I arrive dragging one beige Hartmann carry on. Its otherwise sturdy wheels are knocked off their tracks by the path across the campus; directed to a dorm room I am to share with a slightly outsized midget from Baltimore. The Baltimoron is a professional Jew, someone my father would have labeled in Yiddish, “a kille grabbler,” a grabber of community funds (and a play on the word “kille,” which would make him also a “hernia grabber.”) He arrives later; takes over the room with two oversized valises, two carry-ons, assorted bulging plastic sacks. He spreads himself about as if acquiring square meters would compensate for his challenged height. He explains brusquely: radio must play at all times; when he leaves I must leave it on, he should not return to a silent room (as if he were terrified to be alone with himself); night time radio is necessary to lull him to sleep; remains on to keep him asleep. I buy earphones for him; he refuses — uncomfortable to sleep with. He is meticulously groomed, a mustache clipped within millimeters of the line between lip and frenulum, hair parsed, shellacked into place by various pomades, gels, waxes that are aligned like tin soldiers along the bathroom shelf. He tops this “do” with a black knit kippah, adhered in place by the hair glues. Much deodorant beneath each armpit; they are frosted white. The mornings leave dust clouds trails from his Gold Bond powder scooped plentifully around his balls, his soles, between toes; needs Gold Bond’s stimulating mentholated zing. Clothes are aligned by type, color, dancing shirt-to-shirt, pant-to-pant. He buys bargain tchatchkes, gifts, from Arab souks by the gross to bring back to Baltimore. These spill over to my sliver of closet, onto the floor. Bury my one pair of shoes. I last two days, then beg for private quarter.

I am exiled to an unused dorm unoccupied for several days until a teen group from Australia arrive, four to a room, a lively and loud collective. In early morning, they pray fervently, shaking the bleached gravely outside landing, facing East. The Ulpan, its tin, and concrete sheds, lies west of the Green Hotel The hotel of informality. One late evening, I come upon Tzakhi, the desk manager, changing his pants into shorts behind the counter, even as he attentively answers my questions. To close out the Shabbat, I ask to buy candle and wine to take to the Beach, say prayers with friends after sunset. “Buy? Buy!” he responds offended as he pulls on one leg of the shorts, then straightens himself like a gondolier. “Here. From the kitchen; just bring back.”

The Ulpan has its unique breed of cockroach, Djukim the size of fat, robust mice, but faster, tailless, silent. They prefer rooms of young women, especially those closest to the only computer terminal. Late night internet users are jarred by episodic shrieks, “Djukim! Djukim!!” as if extolling the Beatles, followed by women bursting through their doors, calling for aid. Men armed with brooms assemble, smack floors loudly, even as the we know that the lights have sent the Djukim to safer quarters.

I am placed in level Gimel Plus, pronounced “ploos.” I don’t feel very “ploos.” The class, perhaps 25, is half new olim, — adults from Caucasus, teens from Chile, Peru, Argentina, one doe-eyed boy from

Persia, sent alone, snuck out by his family. (He later, while biking, is hit by a car, is brain-dead.) One quarter are tourists from England, French; the rest of us, Americans, “Amerrikanim.” We have two teachers, alternating daily, each of whom alone could have powered the secret Dimona reactor: no need for nuclear with these two. Yonat locks the door at 800 promptly each morning. Late? See you tomorrow. (Actually, you can slink in after the first break, if you are up to weathering Yonat’s glare the rest of the day.) I inhale the learning, like Akiva the forty year old farmer who lapsup the dust written by the angel, dust that reveals all knowledge to Akiva, until erased by the Angel.

By week two, we are asked to solo, some ten minutes, in front of class, a tale, not read, spoken. I do something, now forgotten, perhaps the story of the cabbie who recites his daughter’s brain-plumbing ailment, their victory over death.

Then Pascal, Nee Pinchas. A Frenchie, delightful, of thin habitus, sharp featured, yet from somewhere a Hapsburg lip; a small kippah decorated with dentate figures clipped to his close-cropped but thick black hair, and his trim beard reveal his religiousness. Originally from Paris, he now lives with his family in London. France now too alien, too populated by rowdy Moslem teen gangs for this Jew. In France, teen thugs from Arabi gang-up on a little Jewish girl daring to wear her Magen David out; they force it down her throat, chase her home. He is here with his 11 year old daughter; wife and son are staying with relatives nearby. He carries a small pocket French Hebrew computer into which he types unknown words, surreptitiously, as the teacher frowns on dictionaries. His tale, his sport: mountain climbing, in Hebrew, he describes the almost onomatopoeic, “l’tapes,” scaling peaks. He lists five major peaks that have fallen to his tread. The last, Mt. Blanc, scaled with pickax, boots and … well, tefillin.Yes, tefillin at the summit. Only he and one guide, he details the cold final assent. They begin before dawn; rising sun reveals the narrow, one-person path with terrifying sheers on each side. At the summit, his guide, eyeing a gathering storm, whips out the camera for the token shot. But Pascal, even as blistering winds strip away his words, mimes: “Wait!”  He whips out his tefillin and demonstrates to class, most of us unfamiliar with the morning ritual. He shrugs off the left parka, pulls up the thermal sleeve to bare skin to the howling mountain winds; places one box on his biceps facing his heart, another around his crown, “as frontlet between his eyes,” Torah commands. The leather straps must be wound on bare arm, biceps to the hand, about the knuckles, just so, to trace “Shadai” over the fist. He proceeds rapidly: seven windings to the hand, some boondoggling around the fingers to proclaim God. poises arm in the air, he freezes for photo. Then off with the tefillin even as they start the truly frozen descent.Delighted, we applaud. He, approaching God on Europe’s highest peak, reaches just a bit closer to Him. The Shema commands that one teach God in our home, and on our roads; on this high road, Pascal/Pinchas reaches both a personal and Jewish “best.” 

