recent scientific proof
for the existence of the Essene community in Qumran, Dead Sea, 2000
years ago,
is the evidence of their fatal surrender to the toilet command in
the Bible (see below),
which I had cherished so much myself
[see the method in Succah in the Desert
which proceeded the "Rukhaara"]
It is this coincidence which prompted me to put that old essay on
"Healing-K.i.s.s."
THE FIRST RAIN - A TEST FOR THE "VILLA-BUS"
this was the title of an essay about the
rain on October 19,1985.
It so happened, that also in the first year, 1990,
as well as in the second year, 1991, of "Succah
in the Desert",
the first rain - the Yoraeh -[from the same verb as "Torah"]
blessed us on October 19.
The title I would like to give the
essay today, is:
"God is in the detail"
or
"The God of Small Things"
in honor of a book with
this title,
written by the Indian woman writer
Arundhati
Roy,
and given to me by the singer Achinoam
Nini in 1998
before I went into a 3 months "exile" to South India.
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Motto:
An
area you should have, outside the camp,
where you may go, outside:
a spike you should have, along with your weapon;
and it shall be, when you sit outside (to
relieve yourself),
you are to dig with it,
and when you return, you are to cover up your excrement.
For YHWH your God walks about amid your camp,
to rescue you, to give your enemies before you;
so the camp is to be holy,
so that he does not see among you anything of nakedness
and turn away from you.
Deuteronomy
23, 13-14
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Und einen Seitenplatz sollst du haben ausser
Lagers,
dorthin magst du dich verziehn nach draussen,
und einen Spaten sollst du haben bei deinem Zeug,
es sei, wenn du draussen hingesessen bist,
graebst du damit
und huellst dein Ausgeschiedenes wieder zu.
Denn ER dein Gott
schreitet im Innern deines Lagers einher,
dich zu retten
und deine Feinde vor dich hinzugeben,
so sei denn dein Lager heilig,,
dass er nicht irgend Bloesse an dir sehe
und dir den Ruecken kehre.
Reden 23, 13-14 |
Sometimes my life was truly idyllic - even my beloved
bougainvillia bush, from my veranda in Ramat-Gan, which I planted
here - cooperated
2014-04-11- I re-read this,
while enjoying the bougainvillia that finally, after having grown
so hesitantly for 9 years in my desert-soil garden:
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Part of the essay demonstrates the nagging
difficulties with the electricity
ON this photo two applications - a lamp and a vent - actually
do work (!)
on the 12V battery,
at that time - before I succeeded to install a solar photovoltaic
system, -
this battery should have been charged by a generator (also
mentioned in this essay),
but since it was too heavy for me to handle it all alone, I
often chose a place to park,
from where I could connect to the grid of friends or foreign
but kind people.
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The left photo shows
the old army bus 7 weeks after I had purchased it-
around the time of my mother's death on Febr. 20, 1985,
for which my sister (left)
had come from Germany.
The right photo - with Mona Yahia, my friend, then still in
Israel - shows the bus,
still ugly and unpainted, but with exchanged doors and
windows, a "roof"
and the rolled up tarpolin shade, which plays
a role in the drama of the rain-day. |
Havatzelet Ha-Sharon
1985: addition on December 28-29, 2010
It is only now, that I discovered this (bad, but extremely important)
photo in the picture-folder of 2007.
Why had I forgotten to insert it in this composition of 2007? Why
did it come into my awareness now?
It seems to be the only document of that bus experiment with Ya'acov,
my peer, perhaps in April 1985.
It was the first time, that I drove the bus for simply enjoying myself
- from an industrial area near Holon,
where many of its modifications were tackled: different doors and
windows, space for gas-bottles, etc.
It was the first chance for Ya'acov,
with whom I had prepared for 6 months, to actually live in the
bus.
So there I was driving on a highway with Ya'acov in his wheelchair,
his friend Uzi and my friend Mona
I had no clear idea, where I wanted to park, nor did I care at that
time... where it was allowed to park,
and it so happened, that we - suddenly - simply turned left from the
Haifa road ...
and found this rock above the Mediterranean for spending our weekend
together.
Only much later Ya'acov told me, that it was at the junction of Havatzelet
Ha-Sharon,
where he often - when his mother worked as a teacher
at Tel-Aviv - stayed with his grandmother,
after he had attracted Polio at the age of 1 1/2.
But it was after this weekend, that he had to share with me, that
all we had dreamt of was a big illusion:
"I could not move
- not only inside the bus, where all of you had to serve me constantly,
but also outside the bus:
the bus will always park on sand, but how can I move my wheelchair
on sand?"
What comes to my mind for the first time is the lily, the havatzelet
in
the song
and the wilderness shall exult and blossom as
the lily.
For it is in this song, that it is promised, that
the lame man
shall leap as a hart.
January 9, 2010
Only now I came across a
page of our "Red-Sea-Partner-SHIP", 1997-98,
where I've also told the story of and with Ya'acov
Abraham
, e-mail quote on Dec. 29, 2010
It
is natural that by knowing what you do not want,
you are able to clarify what you do want;
and there is nothing wrong with identifying a problem
before beginning to look for a solution.
