Magnificent festival of first fruits at Kibbutz Beit Alfa. We could feel the original kibbutz dream, still alive for a moment. And truly, waking up to the murmur of a thousand doves and breeze through trees this morning, I know that Kibbutz is still Kibbutz, and I love it. For my Daddy's birthday, we returned to the fish restaurant on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where Daddy kissed Mommy as if they were new young lovers. I reprint here, my memories of our time in Israel with Mommy and Daddy. After a year of beautiful guests and tours, we realize that this is what we do here, and have now gone commercial. We have five families in a row, for the rest of the summer, to experience our pretty Netanya home and our Israel.
Dayenu
Just the first twinkle view
Of Daddy and Mommy
Cute off the plane,
That hug that telescoped time
And made distance
No-distance
That first happy hug
Would have been enough
Kissing is niiiiiiiiice!
What fun! As if they were no miles, no kilometers, no ocean between us at all, ever, we sat down happily to candles and wine and challah, could just about hear the SHRED harmonies chiming in on the motzi. Mommy and Daddy are fabulous, arrived energetic and ready for fun. Supper was outside in the garden, beside the mango trees, the lemon tree, the orange tree and the kumquat tree. A very brief visit to the sea for Daddy, more tomorrow. Love you all. **************************************************
Waves at night
More sound than sight
Sweet dark chocolate saved for morning,
Inviting us to sleep well
And wake up to delights.
**************************************************
One juicy slurp of mango
Deep, intense, sweet.
“If I’m dreaming”, sighs Daddy,
“Don’t wake me up”.
***************************************************
Mommy Resonance
The dishcloth she knit for me
Matches the greenapple green
Of my kitchen.
We are never far
From each other’s sweet gaze.
************************************************************
Too many steps
are good for us:
Good practice
for walking on 3.
This is a lovely
time of our life.
****************************
When there is no time line
Any number of steps
is possible.
*************************************************
Holding hands with my Mommy,
her hand small, sweet,
we ventured into the waves.
Who is the grownup?
**************************************************
Mommy has felt the salt waves,
The firm sand,
sun,
Now Daddy’s turn.
What synchronicities,
What new old friends
will she find on the beach?
**************************************************
Daddy and Nomi,
Hand in hand
In waves.
A one-time dizzymoment
Reminds me of fragility,
But fragility is not scary.
“This time it’s on purpose”,
He assures me,
darts underwater,
and up again.
**********************************************
Shaking jolly seawater
From our bodies,
We come back to Mommy.
Look!
She is eating clementines
With a man who knows Alex Jadad.
Dear Nomi,
It was fantastic to meet you and your glorious family today.
I was a little bit slow and even forgot to say you
"Shana Tova!" and "Moadim l'Simcha!"
The warm regards to Yaacov and your parents. Hope to keep in touch!
All the best, Michael.
--
Michael Shmoish, PhD
Bioinformatics Knowledge Unit, Head
The Lorry I. Lokey Interdisciplinary
Center for Life Sciences and Engineering
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Haifa 32000, ISRAEL
Web: http://bku.technion.ac.il/
Miracles and morphic resonance
Are here
For those
Who clear a space for them
Friday, October 10: breezed through gracefully, with no apparent security at Ben Gurion, home to Netanya with Beno and Nomi, stopping to see nighttime waves. Shabbat dinner outside midst the young mango trees.
Saturday, October 11: Beach. Visit to Ruthy and Gitai Yahel in Kfar Vitkin. Mommy brought Canadian presents to the kids, and little Carmel loved playing with a paddleball decorated with Canadian flag. The boys did Capoera demos.
Sunday, October 12: Yossi Bar came, we looked at Staszow photoes.
Daddy’s hands
Grasping earth, grass,
A square of loam,
He jokes (or not)
About connection to this land.
Monday: To market to buy 2 turkeys and many vegetables. Shmuel Reis came to talk about the new medical school: unreal yet, so still with perfect ideals. They will embrace uncertainty.
The only medical school
That has not dropped a stitch
From its perfect ideals
Is Shmuel’s medical school:
As yet unopened.
“School Shmuel”, says Beno
Adam came home, and Shachar.
Tuesday, October 14. 60 relatives from Staszow, for a feast and party.
60 Wolbromskis and more
Feasting together.
The best triumph
Over history and entropy.
We’re here! We’re here!
************************************************
The name Wolbromski
Is alive and well
And living in Netanya. Go Know.
“Gei Veis”, says Daddy.
**********************************************
Wolbromski was once
An old name
Not forgotten
But not in use.
Now, present Wolbromskis fill my house
With the prettiest of green houseplants
And,
Here and now,
Flowers.
*********************************
Mommy’s not forgotten Yiddish
Helps her read the maps
And the street signs.
Alef and beis
Have come home.
****************************************
Daddy hears this and quips, “You gotta say ‘Alef is on first Beis”.
“Oyo oy oy” groans Mommy.
************************************************
Each trip
Is preparation for the next one.
