InteGRATion into GRATeFULLness
Singing&Sounding keeps me Sound

Fruits, Fruits, Fruits

2007_08_13

lyrics: Levin Kipnis modified by me on Dec. 16, 2008

tune: Yedidia Admon

Every child in Israel is taught to sing this song at the Festival of Shavu'ot,
crowned with a wreath .
I never heard anyone sing the second stanza, leave alone the third,
and the naive text is tempting people to invent all kinds of parodies.
Still for me, there is joy in this celebration of harvesting and reaping,
be it physical or metaphorical
By the way, I did not choose this song for today - it chose itself...

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(1)

My modified version (not yet recorded)

Our baskets on our shoulders, our heads in wreaths, from the ends of the country we came, brought the first fruits. from the village, from Kibbutz and from Moshav, from the Valley (of Yezreel), from the Negev, from the Galigee! Make free a way for us, first fruits are with us, beat, beat, beat the drum, play the flute. Our fields and our gardens have ripened harvests, our vinyards, our vegetable beds have produced wonderful first fruits Figs, oranges and apples, grapes, pomegrenates and almonds, Make free

to former song    to next song

2010
See the context of this Shavuoth experience

The agricultural technology has changed since Biblical, yes since Zionist times.
Still - a municipality with 5 kibbutzim in the neighborhood of Kiryat Gat,
succeeded in conveying us an idea of how the agricultural aspect of Shavuot was once celebrated.
"Us" - Herbert and Elinor, the French, German-speaking, guests of my neighbors Nadav and Smadar Bloch,
whom I accompanied in order to translate between them and to enhance the experience by my own knowledge

It's so cold, that I wear Nadav's coat from his car on the way to the festival

Among the crowds of people : Nadav to the right, Elinor with Smadar in front of her, and Herbert on a chair

a horse-show with the young boys, including a colored one on a white animal

Each of the five kibbutzim has arranged a carriage with children and symbolic "First Fruits", which signify Shavuot

Then comes the show of modern agricultural technology, including an aeroplane which sprays chemicals on the fields

While I walked around the empty field to enjoy this cart,
Nadav went to a part of the show which I missed:
a last piece of the wheat field was mowed by the combine

and when this work was completed, the combine poured the processed wheat kernels on the ground,
and we all could take with us as much as we wanted.