But many people, over time, become problem oriented
rather than solution oriented,
and in their examination and explanation of the problem,
they continue the perpetuation of the problem.
That which is like unto itself, is drawn—
so tell the story you want to live
and you will eventually live it.
As critical as I am with regard to the "Abraham-Wave",
this passage is fully resonating with me,
and it was Ya'acov, who brought me in contact with "Abraham".
And yes, I am focused on the lame man shall leap as
a hart.
but I'm also still benefitting from the experience
with the lameness of my friend and how it is shaping what
he IS!
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The first thing Immanuel built in the
bus,
was a hospital- like bed in the back,
including as many drawers as possible for diapers
[at that time - for grownups - not yet to be thrown away]
and other stuff, my sick mother would had needed,
if she hadn't died on Febr. 20 ,1985,
before I started to live in the bus.
IN Dec. 2010 I found the photo to this story
missing,
"instead" of it I'll insert another photo:
It shows Ya'aqov's visit of me and the
bus
in which he had been supposed to live with me.
Here -on the beach in 1988 - he greets Elah and Immanuel.
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The next thing, my hobby-carpenter son
built
- this too according to my carefully measured plans,
was the beginning of a kitchen.
At the time of this picture I had a stove for cooking and baking,
both working on gas,
and a cupboard
which soon would be covered with a small sink under the tap
and a small working area ["shaish" in Hebrew]
- prepared by some company according to my special needs.
The cupboard behind the future sink and the one beneath it
would partly contain the about 20 folders
of the huge archive of my life until then.
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Immanuel - my eldest son, army pilot and hobby carpenter, in my "carpentry"
adjacent to the bus
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Mona Yahia - formerly my partner |
A few weeks before this extraordinary Shabbat with
its blessed rain,
my friend from the US, the
poetess Chana Fairstein came to see me.
Following our intimate talk on the top of the bus she created a poem:
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The 50 m cable, wound around
this "drum",
will not be enough to connect to a far neighbor's grid,
after the rain's damage to the electricity in Yanina's greenhouse.
So how shall I host Chana Fairstein's family? |
OUR LIVES FROM ABOVE
Chana Bloch for Rachel
revised and published 1991
It's a clear day when we finally
talk. The sun
presses down, releasing
the stored-up
musk of the grass. Only the two of us
hovering over the countryside,
high enough now to see it
as pattern and color.
These ochres and greens, like
square-cut
fields from an airplane,
were once, when we loved the same man,
our lives. Shoulder of road,
flank of mountain, those tufted browns:
for each of us, he
was a different place.
"If he loves you"
--spiky words, ink
on onionskin. YOu wrote that letter.
And he, twisting your ring
from his finger, giving it
to me. Everything looks ordained from
this height, proportioned, as if we did only
what we had to do,
like roads that follow the curve of a riverbed.
i didn't know you'd have wild
gray hair
to your waist, and laugh
like mine. How I hated that letter!
I never thought I'd talk to you
about him.
The sun has scrubbed the hills
to a soft worn suede. Three hours,
four, five, and
we can't stop. All day we search for the lost
letter, the wishbone, the narrow ring,
and give them back to each other.
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With my guests on that day of The First
Rain and The God of Small Things:
Arie Bloch and Chana Fairstein-Bloch and their sons from California |
When the poles of the bus-shade collapsed because
of the strong wind, Maya, my dog, jumped into ecstasy.
In the background of Chana's sons: the greenhouse of Yanina and Alexander,
who invited me to park on their land,
as long as it would take to complete the furnishing of the bus.
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"For
like in the camp of the Israelites in the desert 3200 years
ago,
I , too, take care of guarding the holiness of the camp.
Nobody goes out to the nature around without a tiny hoe in his
hand.
Isn't it God who walks around here?" |
2014-04-11-coincidence: I opened my e-mail
and found Chana Bloch's quest to sign
this petition
to
former accidental closeup of my Past
to
next accidental closeup of my Past
2010_12_23
old slides about my
bus-life between 1986 and 1989,which I've scanned
now
interspersed with 2 related documents about my Partnership
involvement in 1975 & 1977
Elah, my first grandchild [born Aug.7, 1987]
Immanuel then had a license for flying private aeroplanes and once
invited me and Channah to fly with him.
It was alright for us to pay for the plane
My son wanted to show us the prettiest of views and therefore moved
the plane up and down and around.
For me it was a horror-flight! I wanted to take photos, and realized
too late, that I would get terribly sick!!!!!
The pilot talks with Channah in the plane
Immanuel with Ruth and Elah visit me in the
bus,
probably -since Elah born in Aug.
1987 -seems to be already 2 years old
- when I parked for half a year north of Kibbutz Ga'ash in 1989.
"Partnership Diary",
1977, 110-111
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"Liberty through Responsibility",
1975, page 29b
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With my dog Maya in April 1987, probably at the
first place, where I parked, after I had returned from my assignment
as a guest-lecturer in Berlin.
During those 5 months the bus was "in custody" of Rafi, a
young, gentle man, who had a house and a garden at Ramat-Hadar , where
I once lived.
[see more on the following page]
continuation
of the sequence of old slides about my bus-life
between 1986-1989,
interspersed with 2 related docs about my Partnership
involvement in 1975 & 1977
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