The Purpose  of   HEALING - K.I.S.S. - as stated 12 years ago - was and is   to help me and my potential P E E R s  "to HEAL ourselves into WHOLEness, and - by extension - all of CREATion!" Intro to Healing-K.i.s.s. 2001-2013 and Overview of its main libraries [If you look for a word on this page, click ctrl/F and put a word in "find"] I focus my experiencing and awareness on being "a   pioneer of  Evolution  in  learning  to  feel": I let my Body vibrate and my Heart 'womb' pain, shame, fear, boredom, powerlessness, so feelings can >heal >guide>fulfill>evolve, and ~~~ offer ~~~"goldmines"~~~ to us all!! "I want you to feel everything, every little thing!"

 

 

K.I.S.S. - L O G    2 0 0 8
Keep It Simple Sweetheart

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Schubert's Missa Solemnis 1 2 3 How Learn And I The Train   Heal Conditions In Myself For Creating Into Heaven Those Whole On Conditions Self-acceptance Earth Daily sanctus-qadosh sanctus-holy sanctus-heilig

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May 8, Thursday, Independence Day - at Arad
re-edited on May 8, 2013, at Arad

back to past ~~~~~ forward to future

[see: Israel at sixty]

MY INTENTION and PLAN for TODAY Know exactly what you want, communicate clearly what you want, then get out of the way, live and play, and let happen what may! 8:00 I desire to find the balance today between taking-being part of this day's "rigushim" excitements, and exploring, savoring, assimilating those which I invited into my life via TV yesterday night. I desire -for once- to feel the ecstasis about the miraculous achievements of the State of Israel, and at the same time feel parental for all its dire failings, failures and defaults (I'm sobbing...). I desire to live this day in al-one-ness (ignored also by people in the pool...), but to be "available"!

hodayot [thanksgivings] for today 8:25 My Body, my Partner, my God I give thanks for the elasticity&flexibility of our hip, thighs, knees, legs, feet, which was "brought home" to me again this night by a contrast: In a dream I wondered how I could leap up and down a staircase, just as I do in reality in the pool, for instance, but when I woke up to go to the loo, my hip, thighs, knees, legs and feet had as much difficulty to adjust themselves to movement, as I remember having had in reality, while living in the bus in Eilat in 1997, I remember it because of the pity which a visitor, my friend Eilat, expressed. I am grate-full for my two contrasting, complementary identities: having been "raised" and grown up in war&postwar Germany, and having lived, created, raised children&grandchildren in Israel. I am grate-full for the theme which was chosen for this Independence Day: THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL based on the prophecy in Zecharia 8:4 to which I'm finally adding a tune: I am grate-full for the verbal sculpture of Dalia Itzik, the Knesset's speaker with which I could - almost entirely - identify and feel wholly what I felt. I am grate-full beyond any measure and expression, that after 1 200 000 Jewish children were murdered by my Germans, about 1 500 000 Jewish, Druze & Arab children between 0 and 14 years grow, play and learn in Israel.

"Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with cane in hand because of his age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing in her streets."                             They had never seen each other - Mika, my youngest granddaughter, and Yuval, 5 years older. After ten minutes of cautiously approaching each other, they slide down a spiral slide one after the other, delighting in colliding at the bottom.

Israel's National Anthem "Ha-Tikva" the hope, was sung together simultaneously in many places in Israel and around the planet,
Though it was organized as a competitive game : to enter the Guiness-book : a national anthem sung by the most people ,
after having seen and listened to different groups in different countries awaiting the moment of singing together,

Moskow, Russia

London, England, and Buonos Aires, Argentine

Budapest, Hungary

I did find it great!
I'm inserting the closure of the singing:
"to be a free people in our land"

Lately Efrat had sent me a link to a video of a very moving re-creation of the National Anthem HaTikva, (with a rap part in French) (rap in English) and then , on the Eve of Independence Day the video was shown on Channel 2 in the presence of its creator, Francky Perez, who had come from Paris. The female participant is a singer from Cameroon... Somewhere else in Israel today the crowds sang the original HaTikva with Shiri Maimon See a professional performance with translation of the text into English See also a performance in German+Hebrew with a moving slide-show.

