And Spread Over Us Your Shelter of Concrete

Right from the start, in the 1930's, beauty was an essential goal and job description at Kibbutz Yad Mordecai, and at most times you see the the mature and gorgeous patternings of a landscape planned not just for harvest bounty but also for loveliness. Flowers for the bees for honey, yes, oranges, lemons, sweet clementines to feed the kibbutz and to market worldwide, yes, but also bouganvillea and palms just to make this place pretty. But right now during Sukkot, when the Children of Israel build scant temporary huts with sparse rooves of treebranches spaced so the stars can peek through, Yad Mordecai is under construction, each kibbutz house a mess of concrete foundation stone and building supplies. The State of Israel is attaching a heavy concrete safe room to each and every kibbutz home. No stars shine through these ceilings.

A Sukka is our declaration of faith that we are sheltered, that a little snow and wind coming through the roof, or even the intense hot sunshine that comes through the roof here, is okay with us. We are of this windy world, and our faith sustains us. Couple that, here in Yad Mordecai, with a faith in our own ability to build concrete kassam-proof rooves over each family's home. Spread over us your shelter of peace. And give us the strength and wherewithall to build concrete safe rooms. And grant us the wisdom to live in the balance between faith and self protection.

******************************************************

to explain:

*Kibbutz Yad Mordecai is right beside the Gaza Strip. From the cowshed (where Mommy's nephew Tomer just doulaed the birth of a new baby calf on the first day of Sukkot, Tomer being named after the date tree (Tomer) planted at his birth, beside his twin brother's Erez tree, 32 years ago, and the trees bring shade and beauty to Shlomit and Dani's home today) .....from the cowshed you see right into Gaza.

*Mommy's Uncle and Aunt Golda first joined the proto-kibbutz back in Poland, and came here to Israel to build the real kibbutz. The alternative was to stay in Poland with their brothers and sisters, who all perished between 1942 and 1945. Except of course.....................

*Yad Mordecai was built in the 30's and 40's. When the State of Israel was declared in 1948, Yad Mordecai was not within Israel's borders!

*Gained militarily, evacuated, lost, regained, it is now in the area where Code Red is heard at erratic intervals, and kassams fall.

*On a personal note, Yad Mordecai is where I, Nomi, waited for Beno in 1973, listening to shellfire in the near distance, until he could get leave to visit, following the Yom Kippur War.

*And when Adam first joined the army, the very first job he was given was to guard Kibbutz Yad Mordecai.

Every Home is a Sukka

I live my life in temporary dwellings,
always glimpsing a star or two
through cracks in the branches
above me.
Heifetz explained
why Jews play the violin:
you can run off with it
when necessary.
It's harder to lug a piano.

I am always almost packed,
and not yet unpacked.
I stand on one foot
ready to flee.
Dwellings for me
are temporary.

This year,
let me sit solid in the sukka,
let me build it sturdy,
and porous.
Let ancient guests and new ones
enter easy
to this joyous airy house.
Let light and wind
dance through.
Let me build it strong but trusting,
and know that that since nothing is forever,
and every home of mine
is a moveable feast
I can sit solid,
symmetrical,
in this present sukka,
two feet on the earth,
smell the etrog's fragrance entirely,
wave lulav evenly
to all the wooden corners,
to the earth below my bare feet,
to the stars calling down through grapeladen branches.
Let my voice rise
through spaces between the pomegranate boughs
to harmonize with my sisters' voices
in other lands.
Let my soul be large enough
to dwell squarely on the sukka's earth floor,
with roots in heaven.

How Was the Fast?

Slow.

Not fast.

***********************************

Spacious. Long enough to think many thoughts. Long enough to see a big picture.

***********************************

That opposites are the only truth, and contradictions create the world.

That Yom Kippur is the most solemn day, and the happiest.

Most solemn, because we ponder, examine, wonder why we missed the mark in so many ways this past year. If we have the courage, we talk out loud to the people we are close with, and repair our connections. But I also value the purity of the brief exchange with so many dear people this year, that simply affirmed that we are clear and clean and fine in our relationship, no need to bring out or reexamine this or that small hurt. An assurance that any smudges in our page are wiped clean now, that we can proceed from here fresh.

And so here were are! The happiest day in the year! A day that declares loud and clear that change is possible, that we can be new. No need to say, "That's the way I am. That's the way this world is." Yom Kippur says, "Imagine yourself. Imagine a world."
********************************
On Yom Kippur we are more angel than physical being. We wear white, fast, don't touch the ground. Eating and drinking and driving and working tie us to the physical world. On Yom Kippur we're all spirit. Hmmmmm. On Yom Kippur we are so physical. The last bites of food before the fast are so very delicious, so grateful, so beloved, so important, so noticed, so savoured. The last sip of tea. And then, well into the fast, how we fixate on that longed for gulp of cool water, the sweet first spoonful of cinnamon rice pudding, the feel of hot tea in our mug and on our tongue. How physical this body feels, all longing, all need, all thirst, all hunger.
Yes, opposites are the truth.
Happiness and longing
Spiritual beings in a physical world, physical beings in a world of ideas, concepts, natural laws, feelings, words, poems and air.
Opposites are the only truth. Before opposites, was to-u va vo-u, the void before creation.
And ceaseless creativity said, Let there be Light and Darkness!
Let there be opposites.
Let there be a world.
****************************
How was the fast?
Slow.
****************************
Rosh Hashanah, Head of the Year. Rosh Hashana is all in your head. But now the Yom Kippur fast, that most solemn and most happy of days. that day of envisioning how whole we can be, is done. Now we can eat and drive and get out our hammers and nails and schach and build a sukka. And a good world

A Good Fast

Minutes before the fast begins, a shared fast here in Israel, that good feeling that whatever I'm feeling here and now, everyone around me is sharing in. The highways and roads are absolutely empty. Odd that part of the population goes to Kol Nidre, and the other large part gets onto bicycles, tricycles, strollers, skateboards, walkers, wheeled playpens, and all kinds of wheeled but non motored styles of transportation, and everybody is greeting everybody else and strolling, wheeling etc. together. The key is the sharedness of it.

There is a sharedness to the fist gently pounding the chest, as we chant in unison, using the word "WE" and not "I". For the missing-the-mark we have commited by ignoring a person in pain, for the missing-the-mark we have committed by being too happy, not keeping a tiny tear-shaped space or broken-glass-shaped space in our happiness for the many people who are hurting at this same moment. For the missing-the-mark we have committed by not being happy, because we are told that even our hard work and our pain we should experience with joy. We are here. We are alive. That is a call to happiness. For the missing-the-mark will all commit by not being able truly to feel each other's feelings.

ROSH hashana it's called. For the intentions and promises and hopes for the coming year are in our Rosh, our head. Let us try to bring them into the world of action, over the course of the year. But the very fact that these hopes are in our head, for now, is a blessing.