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Overview of and Links to the Pages of My Community: Desert Vision - Succah
Parting
from its realization in the exterior World
D E S E R T V I S I O N
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THE SUCCAH'S NINE STAGES
1.Stage: 1983-88 : Becoming
Prepared
2.Stage: Nov. 1988
- Nov.1990 : Conception and Pregnancy
3.Stage: Nov.
1989 - Pesach 1990 : Birth of the Succayah as a scientific
model of an SPS business
4.Stage: Pesach 1990-February 1994 :
Arrival of Paying Guests and Consolidation of Concepts
5.Stage: Febr. 1994 - Succot 1994
: Expansion of Responsibility and Experiment with optimal
target guests
6.Stage;
Succot 1994-Pesach 1996 : The Succah's "Coming-of-Age"
7.Stage: Pesach 1996 - August 1998
: Fragile Independence
9. Stage September
2001-July 2002 : Conflict between Partners
Eighth Stage: August 1998- August 2001
Forced partnership of Four
2002_08_19; last update: 2003_02_04
Gadi&Efrat move to Mitzpe-Ramon
and share the work of hosting, maintenance and office.
Dorit, a guest among those who escaped the fire at Pesach,
had become Avi's partner.
Mutual dependency
between Avi-Dorit and Efrat-Gadi,
renders the business stability.
In time only Gadi works,
while Efrat involves herself in the uplifting of the desert-town Mitzpe-Ramon.
A Prospectus with Avi's new Abraham Succah,
after the first one had perished in the Fire of Pesach 1998
Our history had been fear on his part and pain on
my part.
From this perspective [02_10_10] the process
was perfect.
Engaged in our RedSeaPartnerSHIP
with David and Ya'acov,
I lived at the navel of Tel-Aviv Nakhalat Benjamin-Allenby St.
in the office of a group of Green activists, in September 1997.
Gadi, who still had his studio and home in famous Shenkin-St.,
asked me to meet Avi Dror, an ideal potential Succah-partner.
Avi had cut off his career & business as a building contractor,
had divorced, when his children were grown up, and was free.
What he didn't share with me then, were the mystical
events,
a true "call or vocation", that propelled him into the Succah.
Later we drove south and I helped him to know the
Succah.
In January he started to work as a host like so many others.
The Succayah - with Gadi far away - was in a pitiable
state.
Though there was never a lack of dedicated team-workers,
the mental state of some was unstable & the turnover fast.
As I see it, Avi came just in time to save my Succah-child.
Passover in April brought new changes: the
fire and Dorit.
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The feast always tempts hosts to take in too many guests.
When Gadi, who was not present, reported to me
in Eilat,
that "Abraham"&"Hagar" and my archive! were in ashes,
I asked him:
"Have you an idea already, why you attracted
this?"
"Yes! the fire came to warn us to abide
by the rules!!
There were 32 (!) guests around the breakfast table,
[instead of optimally 12 or, if a group, maximally
18].
Visitors always urge us to enlarge the infrastructure,
the fire reminded us - that succumbing to these urges
would destroy the economic resource of the Succah.",
[which is, of course, the SPS = SPACE , PURITY
AND SILENCE].
Though I grieved over the loss of my archive,
I was certain that the fire came as my helper.
The next helper was one of the Passover guests.
She became Avi Dror's intimate partner : Dorit.
At that time they made the ideal Succah couple.
In August Gadi/Efrat moved to Mitzpe-Ramon.
Because of their 4 kids they had to live in town,
but they helped, Gadi fulltime, Efrat less & less,
with hosting and maintaining the fragile succahs.
The two couples rendered stability to my child.
They were forcefully dependent on each other:
Gadi/Efrat were oldtimers and my official heirs,
Avi/Dorit were physically living in the Succayah.
I saw the beauty of this development even then.
But relationships- the economic asset - were
bad.
What attracts guests is not only the Succah's SPS,
but the personal hospitality, they can expect there.
Once, in 1999, I came all the way from Ein-Gedi,
to teach them how to heal&handle communication.
Gadi/Efrat had won over Avi/Dorit to let me help.
"The beneficial results lasted no longer than 2
days!"
I had warned them and suggested an ongoing training.
But Gadi succumbed to inertia and - Avi's resistance.
In one of our recent encounters I could dare
to say:
"Avi, you then were as insecure as an adolescent
who kicks his parents to guard his independence."