As to the TV images of today's Independence Day, which I let enter my feelings and mind - see tomorrow

 

song of the day "I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and with all my soul" [Jeremiah 32:41]

 

 

 

 

fourth Continuation of the 70th birthday gathering at Ne'ot Kdumim on Friday, May 2 for Gil Huettenmeister, my German co-student at Jerusalem University in the year of the Eichmann Trial 1960-61

It is time to "drive back" into a few images of the past.
[we didn't have a camera then, and it was Nathanja who sent me these photos now]
There is no photo of the time,
Gil and I were studying at the Hebrew University and living on the Campus of Giv'at Ram,
but someone must have photographed Gil on a visit in our house,
when it still had the original size of 2 rooms and a dinner-corner,
i.e. before the house was expanded in 1966 and before the birth of my youngest, Micha, on August 31 that year.
Since Gil is seen studying here next to the baby bed of Ronnit (born January 1965),
and next to the desk with the old tape and the copper embossment behind him
(it was a present to Ronnit's birth from Buseima from Beit Safafa, who had come to visit me - in the guard of a male company)
he probably stayed with us for several weeks, as was the case with many a German guest at Ramat-Hadar.

 

After having been appalled by Hilleke's sick looks, I was on the alert to catch a lovely view of her in the road-train through the Biblical Landscape of Ne'ot Kdumim

Here I caught her beautiful braid, when she welcomed Arab friends, Saalim&Aisha Makhoul from Kafr Yasif

 

 

This is Michal Kaufmann, who has been a guide for 18 years
- among the 50 member staff, of which nobody lives here, since it's a Nature Reserve.
The little tour in the road-train wasn't included in the price of the event and was Michal's gift for us.
Here she lets us get off the train in order to explain - the 3 people are from the Galilee: again the couple from Kafr Yasif, and Amos (see below)

 

Michal showed us - quite far from where we stood - a cedar tree in the neighborhood of palm trees. "How come, a cedar which needs the climate of the Lebanon mountains, was planted next to tropical palm trees?" We wondered, indeed. "It is because of the famous verses in Psalm 92: The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, "Why is the cedar so small?" "It is still young. Cedars planted in the twenties (?) died, and this one was planted only 20 years ago." "Why should a tree die in such an environment?" She enchanted me with the depth of her understanding: "Because we still haven't completed 'the courts'. I am here- among others- to accomplish this." [see below - 2013 - at the end of this page]

Gil Huettenmeister, 22 at "our" time, now 70, with some of his friends. and his daughter Nathanja (=God gave} with Michal in front of the octagon, in which the gathering with Gil's friends, organized by Nathanja, took place. Michal won my heart even more, when she explained to me : "When my parents came to Israel, they were ashamed of their German family name 'Kaufmann'. So they pronounced it the Yiddish way: 'Koifman'. But I felt a need to return to 'Kaufmann'!

 

Still facing the cedar and the palm-trees Michal Kaufmann is seen to the right, while Sami Kamaal from Jerusalem is seen to the left.

After Sami and I found out, that we had never met, though we both asked each other: "Don't I know you?" he surprised me with the question: "Do you want me to take your photo with your camera?" I wanted to stand behind the caper-shrub which I cherish so much, still the photo, made by Nathanja's 'paparazzo', came out nicer.

Sami and I stayed together part of those hours, and once I asked him: "How was it for you to be amidst this totally Jewish ambience, with all this Jewish history etc.? " "Awful!" he said and laughed, - was he serious or not? Our temporary relationship developed to the degree, that before parting I could say to him: "You all the time talk about me, but I want you to talk about yourself!! Doesn't the fact, that you admire my courage etc., mean, that you yourself have given up on yourself, on your courage etc. and hide your pain behind a thick armor of niceness & humor?" It was then , that he finally rose up to his inner greatness and said: "Yes! I now understand the reason for having met you...!"

 

I chose to sit at one of the round tables with a father and two daughters sitting there already. They told me, how they met Gil: He was a dentist and had a scholarship for half a year for advanced studies at the University of Tuebingen. He had no idea, where he could live with his wife and with his three- then small - daughters. Somebody made the connection with Gil and Hilleke: "They will help you!" The summer holidays had begun and It so happened, that he met the family a day before they left for Israel for 6 weeks. "You can use our house during this time, and don't dare to pay us for this!"

Later Hilleke sat at our table too, and this is how I caught her picture together with her daughter.

 

Gil tells us, in what circumstances of his life he met each of the guests.
It was only then - when he turned to "Michael and Daniele Krupp" - that we recognized each other.

