67 Our Baskets on our shoulders

Our baskets on our shoulders/ wreaths on our heads / from every corner of the country we came/ to bring our first fruits/ from Yehuda, from Yehuda and the Shomron/ from the Emek, from the Emek and the Galilee/ make way for us/ for we bear first fruits/ boom boom boom on the drum, play the flute/ boom boom boom on the drum, play the flute.

I remember the words of this simple naive Bikurim (First Fruits) song of Levin Kipnis which has been part of me ever since those early days. And already I wonder if the proper words are 'play the flute' or 'blow the flute', 'from Yehuda and the Shomron' or 'from Yehuda and from Shomron'. I do a Google search and discover various versions. All of them quoted from memory, incorrect and misleading. I think 'blow the flute' sounds better, but most of the versions that I find say 'play the flute' and I do likewise.

The Bikurim songs have been going through my mind all this past week. When I finish my daily swimming (40 lengths), the evening practice for the holiday ceremonies of Gan Shmuel are already in progress. They are held on the large lawn next to the dinning hall which is close to the swimming pool. Bales of straw are piled there and one glance at the dancing children and one note of the holiday songs send me back years to the time when all of us marched in the Bikurim procession – not in the heart of the kibbutz as a sort of ceremony created for urban tourists as is done today, but actually in the fields with all the agricultural equipment and all the kibbutz members and children participating in a grand procession of the various agricultural branches. Giant cotton picking machines rode by, lots of tractors, some of them dragging long aluminum irrigation pipes which were later assembled and taken apart to demonstrate developing agricultural technology. Turkeys, goats and calves were hauled there, even horses. And the babies born that year were also brought to be shown off as 'First Fruits'.

Here I am in the center of the picture, next to me – Ami. We have wreaths on our heads and are leading a dog that is drawing a little wagon. I don't remember what was in the wagon, perhaps pigeons from the children's farm. We tried to be creative in presenting our first fruits. Every year there was a competition between the various agricultural branches and the happy winners whose presentation was considered the most beautiful, original and colorful, won the right to keep the 'Bikurim Flag' until the following year.