At Rutie’s turn, we are to sing “Shir L’sholom,” “Song to Peace.”  She’s reluctant to come up, looks shy.  So at odds with her character, she of gelled/hennaed/spiky hair, diminutive body built too small to contain the eruptive enthusiasms. Then she goes on quite at length, first of the story of its last singing by Rabin before he was shot, then line-by-line, word-by-word, so we absorb its depth. (Now, I see she was temporizing, delaying how much this tune, these words, would strike her heart, a direct shot.)  Not only did Rabin, ten years ago, at first reluctantly join the singing, then lustily and tunelessly (like Opher’s piano) join all the other cabinet ministers on stage sing along to Yaakov Rotblit’s and Yair (“enlighten”) Rosenbloom’s song, but also afterwards, folded the lyrics, placed them in his inside left breast pocket, where it did not stop either of the two bullets shot into him by Yigal Amir; bloodsoaked instead.

I don’t have words persuasive enough to capture what happened to Rutie next. First, her voice dropped as we lustily chorused along, then the blotchiness ascended her throat, crept around the eyes, until this blood leaked into tears and she turned away from us and her music stopped. This caught me a bit by surprise (tears still come as I write this and listen to the music from Rav Hovel (“Captain, my Captain,” Wordsworth’s poem to Lincoln after his head-shot assassination.)

Front and center photo last weekend Ha’aretz is a shot of assassin Amir standing, gun still elevated as Rabin’s body is stretched part way into the back seat of the car, bodyguards crouched, guns drawn and…not firing.  I martial on with the singing, I do not hear others’ voices catching, but I become concentrated on a voice,mine continuing.

Here is my unpoetic translation of Rabin’s last song:

“Give us the sun to rise/ To light the morning./ Our morning prayers/Won’t bring them back./ Whomever’s candle is snuffed out/and buried in the dust/ My bitter tears will not raise him/ Won’t return him from there. Our man won’t be brought back/ From the black pit beneath/ From there, no victory celebration/ No songs of praise.

Therefore, only sing a song to peace/ Don’t whisper prayers/ Better to sing a song to peace/ In a great shout.] Give us the sun to penetrate/ For the flower’s sake./ Don’t look back/(continue walking./ Let your eyes in hope/ Not in the path passed/ Sing a song of love/ And not of wars!/ Don’t tell us — A day will come/ Bring us the day (so it won’t be a dream)/And in each town square/ Let us raise (a song) of peace.”Well, as if this weren’t enough,later that day  I am innocently standingin a coffee shop  — a bit too much later, a bit too tired — in Rehovot, waiting to meet a psychoanalyst, Ilany Kogan.  I start a single espresso, which I soon spill shortly after the next song plays in the cafe. This song.  I hear a familiar chorus, written by Shlomo Artzi after Rabin’s murder. The song is lengthy, the chorus short:

 “Where are there more people/ Like this man./ Who was like the weeping willow.”

I don’t permit myself to recognize it at first; ask the waitress, who shrugs as she tries to name it; she flips through my music notebook and fingers it for both of us, a bit in victory. Then the tears begin to crowd the back of my throat (and I spill my precious espresso). Too much feeling at the anniversary of Rabin’s death.

 The waitress is a darling. Removes my spilled espresso, wipes the counter dry so that I can replace my notebook, returns with a fresh espresso. (Should you ever be in Rehovot, it is Idan and Susan’s, across and down the street from the Weizman Institute. And should your cell phone be dead, they will let you call your friend or colleague from their phone.)

Simon Perez, asked if he had hope for peace, responded that without hope (Ha’Tikvah), this Land could never have been built. When Moses sent spies to check the lay of the land before the Jews from Egypt could enter, one spy described the land as one, “that eats its inhabitants.” And yet we still sing of it as one of milk and honey.

Copyright N. Szajnberg 2005

When he arrives late to class, as is fairly often, he pauses at the door, near the teacher’s desk, bows slightly, givies others just a moment to greet him, offer him obeisance. He looks to the teacher to be certain she has an opportunity to be delighted at his arrival, then with a wave of his hand, asks: “Is there an empty seat for me?” as if unsure which of the half dozen empty chairs will entertain him.