"Maybe", he agreed.
Before the end of the second millenium we hit hell.
When I was evicted from Ein-Gedi, Gadi
invited me to live in a succah.
I didn't even consider to take him at his word, but decided to find out,
if, when worst came to worst, I could live there somewhere in my tent.
It was the 5th birthday of my wild, troubling, grandson
Tomer.
I felt, some days in an unfamiliar environment might help him.
Little did I know, that it was me who would need Tomer's help.
I was not in contact with two of my closest former
team-workers,
but I heard, that Renata
would come from the US to visit Michal.
I asked, if - on their visit to the Succayah - they
could invite us,
since Tomer's mother would allow me to take him only in a car.
I felt their reluctance, but for Tomer's sake I denied my shame.
Maybe Michal's Maya and my Tomer, same age, would justify me.
For the first time I was a guest in the Succah
- but not welcome.
To live here in a tent, was out of the question. But I dared to ask:
"Could I spend the last month of the millenium in seclusion in a succah?
I would like to stay in "Eliezer" [intended
as a cabin for team-workers].
I would not talk, nor interact, nor come down to the Abraham succah,
except - secretly - to take the 7 ingredients for my self-cooked meals,
which I would ask you to buy and hide for me in an appointed place.
And I would pay 77 NIS per day, which would be twice my pension."
They wanted to think.
The prelude to what was to happen the next and last day,
was a clash with Michal, also called Dror [freedom]
like Avi.
It had pained me, that after dinner at night,
they all left rightaway
Renata, Michal and Maya, who had not become Tomer's friend,
and Noam, another former Succah worker, who had joined them.
So, the next morning, I forced Michal to face me and she blurted:
"From the moment you asked us to take you with us,
I had to constantly run to the loo with loose bowels."
I knew the hole in Michal's wholeness which
was so triggered by me.
Michal Dror is, among other professions, a painter
and photographer.
One day I may ask her to exhibit her Succah creations on my website.
In 1993, she had worked for half a year as a hostess in the Succayah.
Part of that time - during the Oslo Peace Illusion - I lived in her flat,
so as to work - from Tel-Aviv - on my Desert Hosting Economy Vision.
We were close and had gone through the kind of profound experiences
that are the blessing and the curse - the gift - of the Succah to its hosts.
For her farewell we drove to the Midbaron
wadi for a twosome hike.
I see us climbing up the western hills, when I responded to her quest:
"No, Michal, I am very, very sorry and hope you'll
understand and accept:
I cannot go on being your friend, as I was while we were team-workers."
Michal recoiled as if I had smacked her. We
sat down on some rocks.
I was disappointed too, I thought she understood me and my vocation.
The overwhelming amount of ever new people in my life
and the intensity with which I related to each and every one,
were part and parcel of my vocation.
"I am not a private person, Michal!"
Her mind understood, but her feelings
didn't.
We still met each other now and then and I even slept
at her house.
I gave her loving assistance, when she decided to become a mother.
But I never knew the depth of the wound she had attracted from me.
The wound, Renata received from me, is of a totally
different nature,
but seems to be just as unhealable. I'll
tell about this another time.
While Michal and I screamed and cried,
and finally decided to separate lovingly,
Dorit worked in the kitchen, - appalled.
"I cannot be around so much emotionality,"
she said, when the four called me into the Tent
of Appointment,
that ugly hangar, which resulted from their intent to save money.
They wanted to utilize someone's gift of green house metal bows.
I knew and understood Avi's and Dorit's terror
of me,
but I never imagined that they would dare to refuse me,
what every other person on this planet would be given:
the opportunity to stay in the Succah as a paying guest.
"You will sit like the Dalai Lama on the
Hill of the Angels' Flight,
and people from all over will gather around it and bow down."
I had to laugh, when Avi said this in all earnest,
but my laughter froze, when I realized,
that Efrat and Gadi were not there to protect me.
"We were afraid,
your presence would worsen our relationship with Avi and Dorit,"
Efrat said recently.