If street signs in Hebrew
Are hard to read
How will we find our way
In Japan ?
**************************************************
Shabu shabu in Netanya.
Will we find felafel
When we get to Japan ?
********************************************************
Wednesday, October 15. Jerusalem . Our long journey on foot to the Kotel. Lulav and grateful thoughts at the Kotel. Sunset over Jerusalem .
It takes eight hours to walk from the Jaffa Gate to the Kotel and back. That is, if you observe the ancient Sukkot pilgrimage the way our Mommy and Daddy do, with wonder. with admiration for each stone along the way,
with curiosity,
with some sense of kinship to each fellow traveller along the way, babies in snugglies and strollers, Mommy loving how calm the babies were, how curious too, how connected to their Daddys, just like I am.
Kinship along the way past the old stony walls, the paths worn shiny by millenia of hopeful feet, kinship for the thing we knew before greeting them, that we shared: that we and they were on the way to the kotel. We reminisced about King Solomon, about Herod, the Byzantines, the Ottomans, the British, and we reminisced about Mommy's and Daddy's walk along the top of the ramparts with Dani Bar, when their feet were steadier. But today they're 83 and we walked for 8 wondrous hours to the kotel and back. The crowd of young families, yeshiva buchers in black and white, men in tall fur streimels, tourists from Brazil and Italy and everywhere on this earth thickened but stayed joyful and relaxed as we approached the kotel. When it was time to split into DaddyBeno and MommyNomi we agreed to meet at the tall Israeli flag. When? When we were done. So Mommy and I walked toward the swaying throng of woman, and I suggested Mommy think of what was dear to her, what she felt grateful for. She simply said, "SusieNomiJanieRandy, just like every day. Every morning I walk by the photoes and say SusieNomiJanieRany and if don't, they call me back. SusieNomiJanieRandy." And she talked, by the kotel, about Buby reading the 1943 newspapers about the horrors for her relatives in Staszow, and about the miracle of our party, just yesterday, with the children of Zaidie's surviving sisters and brothers Abchu, Golda, Shimon, Ruchel and Surele, all alive to celebrate Sukkot in Israel. And Mommy and I were done, and sitting under the Israeli flag, watching Daddy and Beno amongst a huge black and white throng of men at the kotel, Beno shaking a lulav. My photo looked like just a nameless crowd of men, until I zoomed in and in and soon there in the picture was my own Daddy and Beno and the lulav. On the way back, sun setting pinkgolden over the city, we walked past many carved stone mikvas from the early days, where people would purify themselves on the way. We met a man in gorgeous robes, the bishop of the Christian Zionist Fellowship in Nigeria. We heard klezmer concerts, an ancient kinor, a round, longnecked stringed instrument played hauntingly by a sweet sheperd, tableaus of children dressed as in the earlier times. A sweet, happy Jerusalem Sukkot with Mommy and Daddy. And then, supper in Shchonat Hatikvah and home to see that even the anemones and colourful fish were dancing Sukkot. Love you all.
Supper in Schonat hatikvah, the huge pitas hot from the stone oven, and liver was the best of the shipudim, sizzled skewers of meat, and so many salads!
Thursday, October 16. Akko , the Templar tunnels and the Turkish baths, and the Ramchal synagogue of Rabbi Luzzato, who had to keep moving from place to place, each time he noticed, to his dismay, that people were starting to believe in him.
The Rabbi, Luzzato
Moved from place to place.
7 places
Because seven times,
What he feared most
Was beginning to happen.
People were starting
To believe in him.
****************************************************
Friday, October 17:
Beit Alfa, and the wedding high in the hills of Gallilee, a simple windblown chuppa overlooking a valley, and all family.
Windblown chuppa
High in the hills of Galilee
And so many oldlove couples
Pouring blessings to these young two
For old love through
Windblown years.
***********************************************
What’s the password?
*************************************************
The password is nice
************************************************
Saturday, October 18: On the beach Mommy met Michael Shmoish, who had attended Alex Jadad's lecture at the Technion.
To:
ajadad@gmail.com, enkin@mcmaster.ca
Then we visited Yosef, sang and sipped Turkish coffee with Beno's cousins in Petach Tikvah. Then the old port of Yafo . A barbecue at home with Adam.
From:
"Nomi Kaston"
To:
"Larry Enkin"
How are you all? We were at the sweetest wedding, on a hilltop high in the Galil overlooking a beautiful valley. All family. Today, Yad Mordecai. Love lovev love. Mommy and Daddy are SOOOOOO beautiful. Daddy loves swimming in the waves, and I love the morning cuggles.
Sunday, October 19, Yad Mordecai, Kutzi, bees, kibbutz of yesteryear, the border of Gaza, the graves of Golda and Moshe. Supper with Shlomit and Dani and family.
Monday, October 20. Netanya.
Tuesday, October 21. Ran Goshen took Mommy and Daddy to Caesaria. In the night, we joined thousands of people to dance with the Torah in Netanya’s city square, to wonderful Shlomo Carlebach music.