His speaking, hard to convey. It comes in mini-eruptions. What I mean is, something like an awakening volcano, you hear its rumbling, some obscuring smoke, before the lava erupts. His erupts in bursts of Hebrew words, but not many, at least not enough to fill in the time. The word-spaces are filled in with “Ehhh’s” or “Dhdhdhdhe’s” or such. At times his almost stuttering noises are onomopeic with words, as if they were words. When he speaks, the right arm does waving, the back of the hand upwards, as if wafting the words from his mouth to ascend, spread to all ears, even to heaven. The ending is with some more rumbles that hint he is coming to rest.

I am generally taken in by British accents, add a few extra points to the speaker’s IQ on behalf of a well-turned Anglo accent or phrase. But, this does not seem to work in Polonius’s favor.

At times he says things that are correct or make sense.  Almost.  He has a biblical quote for each occasion. He has a rabbinical manner of delivering these, I mean of the High Church/ Anglican/Reform Judaism oratory, of the orotund kind. Perhaps this is his attempt to capture some voice of a prophet or some daemon speaking through the person, as if he had no responsibility for what is being said. Rather some higher source is piping through his being to reach us.

I was not aware of why I was so bothered by this Polonius, until it happened that he sat next to me one class. He came late and assigned himself cheek-by-jewel to me.  Then, I discovered that in addition to his class-y pronouncements, he also carries on a personal oratory with his seat mate. An ongoing, sidewards mumble. That being me on that day, I was brought to mind of Hamlet’s father dying from poison poured into the porch of his ear. Until that day, I thought that Hamlet’s uncle had used some physical potion upon his brother’s auricular appendage. That day, I realized that such toxins can be produced by words: Uncle talked his brother to death, so much so, that even when Hamlet’s father returns as a ghost, he is left speechless. I had the sense that I was sitting next to an Evangelical Christian bent on converting me for my own good; he knows what’s best for me. Except, he was trying to convert me to…Judaism!   I thought to my irritated self, I am Jewish. I have dear friends who are Orthodox, I enjoy shul; what’s my problem with his blatherings?

Then, insight. I realized that the distance between this Polonius-ski and The Reverend Willy Nilly, was as narrow as an ass’s nose whisker. He pauses, Polonius, momentarily, looks at me to see if I have changed.  Yet. Into something or someone else, I am guessing he expects to appear different, laquered with his words.

I change seats at our break. I think I was out to save a life. Had I been a fencer and had their been a velvet curtain, I might have exclaimed, “Dead as a Ducat.” Instead, I sit removed.

And I write a story.