"But you could have won me over to your fear, could you not ?
instead of confronting me with your betrayal in their presence?"
| Dec. 2001 |
While the four spoke,
and my heart broke, an angel sat on my lap. |
April 2002
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Tomer
had entered silently - unlike his ugly behavior in the presence of
others, We hurried up the wadi to our far away Rachel succah,
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Tomer was cheerful and
shared observations instead of complaints,
and, as usual, found something, an earthen saucer, "made-in" Lima! It was whole, impeccable, - not broken and glued as I guard it now. For years I had had the feeling, that it would be Peru, where I would erect the first Succayah outside Israel. How on earth did Lima/Peru reach out for me in the Negev Desert? And what for? Could it be, that a representation of a 'Flying Saucer' came to tell me, "You have completed your task of physically realizing your Desert Vision!" This meaning comes to my mind now, while I'm sculpting that experience. |
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When we came back, picked up our things,
walked to the road,
and stood there hoping, one of the rare cars would take us north, I observed that most of my pain and bitterness had melted away. |
What had happened, needed to happen:
the total, though temporary separation was necessary for all of us to grow.
And ~~~~~ it was then, ~~~~~~ that it dawned upon me,
that a succayah wasn't the optimal model of an economic structure in the desert.
It was TOO permanent. The
future would lie in the mobile pyramidal tents, I felt.
After a silent year Gadi started to call me again, about once in 3 months.
He said, he wanted to come, get support and advice, but he never came.
In August 2001 Gadi informed me, that he would take
time out.
"In the presence of Avi I feel wiped out.
He dominates the interaction with the guests with his incessant talking.
They turn to him, as if I did not exist."
My short visit in the Succah, in 2001, brought no joy.
But then - on April 14, 2002, - the first light
of dawn!
My grandson Jonathan was highly expectant
towards his eleventh birthday.
April 15 is also the date, which I and Immanuel commemorate every year.
He
- then a baby of 15 months - and I immigrated to Israel on April, 1964.
I invited Jonathan to drive to the Desert and spend a day just him and
me.
The day before this emotional date was a convenient Shabbat.
After more than 2 hours drive we met Avi feeding the animals.
When we greeted him, his face stayed frozen like a mask.
"Didn't you get my message, that we would come?"
"No!"
"I left a message on purpose,
so that this time I would be welcomed with less coldness."
I discerned a tiny movement in his face.
He left his work and led us to the Abraham succah.
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On our short way I saw a stained
window in the geodesian structure,
with which Gadi had replaced the former "Nebo"-Succah-for-Visitors, and in which he lived, when he stayed over night in the Succayah. I knew what I risked, when I remarked: "I so much loved Gordon's stained window in the burnt Abraham succah!" "What is past, is past," Avi snapped. "There is no need to remember." I wasn't deterred and didn't let him shut me up. I became bolder: "On the contrary, what we don't remember, we have to live again. Tell me, Avi, what makes you so afraid of Rachel and her past?" |
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Ice cracks
Water trickles
Cautious talk begins.
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I had planned to take Jonathan for a
hike I dreaded
a breakdown from the heat |
Suddenly there was a moment of grace.
Avi told me the secret of his being here.
A secret he had never told Gadi or Efrat.
When we left
at sunset, my last words were:
"Please go to your source and ask how we both are
connected."
And this is the beginning of what those
beings,
who in some nights call him to sit outside his succah,
told him, and which I deepened by my own studies:
Once upon a time,
or to be exact, 2100 years ago
there was a great culture in the Negev,
which was the desert of Israel then
and again is the desert of Israel now.
The greatness of the Arab
Nabatean culture slowly comes to light,
parallel to the germination of a future desert economy, civilization, culture.
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MAKHTESH RAMON |
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North of the Ramon-Crater
there ruled a local king , today Avraham Dror,
inspired/adviced by his oracle, today Christa-Rachel Bat-Adam or Maryam.
We have yet to find out, who were Gadi and Efrat at that time,
and all the other potential desert peers, so closely linked to each other,
though dispersed now over Israel, over the Planet, or even "passed over".
There was an alliance for 70 years between Nabateans
and Israelis
forged by a common enemy (there are multitudes
of those also today),
which broke apart because of the same reason,
why the partnership
between the three persons,
who are working on the same desert vision,
is now in jeopardy.
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See more about our time 2100
years ago: our visit to Khirbet Tzura
to "Desert Peace Process"
or
to ninth stage
March 15, 2011
| Now more of the big show of ice and snow, Water in the Wilderness is the strongest
symbol
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Snow and Ice in the Desert 5 Addressing the Hosts |
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