Michael Krupp, my age, also from Germany, Jewish in his soul, not on his identiy-card, helped me to bury my mother in 1985

When it was my turn to address the audience, I told them about the one scene with Gil which I remember: "We were sitting in a bus somewhere in in Israel and confided to each other, how we had been both deeply religious Gil a Catholic, I a Protestant, and that -though our belief in God was still valid, - our Christianity had been broken into pieces. For how can one make such a big story of one single Jew who was crucified, while no big story is made of millions and millions of other Jews who were slaughtered?" And then I told them: "We are three of us here - all born in Germany in 1938: Michael Krupp, whom I met already in Berlin in July 1960, has moved to Israel a few years later, married a Jewish wife , has four Israeli children, worked in the Interfaith Committee and brought hundreds of German students to Jerusalem University. But he himself never became Jewish. Gil, whose research immerses him totally in Jewish history, and who has come to Israel probably every year since then, did not become Jewish and does not live in Israel. I myself became Jewish and live in Israel. But I too wouldn't have dared to make the transition from the nation of perpetrators to the nation of victims, if not for the child I had born to a Jewish father. And though according to Jewish law, the child was not Jewish, since his mother was not, I felt that the child had opened the path for me..." Some women approached me later, one by one, shaking my hand and sharing, how deeply moved they were by my words. [As to Michael 23 years ago: since he was a Protestant minister, I asked him in Febr. 1985 to help me bury my mother in the Protestant Cemetery, once set up by the Templars in the 19th century, located opposite the end of "Rachel Immenu [our mother] Street" in Jerusalem. We met before, at Neve-Shalom for instance, but I don't remember to have met him since]

My letter to Gil, transmitted in a small pretty envelope, focused on the questions - still not answered: "What does it mean, that we were the only Germans, who lived among the new generation of Israel, a generation which through the Eichmann Trial was confronted for the first time, with what you and I had begun to be confronted already before? And what does it mean, that in 2008 we meet again?"

 

A video was presented - which showed Gil in a Polish Jewish cemetery,
to which the four daughters of a father, who was born in that village, had taken him.
The video included an interview with Gil about his path.
At the end of the movie one of the sisters - Bracha Tor from Mitzpe Netofa - in a religious outfit,
told how it pained her to hear people there sing a Christian hymn,
and approaching them asked them if they would listen to a biblical song.
They sang our famous "Hallelu-Yah" there in Poland
and now also among us here - gathered at Neot Kdumim. .


Nathanya: "Zu den vier Schwestern: So genau weiß ich die Geschichte auch nicht,
ich habe alles erzählt bekommen, aber nicht alles genau behalten.
Der Vater stammte aus Szczebrzeszyn, im Südosten des heutigen Polens.
Wie er überlebt hat, weiß ich nicht mehr, jedenfalls hat er seine ganze Familie dort verloren.
Nach dem Krieg hat er zunächst in Belgien gelebt und ist später nach Israel gegangen,
eine seiner Töchter lebt heute noch in Belgien,
die anderen drei hast Du in Neot Kedumim kennengelernt.
Und wie so häufig - seinen Kindern hat er nichts erzählt,
nichts von seiner Kindheit und Jugend und auch nicht, wie er überlebt hat.
Nach seinem Tod, als die Schwestern den Nachlass geordnet haben,
sind sie auf Briefe und Berichte aus Szczebrzeszyn gestoßen und haben angefangen zu forschen.
So sind sie an Gil - oder Gil an sie - gekommen,
während er den jüdischen Friedhof in Szczebrzeszyn bearbeitet hat.
Zuerst hatte sich Galit entschlossen, nach Szczebrzeszyn zu kommen,
während meine Eltern dort waren,
um die Reise durch einen Kameramann zu dokumentieren.
Nach und nach haben sich dann auch ihre Schwestern dazu durchgerungen,
sich Galit anzuschließen,
so daß dann schließlich alle vier gemeinsam nach Szczebrzeszyn gekommen sind,
dort die Friedhofsarbeit begleitet und nach Spuren ihrer Familie geforscht haben.
Im folgenden Jahr waren sie noch einmal da,
diesmal mit Shira,
die sich intensiv an den Kontakten zur dortigen Schule beteiligt hat, die Hilleke aufgebaut hat.
Diese Arbeit führt Hilleke noch immer weiter,
Anfang Juni fährt sie wieder nach Szczebrzeszyn. Und auch der Friedhof wird noch weiter dokumentiert."

 

This was one of the women who approached me, I took her photo and asked for her name, Orit Ben-Artzi. Later Natanya wrote me that Orit is the wife of the Rector of the University of Haifa, whom Gil came to know in the seventies.