One, prior to the talk, tells me that her name is very Polish, Korscak, like the Polish doctor, Janusz Korszak, who chose to walk with his Jewish children into the gas chambers.  But I tell her that I am fairly sure that Korscak was Jewish, only adopted a Polish name. She is shocked by this.  We comb the internet, so excited, that my cup of mineral water is spilled. She makes nothing of this, mops up and continues surfing. A phone call comes, asking me to prepare for the presentation; we wave it off.  Korscak found, she is surprised to learn of Korscak’s Judaism, how he chose a fictional character’s Polish name (later misspelled by a publisher) to assimilate better. Puts a different spin on his decsion to march with the Jewish children into the chambers to die. There is a Korscak Society. Bettelheim
revered Korscak.Sharon, the woman who guided over me the cell phone  to Geha, made arrangements, and later calls my cab, tells me that her father and I were/are neighbors: I am thinking Ra’anana; she is meaning SF. He lives at 1620 Lake St, known for his Japanese Bonzai garden; down the block from 1720, my digs. Afterwards, she escorts me to the private dining room. She assures me the grub is good, fine victuals. People arrange for this dining room to cater events. Its tasty, although, I was remembering in Finland, at the hospital you could get some low-beer (2.5% alcohol) at lunch; well, not very good beer. We sat, an Israeli, Orthodox Jew who talked about treks to Peru, Chile, Tibet; an Argentine, who grew up in far north Argentina, once a thriving Yiddish community; Sharon and myself. The Argentine couldn’t speak English and my Spanish is limited to ordering burritos, so Hebrew it was, such as it was.Now, off to Jerusalem to volunteer for the army.  My Tel Aviv cab driver, whom I fuel with botz (Turkish coffee), enjoys the trip and before I fall asleep, says to me that the way for Jews to live together (he demonstrates with his hands) is with mountains between each Jew.  These cab drivers are challenged, for they must use both hands to talk; driving interferes with this, only somewhat.  The cup of botz I give him, leads me to wonder if I have signed my death warrant, as he now prepares to empty a sacket of sugar (through a tiny tear) into the coffee cup, lid up-ended. I offer to sugar his coffee; waves me off. Thinks he can do it at a red light. But the hole he has torn from the edge of the packet permits only individual granules to trickle out.  This continues for several blocks: hot, unlidded coffee in left hand, packet clutched in right, left foot working clutch; right doing brake/accelerate, and Newton’s laws of physics maintaining our course.  Packet done, I worry he wants two, but he seems to settle for less-than-satisfactorily sweetened botz. He has an immaculate Skoda diesel and his dress and finely tuned shadowed beard fits the car. His Russian accent is soft, but audible.The trick:  find the Lishkat Hagiyus, the army recruitment center, is to not ask people where is Rashi street. It exists — the street I mean — but, unlike Rashi the straightforward commentator, this Rashi road is a bit circuitous, streetus interruptus.  As we approach the entrance to the city, he is quick on the questions for directions through the window. He has a piercing whistle: fingerless, he couples his tongue into a “V”, purses the lips a bit and lets loose, more a shriek than a whistle. I watch in his rearview mirrow, make feeble attempts; he consoles me that he has studied this since childhood. The directions vary from driver to driver, but he is quite sure which one trust — and is right. Had anyone simply said, “It’s a half block north of Jaffa Road, just a few blocks past the Central Bus Station,” the story and the chase would not have been so good. I think that I did mislead my driver as he was counting stop lights; he was probably correct that we should have turned earlier; he doesn’t hold this against me. We find Rashi, the street. But the numbers are descending, and we must ascend, just as Rashi lifts our understanding of Torah, my thoughts add. But Rashi is one-way (the street, I mean). My nahag backs up, turns about, makes a left and a couple rights and we seem to be at the beginning of a street. He thinks it’s Rashi. (He’s correct.) But the numbers start at 99; we need 103. Where should be 103, is a children’s park. I offer to exit, let him head home to Tel Aviv so I can reconnoiter — preparation for any navigation I may need to do for the army. He makes sure that I leave nothing behind; I am sure to hand him my coffee cup, not to leave a trace of myself behind.I go to the building with white underthings flapping from the balcony; rows of underpants, t-shirts, proletarian lingerie, all wavering white, as if the building were surrendering. I scan its facade, the mortar crumbling between the Jerusalem boulders; yes, surrendering to time. I think of Amichai’s poem; he, as a child, watching the white sheets billowing in Jordanian-captured Jerusalem’s rooftops. These now belong to Jews, us. Work myself along the side of the building toward the children’s park. Tack starboard and discover there is what appears to be another street, although no traffic can pass; the children’s park blockading; Huit Clos, very Sartre. This street, unlabeled is triangled with 99 Rashi. I work myself along a wavy metal fence and ask the first young woman green-clad soldierette, where’s the Lishkat Giyus. She points to the building beyond and behind a tree, behind a wall, limply, I see an Israeli flag; then the usual metal barricades, a bit haphazardly aligned. (Haphazard seems to be the Israeli aesthetic, make-do). Just tucked inside is an empty guard booth and outside it, two young guys sitting on metal chairs, one with legs up, rifles leaning on their laps. They greet me nonchalantly. Do not check my heavy back pack. (I feel I must look remarkably unthreatening; but I am doctorly done-up, Navy blazer and Armani shirt, bespoke British cap-toed oxfords, slightly pingeon toed. Direct me to the crowd of guys in front of the entrance.

Entering, I see a semicircular formica-clad desk. Behind which, tubby fellow, perhaps 35, flanked by two dolls in uniform. Almost ignore me. Then directs me up to fourth floor, turn left, then left again; ask for Tzahi. I ascend. Behind me ascends an oak-structured fellow in uniform, carrying upon the back of his trunk a uniformed young woman, he ascending two steps at a time, a regular “Yakov,” nipping at my heels. Rivulets, of soapy water descend the stairwell, greet me; a water fall in the midst of Jerusalem. I suspect someone is washing the floor above; look and see no-one. But a pool of brackish-looking liquid, bubbles thinly wandering its surface, is the source for this Ein Gedi down the stairs. I take care on the soapy stone stairwell. Occassional poster-size photos ascend the stairwell; most of guys in basic training, face into mud, crawling below barbed wire, rifle protected; a young girl in uniform, looking as if into the future, advertises the Navy. I think of the F. family in Ra’anana, olim from the States perhaps 15 years past, whose two daughters directly entered from high school a specialized computer programming unit in the Navy (I think); six years and no need to get B.A.; they will get fine jobs as soon as they leave, but of course, marry also. There is much youth here, milling about. Also plastic Heftys full of garbage in the hallway, tied, ready to go. Also desks in disarray. One floor has piles of “Intel Inside”-labelled boxes, a bit more orderly than the surroundings. Inside offices are throngs of youth; some offices have carrols, like in libraries, but as a rule, these kids aggregate, won’t be parsed off ffrom each other by artificial barriers. thse kids are clumpers, relish being together. Even an ocassional solo “office,” (closets with a desk and chairs) have kids spilling in and out.

The uniforms seem impoverished, these green drabs. These soldiers are thinly veiled; kids.

