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

rView through our shortlived FourNationTent in Eilat/Israel to Jordan and Saudi Arabia across the Red Sea

2003_02_10 ; last update: 2003_03_24

PREFACE:
The ultimate pyramidal tent - Eilat December 1997
a smaller tent of black netshade
within a bigger tent of silvery "aluminet" netshade.
dan and Saudi Arabia across

A small history of the process of Research and Development.

15.5.93 - Tourism Exhibition
Ram's tent stars on the balcony of the Opera House in Tel-Aviv, overlooking the Mediterrenean.
Merav and Sarit function as hosts. My daughter, her eldest Jonathan and Rotem in her belly, visit.

Another chance for one of the by then already discarded tents of Ram's generation came in summer 1994.
I erected one on this very edge of the Crater.
Nothing was stolen except a valuable blanket,
a gift from my friend Irene Haan (Kassel, Germany), without whose financial help the Succah would not exist.

The invaluable work between people , that was done in that tent, cannot yet be told on a website....

It was Yiftakh Paskhi from Kibbutz Yif'at,
who was to create the second generation of the pyramidal tent.

His last experience with Rami's tents was his Festival called Succat-Shalom on March 4, 1994.

I let this festival happen, so that everyone could learn, that the desert and the Succah are for a few, not for masses,
and though instead of his expected 500 visitors, came only 100, and at the peak there were not more than 70 present,
it was too much for the desert, too much for the Succah.
Some weeks later we started together to develop a new model of the tent.

I never changed Ram Eisenberg's basic idea of the tetraeder, the triangular pyramid,
"the most harmonious geometrical space there is",
as that Pharaonic priest said 5000 years ago.

Nor did I divert from the idea of the double entrance sheets.
But part of the materials we used - an imitation of what I had found for the succahs - were bad.

The black netshade, produced in Kibbutz Nir-Yitzkhaq, was okay,
but the desert colored jute was not, it deteriorated within one year.
The wooden poles, Ram used, were too heavy and unwieldy,
and when we exchanged it,
also Ram's sophisticated device for joining the 3 poles to one
and for attaching the the sheets to them,
had to be reinvented.

The second generation, realized by Yiftakh, a host, and me, did provide a fine Ohel Mo'ed, but less fine tents for guests. The material, for which I had searched in many Tel-Aviv shops, and which should replace the double layers of yute and network, was nice to look at, but suffocating to live in.

The aluminium poles were light, but in dissonance with nature. Moreover, I had made an enormous mistake:

Though I had helped Ram to measure the minimal length of the sides of the tetraeder ,
by putting a mattress in a triangle drawn on the ground,
I was so sure, that the length had to be 300 cm,
that I didn't even bother to check, when I gave Yiftakh the size data.
But the difference between 300 and 333 cm "made all the difference".

There were technical and beautiful improvements, like triangle windows.

But after "my" time, i.e. after their last usage for the program
"Aetgar be-Midbar", "Challenge in the Desert",
they were discarded, I don't know, when or by whom.

The possibility of erecting mobile succahs in addition to the static ones
was especially valuable, when all the guests wanted to be each in his/her own space,
as was demanded, for instance, when a workshop or Silence Meeting took place.
Today no one even remembers that the Succah had such an asset,
maybe not even Gadi and Efrat, - and Amit in Efrat's belly...

In order to further develop the pyramidal tents,
I had to live in them.
And so I did - for periods of time.

Further R&D was done in 1995, in what I called "King David's Harem", where I recycled 3 discarded tents of Ram's generation, called them according to 3 of David's wifes: Bat-Sheva, Avi-Gail, Achi-Noam and made a composition attached to my bus, called the David Succah [Amos 9,11] In time I preferred to sleep in one of the tents rather than in the David Succah.

An enormous step forward in the development of the pyramidal tent needed to be taken in Sinai.
I was sitting in an unimportant wadi northwest of Nuweiba, called by the locals Wadi-a-Taulah
Holding a black umbrella in my armpit and with a string in my mouth, against the July desert sun.
Just before I went down to Sinai, it so happened, that while hitchhiking from Tel-Aviv to the Succah,
I was taken by a driver from Nir-Yitzkhaq, the kibbutz, where the netshade is produced,
which I found when I searched for building material for the succahs in December 1989.
Right there in the car I postponed my return home and went to Nir-Yitzkhaq, wondering,
"if they have developed something new in the last 6 years".
And they had! I was stunned! The silvery material, called "Aluminet", reflecting off the light of the sun,
had been developed "especially for the tents", I said to myself.

Uri, my son in law, had figured out, how to cut the 4 triangles of the two layers, in one piece,
to which would be added the stripes for strengthening the sides of the entrance,
for strengthening the angles, where the bamboo poles would be
if I wanted to make not one, but 12 tents, as planned, and save time and material
I planned, calculated, cut and stitched the two layers of network together.
(Not completed)