Simchat Torah:
Glimmers of forgotten learning
Surface
From Daddy’s youth:
“Breishis bara Elohim.”
What comes next?
*************************************************
The last little bit of ice cream cone passes
from hand to hand,
each of us taking half.
Soon, a oneness that cannot be divided:
“Hey, you ate the whole thing!”
Wednesday, October 22. Tzfat, Tiveria, Galei Gil
Each time we drive past Megiddo
We remember
The end of days.
******************************************************
The road to Tzfat
Winds
This way
That way
Look! Kinneret to your right.
Look! Kinneret to your left.
Look! Kinneret to your right.
It all depends
On where you are
Along the journey.
It all depends
On your point of you.
**************************************
Shir HaMaalot
A Song of Ascents.
On the road up to Tzfat
Mommy’s ears popped.
*************************************************
“I’m not even short of breath”,
Realized Daddy
As we lifted ourselves
Higher and higher
to the elevated city.
Automatic steering
Makes the ascent a breeze.
******************************************************
A woman
along the narrow stone roads
of Tzfat
does not quite touch the ground.
“A trip”, she calls it here,
and we begin
to understand this place.
************************************************
Daddy doesn’t believe my translation
Of a prayer stuck with masking tape
At the WC in Tiveria.
We actually give our thanks
That our plumbing is working,
That what needs to be closed
Is closed,
And what needs to be open,
Is open.
********************************************************
What a gorgeous day Mommy and Daddy and I had in Tzfat today! Learning and exploring and delighting in fresh squeezed pomegranate juice, grapes from the vines, the blue ceiling of the Caro synagogue, all those little stone alleyways and art shops, Daddy's fascination with the Asher Bara taped with masking tape outside of the WC. Chalulim Chalulim. Supper at a table right beside Kinneret. Daddy and Mommy falling in love with each other beside the sea. So lovely. Love to you all!
By the Sea of Galilee
a young couple kiss.
No time travel is needed,
no walking on water.
Mommy and Daddy, a young couple in love.
Here, Now,
Sweet.
In the car’s back seat
I overhear young Murray
Saying, in love,
“You gonna stick with me kid?”
She says Yes.
Our restaurant table
Is so close to the sea
Supper jumps onto our plates.
************************************************************
At our table
by the sea of Galilee
the waiter turns Mommy’s fish
into a butterfly
************************************************************
Lightning in the night sky
on our way home from Tzfat
is physical,
explainable,
This world.
Actually, we have quiet moments. Daddy watches the fish for hours, Mommy checks to see that they're breathing. We sip our Turkish coffee under the mango trees and watch the waves. Beno's digging a hole now so Daddy can plant an orange tree when they get back from Caesarea . They are very beautiful. What a treasure of a time, and what learning! Love you all.
Mommy and Daddy are incredible. So curious, so ready to experience the tastes and smells. A beautiful rest night, just us, with guitar and songs and long enough time to watch the anemone and clownfish dance their slow pulsing duet.
****************
If you stay still long enough
and watch
you can see the anemone
change its place.
******************************************************
My Mommy tiptoes in the night
To check if the fish are breathing
********************************************************
Thursday, October 23. Shuk haPishpishim, the funny flea market of old Yafo.
Supper in the garden, a preview for Japan : Shabu Shabu.
Friday, October 24. Zichron Yaacov, met Yossi and shared apple strudel and cheesecake at Motek.
********************************
Sea bream by the yachts in the windy night at Herzliya marina, then Julian Bream’s guitar in the car on the way home.
What’s the name of this fish?
Bream.
Who’s playing that lovely guitar?
Bream.
Quite a talented fish.
**********************************************
Just about constant:
Mommy up early and smiley to check the fish, then to the greenapple kitchen for a quick cup of cold coffee and a bite.
Daddy up, and a leisurely Turkish coffee in the sunny garden, mango trees, lemon trees, conversation. Beside us, the sea.
A trip, and so much learning in the car.
A shared sunset for Mommy and me.
Much ado about getting photos onto the flashdrive.
And so to sleep.
*****************************************
The days spark
With entertaining stories
And learning.
But early quiet mornings,
Just Mommy and I,
Like our ancient mothers at the well
share simple timeless
WomanWisdom.
*************************************************
Flashdrive
My Daddy
May or may not be
A man of faith.
He knows for certain
That he must
put all memories
on his flashdrive.
The ritual entrusts eternity
to something outside of ourselves.
***************************************************
Having lost a video
Or misplaced it
In Babel ’s library,
Daddy declares we should never break
Routine.
And yet, so many of his stories
Celebrate the unexpected:
Turkish delight is larger,
Mutton is tastier,
A man on Victoria ’s street corner
Is family,
Because you broke routine.
That’s why the chicken crossed the street!
*******************************************
And the waves will still be waving
When we’re gone
Rereading is the most beautiful thing in literature, except for rewriting, except for rereading, except for etc.
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