Tzahi found, of course with a buddy visiting his closet and door open to the balagan in the outer office, he eyeballs me. First question: “How old are you?” I try to draw myself up to full height and then some, shoulders squared,disguise the pain in my hip from morning fall, mumble “56,”then add, “Ani rofeh,” I’m a doctor.  They eye each other now, responding, “Oh, a doctor, that’s something different. Perhaps as a volunteer.” Sends me downstairs to Ronit. To the first floor, hang a left, then a sharp right, then a left again; gives me an office number, which later almost corresponds to the correct room, off by only one doorway.Stumbling into an entrance foyer, then sharp left into the smallest closet imaginable where two girls sit, I ask for Ronit, and am directed to the “other room 115.”  (Clever security tactics these; ambiguously placed building; ambiguously numbered rooms; really know how to fool an old fellow like me.)

“Ronit?” I ask of several possible Ronits (and mostly “Rons”). Here is a cluster of desks, some chairs corresponding to particular desks; some hovering between desks. I use my tactical techniques and go for the oldest looking Ronit. I score. She looks more mature than the others, a bit of a worn look in her eyes, a sense of tolerance of the youngsters around her; she must be at least twenty-two.

All the “Ronits” in this building sport long hair, past the shoulder tresses, simply held up — a pin or two.  But, there are occasional repinnings, almost subconciously, while talking with someone, or typing or walking, there is an upsweep of the arms, a reach to a wandering tress and a simple repinning.  An unself-conscious of their simple beauty.

Ronit checks me out.  I should go talk with Tzahi. I — having maneuvered since entry with my Hebrew — explain that Tzahi sent me here.  She scans me tip to toe again. “Why do you want to do this?” I restrain the ideological cant; want to help out in some way and have the time. Instead, simply, ” I’m an oleh hadash.” Asks if I have a medical license; confirm, although filed in some office in Petach Tikvah.  She hands me a one-page form to complete.  In Hebrew.  The box with the “why question” I complete, briefly writing that I am finishing a book on Israeli soldiers.  She looks.

“You do research?”

(Yes.)

“On American soldiers?”

(No, Israeli.)

Her face relaxes.

“O.K.  We will call you.”
I offer to leave copies of my certificates. No need.  Perhaps they have enough papers, files.

And I exit. Tubby-Gingy now sits with the guards, between their rifles and the entrance gate, as if his bulk and gingy hair could protect them from attack.

To the Mechane Yehuda market, which I relish entering, even though it means back pack inspection, usually by the young and elegantly lovely Ethiopian soldier, her beret slightly raked. The colors here, the people, so focused. Food vending, the exotica. Near the end, I take a new route and as I approach an exit to Agrripas, find a small both fronted by a vender, Ari-ben-something-or-other, who does natural stuff. Ari has an ivory-tinted knit kipa from under which emerges curled thatch, from which seem to descend a descent lengthed beard. His short filthy white jacket, like an intern’s barely covers his overalls. He has two, three people clustered about and to his right he has the typical four or five transparent cube-shaped drink mixer-dispensers. Their paddles rotate slowly. But the colors within are new, strange; an emerald tinged soupy drink is called etrogot, the liquid of etrogs.  Within it are suspended seeds — black ova — sluggishly sloshing about the liquid, like some primeval slime from which life would evolve.  He is the softly ruby-tinted pomolite drink. He give me thimble-sized quaff of etrogot, not taking eyes off the other prospects. Before I can finish it, he whips away the thimble and adds pomolite. Delicious. He asks a shekel. Given. He is spraying something he has hand mixed onto the face of a fellow; tells him to massage it in vigourously. Asks me to step forward, close eyes, spritzes me forehead to eyelids to cheeks. Has a lemony-fragrance. Brings to mind Leopold Bloom’s bar of lemon soap, wrapped in tissue in his inner coat pocket as he wanders Dublin.

Now for the young woman, he takes greater care spritzing. Asks us if we notice how this relaxes us. (I won’t disillusion him; I probably couldn’t. But, entertaining he is.)  Now, as I continue to massage this citrusy oil, I see him beckon the young fraulein approach.  Close the eyes, he requests.  But just before she lid-locks, he points to the bamboo-looking bells above his right shoulder, and purses his left fingers before her face, making a milking motion, as if trying to draw some adverse energies out of her face, through the tip of her nose, it seems.  She stands, eye-closed, and Ari-ben-etc… softly jangles the bamboo bells, clacking more than tinkling, and his left hand continues finger milking before her face. This takes perhaps a minute, maybe more. He asks her softly if she is feeling relaxation.  Polite, she says nothing.  Opens her eyes. He asks, did she notice that she couldn not hear the sounds from the street.  Not clear if the bell-clacking and finger milking stuffed up her ears, but the woman is polite.

Next, he does a negotiation with a bearded fellow over the face spray; two versions, I gather in Hebrew, perhaps one for the whole body.  The fellow hesitates over the cost, then bottle proffered by Ari-ben-etc…, the man brings home something for the wife, his Molly Bloom.

Looking for nigunim, prayer songs, for my father (But, who really wants anything that sounds like Lodz cantors.) Well, this is the Middle East; singers do Mizrahi, not “Peilsher.” I find seven cassetes on sale of Tehillim, Psalms of David the King (The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want). Listen. Sounds Morrocan to me, the tunes, but the salesman corrects me; Yerushalmi. Dad won’t dig this. I hesitate, then buy them for myself. I need to also buy a tape player (Now that I am wedded to my iPod) and plan to sit, read in Hebrew and English and listen to the Yerushalmi chant of Solomon’s poems.

