D E S E R T

Carefree oasis, tent not-to roam, {the habitation in the garden} its stakes for ever-and-ever and its cords not-to be-cut-off Biblical Prophesy Isaiah 33,20

V I S I O N

2003_02_09 ; last update: 2003_03_25

When working on the page "Nabatean Reincarnation", I wrote:
"I yearned to re-visit the ruins of a town, hidden north of the ridge.
I never met anyone who discovered this town or knows about its identity."

It was then that I remembered with pain and gratitude and yearning,
that it was my partner/adversary Ram Eisenberg, who showed me the ruins.

I haven't met Ram for 10 years, and I'm sorry to find only a few - inexact - lines about him on the Internet.
The Succah Diary of 1992-3 is partly dedicated to coping with the devastating decline of our partnership.
I have not a single photo, which shows him, only photos, which he made, among them a fascinating one:
At full M O O N Dorothee and I are sewing a tent
on my S U N powered sewing machine.

Will I have time to tell this extraordinary drama about Ram and Rachel?
In the meanwhile I'll just insert photos of Ram's greatest innovation,
for which - as he once confessed with gratitude - I created the space.
There followed 3 more generations of my own Research&Development,
helped first by Yiftakh, a host in the Succah, and later by David Troim,
until I experienced and tested its ultimate perfection,
when I lived in it for half a year in winter and rain,
not in the desert, for which the tent is meant,
but in town, in Modi'in, in the garden of my daughter.
But the credit to the simple, practical, mystical form
belongs to the ingenious Ram Eisenberg.

Ram came to the Succah in its first year, 1990.
He started to help me with the installation of the primitive solar lighting system in "Abraham".
He also was the one who introduced the baking of our own bread and the Shabbat challahs.
My cherished ceremony on the Eve of Shabbat and festivals was partly inspired by him.

One day before the Succot festival I came back from the office and the market in town:
I couldn't believe my eyes: "Abraham" had doubled its space:
Within half a day Ram had built and attached to it a huge traditional succah.
the kind of succah Jews are supposed to live in during the 8 days of Succot,
has to be built in a way, that "the stars shine through".

After the festival we decided to not tear this succah down.
It was practical and beautiful with its carpets and mattresses all around
especially after a guest, who was the owner of a big timber business, promised
to contribute the boards for 3 low-legged tables, provided I would transport them.


Some years later Ram's attachment of a "veranda" to the "Abraham" succah shows 2 modifications:
Part of the front is covered with palm fronds, which let the light through, but protected against sun and wind.
And in winter we took off the palms fronds on top, inserted some kind of nylon sheets, and put the fronds back again.
Before I succumbed to this device, which ruined the symbolism of the traditional succah with its openness to the sky,
I had always to be on the alert to quickly run over to "Abraham",
concentrate all the equipment on two heaps and cover them against the rain.
Often it was false alarm and threatening/promising drops did not turn into the rain I yearned for.
Up to this day something jumps in me, whenever rain starts, : "What is it that I have to protect?"

The left photo shows "Abraham" before Ram attached a "veranda". Before , its depth from front to back was only 4 meters. This shows Ram's veranda after we had received the boards for 3 tables By then "sofas", people had dispensed with, made sitting more convenient. I was studying the sketches on the table in front of me. Sketches of a big tent in the form of a Star of David, which I had already shown to a metalworker in town. Such a tent was urgently needed for all kinds of groups, which wanted to come to the Succah for workshops. Suddenly Ram stepped in from behind and sat next to me. We both felt insecure towards each other and said nothing. Instead he watched my sketches for a moment and said: "No, not like that!" He took 6 matches and built what he called a "tetraeder". Seven such tetraeder tents would "hold hands" in a circle. A sheet would be spread from all apices to a central pole.

The golden triangle on the seats in front of the tables on Ram's "veranda" indicates the place where Ram invented the pyramidal tent

I was stupefied, held my breath for a moment, then blurted: "Wait a while. I have to show you something." I raced out of "Abraham" and around the hill to my bus. I grabbed "Einweihung", "Initiation", by Elisabeth Haich, in its Hebrew translation, opened a certain page and ran back to Ram: "Look what I came across just 2 weeks ago! Teachings of the High Priest of Egypt some 5000 years ago to this woman!" I'll now attempt a translation from the German original: "If we continue and cut the four edges of the cube, a form will be left, which is totally different from the cube: a tetraeder defined by four equilateral triangles... When spread out, these triangles form one equilateral triangle, the    symbolic    presentation    of    God. The tetraeder is, like the equilateral triangle which is its coat, the manifestation of harmony and equilibrium, because the distance between all the cornerpoints is the same. There is no tension in the tetraeder, but a state of balanced rest, unlike in a cube, where the distances between the corner points vary, thus causing continuous tension in the cube. The matter of the three dimensional world is constructed as the cube , but hidden in it is the tetraeder built on divine equilibrium...

The tetraeder symbol of fourfold Deity, as presented in Godchannel.com and my 2002 model of the ultimative pyramidal tent

There was no doubt, that Ram was supposed to develop the tetraeder tent.

The first most significant invention was the doubling of the entrance triangle, which allowed for opening and closing it according to the direction of the sun, and for expanding the interior space, when needed, as it was, when I myself made the tent my sole abode. Ram's second invention was to double the sheets of the triangles. Unlike the doubled entrance triangle, which is still the same today, the device of doubling the layers of the sheets changed a lot later. Then we experimented with the two materials we deemed suitable: plastic black netshade outside and natural yute inside, or vice versa. The R&D process was difficult, technically and financially, and for our relationship both deeply satisfactory and madly straining . Also Ram did not succeed in figuring out a stable circle of 7 tents, but the joining of 4 tents, put to use as our Four-Nation-Tent in 1997, seems to have been symbolically right, just as it was technically viable. As to the tent for workshops - Ram invented a special, specific shape, which we came to call the "Ohel-Mo'ed", i.e. "the Tent of Appointment" . The Hill of the Angels' Flight and Ram's tent: male and female shapes completing each other.

The tents were erected, when a group of more than 12 people came for a workshop or a silence meeting and each individual wanted to live alone.

The Composition of Four

One layer of the tent was the same black 80% netshade,
that I had discovered at Polisack/Nir Yitzchak towards the creation of the Succahs.
Since "Aluminet" was not yet invented, we used yute as a second layer.
At first the yute became too elastic and in the winter-storms got torn altogether.
That's why we launched the second generation of the pyramidal tent.

As to Ram - since I was too weak to stand up to him,
and not only I , but the Succah people suffered,
I had to evict him once again..
Our relationship has been on freeze since November 1992.
When I began to live in Arad (since Dec. 2004), he suddenly stood in the doorway,
while I was surrounded by young people on the Eve of Shabbat.
When one of these, who had come without knowing much about me,
behaved aggressively, Ram defended me with such wisdom and warmth,
that I believed, we could make a new start.
Yet soon enough , when we tried to communicate via e-mail and Internet,
the old pattern raised its ugly head up again.
"It's not yet the time for us", I wrote him and we disconnected again.
In the meanwhile it's January 14, 2014.
My own fourth generation tent is still hybernating on my veranda in Modi'in.
But I am certain,
that the enormous significance
of this seemingly simple invention
will manifest in the future.

continue to R&D of the Pyramidal Tent