Later Bracha Tor came to sit with me and the couple from Shavey Zion, Amos and Gilla Froehlich,
who already had approached me and told me, that Gilla was a German convert too,
and how a German man "Guenther" at Migdal (the place of Mary The Magdelene) did such wonderful things for Israel.
They invited me to visit them with such fervor, that I said, from the depth of my heart:
"I explained to you,
why I'm not going anywhere nor following any invitation except for this one today.
But I'll be attentive to a sign that might come my way and tell me,
that I should indeed visit you and deepen the talk with Gilla
about the meaning of the total dissimilarity of my and her path to Israel. "

It was then, that Bracha Tor asked me, what I was "doing".
I felt, I could choose the deepest-highest level of sharing,
how my path led me from "doing" in the exterior world
to "healing myself into wholeness - and by extension - all of Creation",
i.e. total self-acceptance.

I gave the example of my "pioneer-family" among the Bedouins:
"Even if they would have started with a mobile desert hosting business
according to my vision and teaching,
people in that "Zealots' Valley" would have killed them.
For their self-hatred and therefore mutual hatred,
which is exemplary for the entire world,
will de-struct anything that is con-structed on the exterior level."
It seemed that she truly understood.
She asked for my e-mail, I gave it, but warned her,
that since "I am hidden in YOUR face", I might not answer.
She understood this too.

 

Summary:
I enjoyed those 7 hours greatly.
I feel, the timing - a day after "Holocaust Day" - was not accidental.
Nor is it by chance, that I'm completing this sculpture on the Day of Independence.
I feel enriched through both - memories of the past and interactions in the present.
But the question keeps nagging:
What was or will be the purpose of having given such a show on the outside?

In any case, I'm joyous to return into the "Hide of Your Face"....

 

Addition on May 12:
As usual - in my process of remembering interactions -
what comes to the surface more and more ,
are the "blunders" on my side.
The only blunder on that day, but bad enough to subdue my good memory,
was a stupid way to uplift Gilla, who kept repeating :
"My way to Israel was nothing special at all.
The community at Shavey-Zion talked German most of the time,
and the daily routine of work in house and field was ordinary."
What I heard from these words was:
"Maybe I too should have exposed myself as a German in Israel after the holocaust!'

But instead of postponing my response to that lack of self-esteem to the right timing,
I hurried to use the few moments we were alone on our way out from the gathering
and said: "You know, the motto of my book is a midrash, which says,
that all of us are equal, each one fulfilling a task for the whole.
The - Aramaic - saying uses the metaphor of the grapevine:
de-ilmalee aleiya, la mitqaimeen itkaleiya,
if not for the leaves, there wouldn't be any graves.
[quoted in my book "All Israel vouchsafe for each other" and hinted at on the motto page]
Meaning: if not for you, one of the leaves, Gilla,
I couldn't have been one of the grapes!"
Listening to myself later,
this sounded as if I felt more valuable after all,
despite the message of that Aramaic statement.

I'll have to live with this shame now,
whenever I'll remember "Ne'ot Kdumim".

 

As to images sent to me during the following days by Nathanja, Gil's daughter, - see tomorrow

 

back to past ~~~~~ forward to future 2008/2012

Intro to k.i.s.s.-l o g + all dates ~ Library of 7 years ~ HOME ~ contact ~ SEARCH ( of Latin characters only!)                  my eldest granddaughter's video-gallery

whole&full-filled, never perfect&complete

Keep It Simple Sweetheart
K.I.S.S. - L O G    2 0 0 8

Facing these verses a second time today, I remembered a thought,
when - 2 days ago - I came across "a lovely little song" of my past.

I hadn't remembered the research I had done in SongGame 2007_11_17
which told me, that this was actually a "piyut" [a liturgical poem] with 4 stanzas.
Instead I said to myself:
This song is too short, it neads at least one other stanza to make singing it worthwhile.

Now in reading those 3 lines from Ps. 92 a second time,
I tried if they would adapt themselves to that tune,
which I learned many decades ago,
and yes: the adaptation was perfect, if I made 2 little changes,
instead of "be-khatzerot aelohenu" "in the courts of our God"
I sing "be-khatzerotav" - "in his courts"
and the "and" between dshenim ve-ra'ananim I omit.
I"m so happy.
Moreover I understand what Michal meant with 'the courts'
"Why is the cedar [planted in honor of that Psalm] so small?"
"It is still young. Cedars planted in the twenties (?) died,
and this one was planted only 20 years ago."
"Why should a tree die in such an environment?"
"Because we still haven't completed 'the courts'.
I am here- among others- to accomplish this."
I pray I'll meet her again!

And now the double stanza of "a time of (erotic) love"
In the Song of Songs it's the vine that blossoms - parkhah
In Psalm 92 it's the palmtree and the one who walks his talk,
that will blossom~flourish - yifrakh.
But then when such people will become old,
the Hif'il form of the verb serves to expand the blossoming~flourishing::
these old people yafrikhu , i.e. will make (others) blossom and flourish