Now, for a rest. Did Tmol Shilshom last night. The last Bellow talk, I think. Several people asked for more, but I am not sure David Erlich, the owner, can shut down half the cafe for the dozen and half attendees, poor fellows like me, so dependent on English. Will see.

Now to tree trimming.  Moshek drops me off and tells me that Shay will show me how to trim only the broken branches. Later in the season, after the leaves drop, Moshek says we will do a more rigorous trimming, cut the lower hanging limbs, open the crown to more sun. Moshek only cautions, not to insert a finger in the blades (which run
an arm’s length from my pointer).

But, with a wing of a lesson, Shay leaves me with long-armed trimmers and a folding hand-saw, kind-of agricultural Mack-the-knife that hides its danger in its own belly, flipping open to attack.  I watch Shay a bit to extend my one-minute tutorial, noticing that he is slaying many branches, most of which are not broken, still have green leaves.
I follow suit, but without as much vigor. Shay’s co-partner in crime follows, bears a chain saw, felling major offenders, the felonious limbs, as we move before him, concentrating on misdemeanors.

I am brought to mind of when I was perhaps four and felt, more than thought, that objects, my toys and the dining room table (recently bought, of heavy blondish wood, lathed legs) had feelings: a bump was felt, certainly a dent was remembered and stood accusingly before you on future visits. There was also a kinder side to my belief: my sister’s baby doll, which she left at home when she began kindergarten (as she left me), I would play daddy with, and kiss goodbye before I left for work, certain that dolly would appreciate this.  This dolly was particularly special, as my older sister, Ester, got it as a “gift” from the furniture when my parents bought their first new bedroom set, which lived in our living room.

All this mug-about to say that as I trim limbs, I have a brief pang that these trees will feel the pain of my trimming. Then remind myself if we were more like trees, more starfishy, we could regenerate ourselves if we were shorn of the broken parts of ourselves, or the memories that block sun from reaching the remainders of our souls.

Despite such ruminations, I trim. Learn to step back periodically, like my fine barber, Moshe, at the King David, check the overall crown of my client. I learn today that I have 8,000 clients, 8,000 persimmon trees, waiting patiently, not moving from their spots, although the rising winds rustle their leaves, hint at impatience at my novitiate status among tree-trimmers. And Shay’s co-shearer closing up the rear with chain saw burps.

The low-hangers I get. Some of the wild sprouts, soaring straight to the sky as if trying to escape the bounds of earth, I am puzzled about. To trim or not to trim, is a question. I do a check over my shoulder and gather that Shay is arbitrary about this. I figure, maybe I should take down a few of these locks, so that they will not, like Absolam’s hair, in their wildness defeat the roots of their paternity, steal from their brethren below. My right shoulder has the remains of
my rotator cuff injury — superspinatus, of the four muscles, comes into my mind — picture it flowing off the scapular spine, towards the acromium, I think, maybe the coracoid process. Whichever, its twinges of pain remind me to limit my reach. I begin to catch some of these guys closer to their bases. I get a trick to protect the superspinatus, yet fell these reachers: I pin my elbow to my side, as if in a stitch, then muscle the shears with my left arm.

The trees lose some of their wild look as these sky-reachers are taken down. But I leave some. I leave some reaching to the sky, or welcoming it. My picking was thinking of this year. My trimming is thinking of next year. I think, “When Iran sends its Shaheeb missiles to Israel, they will be greeted by well-trimmed, high reaching persimmon trees in Herzilya.” Persimmon sprouts fending off Shaheebs.

The wind continues to rise and drizzles form. Shay and buddy take lunch break at 10:30.  I, sniffing longed-for rain, muster on. Shay calls me over for a present: a package of eight, perfectly formed, unblemished persimmons, now treated and edible. I have them before me on my desk as I write. A small custom-shaped case, orangey-pink in background, persimmon on each face, “signed,” “Didan,” Sharon Fruit, the Sweetest Persimmon, Class 1″ to which I can attest.  On its bottom, leftwards, you will find recipes for cream smoothy, fruit salad, and fruit salad (this one with celery, almonds and lemon juice). On the right is stated that new research from the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry” of the USA statest hat persimmons “…are the most effective fruit preventing heart attacks and reduces

the risk of heart diseases.” Below this are the numbers: energy, fiber, Vitamins A and C, calcium, Magnesium and carbohydrate. All these my trees have developed for you.

I am touched by the gift. Notice that Shay has a hand-woven, dark brown small circular basket, smaller than the old sewing baskets, in which he carries his lunch. I spy egg shells littered where he once sat. He has his last cigarette, an inexpensive off-brand, crushes the pack and drops it to the ground. Moshek arrives latter with a liter of Coke and a new pack of smokes.

Now, Moshek notices that Shay and cohort are whacking off living branches, those with fully green leaves, not only the broken, those fractured. He chats with them; their impoverished Hebrew transmits to him that we have 8,000 trees, not enough help and must trim before the avocado harvest: can’t wait for the leaves to turn, to drop.  This quietly distresses Moshek. He sails close the wind of nature, prefers to tack tightly to nature’s agenda; he is of the earth, the wind, the seasons.  Explains to me, with some sadness the reasoning. Teaches me.

The leaves have precious chlorophyl, xanthophyl and carotene. After the fruit are picked, after the season begins to turn, the chlorophyl, xanthophyl are resorbed. (He is motioning along the length of a leave, towards its stem, still grasping to life on the branch.) When the carotene remains we see the beauty of the moments before death, before the leaves fall, as we admire in Washington State. Then, only then, should we pare the limbs. But Shay argues that we don’t have the leisure, the manpower to wait; also with the chain saw, they are clearing the tree’s crown to admit more sun to the interior. Moshek shrugs. Lesson taught, he will return for coffee in half and hour.

We feel the misting drizzle crescendo. We finish.

Lunch is listening time for me. We are in the chadar ochel, where Moshek seems comfortable. He talks about the detumescence of the kibbutz in the past two decades. He recalls when the chadar ochel was run by a small core of kibbutz members, with all members volunteering to fill in. He, finishing the army in the late ’50’s, began as a “waiter” here. In the last two decades, people found excuses for not doing their shifts; ended up hiring an outside food processing firm to run the place. Anyhow, about 150 people come for meals, mostly those from outside the kibbutz, especially those who work in the firms that rent office son kibbutz; DHL, an architect and such. A few elderly
characters form kibbutz sit nearby; one chewing openmouthed, chicken spilling out as he describes arriving from Hungary in the early ’30’s, just in time to catch malaria in Hadera. (I had visited the tiny hovels in Hadera where early immigrants lived; two families splitting a room, divided by a curtain.)

 I notice that the other ‘white meat” ain’t around. The ubiquitous tray of pork or such that I thought they would put out at each meal as an ideological statement, has perhaps been retired. Just to be sure, when I ask for the “Chinese” chicken, I ask about the identity of the curled, sesame-crusted white strips of meat in the gemisch.

Marx, Moshek reminds me, says that ideology comes from circumstances. Moshek cites this to suggest that the ideology of the kibbutz early on, came from practical circumstances: surrounded by active enemies, night raids, pot shots, the kibbutzniks had to stay together to survive. His father once explained this as such: he picked up a stick, broke it easily with two hands. Then picked up a bundle and could not fracture them across his knee. Stick together, strong together.

But, Moshek continues, circumstances changed. People began to look around, how others were getting enriched. “I, I do not have a house, a car. Everything belongs to the kibbutz,” he says uncomplainingly. Also, kibbutz members began to resent how some worked very hard, others — not hard at all, even if at all. Why, the hard workers asked, should I bust my buns (my words, not his) to support so-and-so and his family? Perhaps human nature doesn’t tolerate socialism. Also, Moshek began, there was the international failure of socialist regimes. Then he corrects himself, as it is not possible to compare the highly democratic organism of socialist kibbutz with the totalitarian regimes who posed themselves as socialist or communist. Nevertheless, he recalls Golda Meir’s lament when Israel and its kibbutzim were not invited to the international Socialist convention sometime in the ’60’s.

Then, as if to correct, if not deny his citation of Marx, Moshek begins to talk about Amuna and Aimun, “belief” and “confidence”. Irony here, I think, as belief, Amuna, is such a religious term. But he continues. These words are so connected, same root: Amen (I will believe.). Without Amuna, Moshek finds it difficult to have Aimun, confidence in one’s way of life. (Here, ideology, in a deeply felt way, seems to precede the material.)

We talk about the religious Zionists. I describe my experiences in Kfar Etzion, a religious Zionist kibbutz, its modesty, its modest means. I tell him as they discuss adding homes, they agree not to build McMansions; they want to attract others who prefer to live modestly, despite their means. When I tell Moshek that the current homes are very modest in size, he guesses (I think remarkably accurately) that a three bedroom is about 80-90m meters (about 800-900 sq. feet). He gets Tzni’ut, a life of modesty. He even eats modestly, forgoing lunch today, preferring a cup of the watery drink that passes as grapefruit juice.

He confesses that he envies the belief and confidence that I describe and that he sees amongst the religious Zionists. But he adds, that their love of the earth (he motions now with his hands over the table), overrides their concerns for our neighbors, will dig us deep into the earth. (Here, a thumbprint as if boring into the table.). When I tell him of the range of beliefs on Kfar Etzion — from Chanan Porat (about whom he knows), who expects the Palestinians to let him
be and he will ignore them, to Myron or Eliaz (the latter a believer that the sons of Abraham can live peacefully together, who still yearns for his Arabic teacher in grade school, still is moved by the muezzin’s call for prayer, which creeps into Eliaz’s poems), Moshek is surprised. Pleasantly. But he returns to thumb and table top: such beliefs will dig us deeply into the ground.

I am off. To T.A. for the Israeli Philharmonic. I have forgotten the program, but learn later it is Dohnani (born in Germany, conductor of the Cleveland Symphony, I think) and a wonderful Beethoven Emperor played by a 21 year old Israeli (Giltberg), followed by a Tzaikowsky Pathetique, so moving,that for the first time in my life (and to my
embarrassment), I burst into applause at the end of the penultimate movement. (And much of the audience joins me, which both embarrasses me further and relieves me of being found out. Sometimes, as Leonard Bernstein said, music simply hits straight to the heart. More later.

Copyright N. Szajnberg 2005

Unclear to me if this is a clear matter of hermaphroditism, or gender confusion.  For the male numbers in puberty still consider themselves male, even though topographically, so to speak, they have sprouted rather feminine-sounding addenda.  Ibid for the ladies: they seem to consider themselves female, even after adding a touch of something on
their pudenda.  And all this just for numbers.

With words, I have marvelously many ways to make myself misunderstood. The most parsimonious (a misuse of the word “parsimonious,” when I mean to say, “simplest”) is to shuffle a letter.  So, instead of saying hafganah, (“demonstration”), I say hagfanah (something akin to “wine”-y, although not “whiney,” which would be a more fitting parapraxis for some demonstrations). I can be much more creative, taking a central letter and like some rotating door, swivel a few letters around it to make a different word: I take the “g” in magdir, (“define”) and flip a few letters around it to say, mafgin, (demonstrate.)  That is instead of defining a word, I end up making a demonstration about it.  Imagine the surprise of the listener, who might picture me about to loft a sign above my head and march circles around him, perhaps with a word scrawled upon it.

I am known to substitute a letter: For margish, (feel) I simply swipe the “r” and replace with an “f,” creating mafgish, (something like “meet”); I go from wanting to feel something, to wanting to meet something.  Well, maybe not too far apart conceptually — problem arises if the something is a someone in the sentence.

These are but the simple measures I have taken to tailor the language, to have a “bespoke” Hebrew — so to speak.  I bring my personal Jeremyn Street “word tailor” along to resize the language to my fit.  I can be much more creative than simply having sleeves or cuffs done, as above.

I, like some Biblical writer, have been known to stun my listener by using past tense mixed with future tense, leaving them uncertain whether I am coming (from the past) or going (to the future): Just today, I told (siparti) Moshe, my sapar (haircut guy — saparit, for the lady ones), who gave me my tisporet, (“do”) with his mispara’im (scissors) — (Are you getting the drift of the word connections in my transliteration?) — anyhow, I told him — now hold onto your beret — that “I will leave early this morning from Ra’anana, and arrived late to Jerusalem.”  Time travel I just did, in a
word.  I can break through the space-time continuum in the other direction — into the future — also verbally:  “The lecture on dreams I gave today will go very well.” I have many other such variations which
do not defy Einstein physics, I believe.

Now, back to the previous paragraph, if I may travel backwards for a moment.  Roots in Hebrew are wonderful to play with; sometimes confound. In a 1950’s book, I think called, How the Hebrew Language was Built, or something akin to that, shorashim, roots, sprout in many directions.  For instance, sapar, saparit, tisporet, mispara’im; makes sense that they share the root, spr, as they have to do with cutting.  But what about the word mispar? How’d that get in there?  I learned that in times before the Egyptians laid papyrus on us, when numbers needed to be recorded — like how many sheeves of wheat did you cut today — these numbers (misparim), were cut, tispar, into stone. Walla!  (Said with a tone of wonder or discovery, and a slight labial to the “w,” coming from the Arabic. Not too far removed and perhaps a precurser of voila.) In the book, he takes a word like echad , “one” (three letters as every root is in Hebrew) and from this gets the conceptually related words: yachad, together, myuchad, special, bimyuchad, especially, and a whole series of mono or uni words, such as chad-goni, monotone.  Also, the commonly used word amen (I will believe, or I believe), shares roots with aoman, (artist — someone, who follows Aristotle’s dictum to “imitate” reality in a believable way).

Also, I make hay of such words, lofting the word in one direction, such as a chat about “togetherness,” then a wind catches me and sends me into “specialness.” Are you still with me?

I have constructed more sophisticated malapropisms, syntactical gymnastics of Olympic proportion that would have made Mrs. Malaprop blush. But a few warm-ups. I am known to start with a masculine noun, then shift gears into a feminine verb, mismatching, so to speak, verbal chromosomes. I attribute this to the influence of living in the gender-bending milieu of San Francisco for some years; that is, a temporary influence. The plural/singulars of verbs give me much creative opportunities. I may start with you singularly, then multiply you within blink of an eye (or slip of a tongue) with a verb. Like entering some kaleidoscope of selfhood, you will see yourself multiply-reflected. A verbal Prospero, I can do this with only one word.  I will mis-conbabble kvar, “already,” with adayin, “still”: when I think I am saying apologetically, “I still don’t speak Hebrew well,” what emerges from my lips is, “I already don’t speak Hebrew well.” In such a slip, I “Q.E.D.” myself, should the listener have any doubt.

Well, perhaps enough for now.

Sayonara.