27 Children Walking in Puddles

After the big downpour, little children walk in puddles. Before they go into the puddle they look at the grownups by their side with a daring look in their eyes and ask, may we? Tell us nu-nu-nu. They know that it is not really allowed to go into puddles and they ask for permission or refusal. When they leave the puddle, they wear a triumphant though bashful look. But the adults at their side tell them: "it's alright with boots. Afterwards we will take a hot bath and change clothes". Ah, the innocence and excitement of little children walking in puddles.

I remember the puddles of my childhood in a small settlement in which there were no roads or sidewalks. The main roads were made of coarse sand and the side roads were dirt roads. In winter enormous puddles would form all over the settlement and we walked proudly in these puddles wearing our rubber boots, or we placed planks on building stones and joyously walked on them "keeping our balance" and sometimes falling into the water.

I remember that after the heavy rains we would walk to the Wadi and build rafts from empty barrels with branches tied around them, and we would sail with long sticks with which we would shove the sides and the bottom of the Wadi and in this way we would sail many kilometers towards the sea. When darkness fell we would return home, wet and full of mud, with burning eyes from this great adventure.

Our chief raft builder was my friend who was killed in the Yom Kippur War. When we were a little older, he would play the accordion while we all danced around him in a circle and later on he also played the organ and the piano and all in all, he was one of those talented people that make you wonder where he would be now had he not died so young.

But here are today's children. Their future is still bright and full of promising surprises. The camera shields them and preserves the playful and innocent happiness of a rainy day next to a loving home.

26 Writing with fountain pen

These days many more people write by tapping on computer keys than by writing on paper with a pen, and a simple pen – a ballpoint pen for example – is so inexpensive that many people do not have a personal pen but grab one from a bunch lying on any table and use it. An elegant ballpoint pen is already a kind of declaration and some people regard it as superfluous. And if that is true regarding the ballpoint pen, what about the fountain pen?

Many of us are convinced that the fountain pen is obsolete, a dinosaur that belongs in a museum. Although we know that writing with steel point has a unique character, in that the line of ink is flexible, its thickness is variable and that its many shades are determined by the degree of pressure, the angle and speed in which the point goes over the paper. But all this does not persuade those who think that writing with a fountain pen is fated to go the way of writing with a quill or calligraphic writing with a brush – practices that belong to vanished esoteric cultures or to artists that are interested in former techniques. None the less the fountain pen survives and one of the reasons that it does is that it is regarded as an item of prestige and is manufactured as a piece of jewelry for the wealthy customers. In stores that specialize in them, it is not rare to find expensive fountain pens that cost thousands and sometimes even tens of thousands of shekels.

But my simple fountain pen cost me only a few hundred shekels (which in the long run is cheap because the life span of a pen like this is decades and the cost of ink is minimal). It is not a prestigious item or an anachronistic trinket. It is simply the best writing instrument, the pleasantest and most reliable one. Before I returned to writing with a fountain pen I struggled with every simple pen I bought and more than once I had to buy dozens of pens before I found one that suited me. Not any more. This pen, which I have been using now for two years, will continue to serve me many more years.

25 Our Private Mythologies

Every one of us retains in his memory powerful images from childhood. Happenings and experiences that received mythological dimensions in private history and it is almost impossible to explain them to other people because what can be said about them is only an external and objective description, whereas their real strength lies in a much deeper layer. This is also true of certain books that we read in our childhood when the reading experience was new and therefore powerful and intense. Many of us remember only dimly the books from those years and usually refrain from reading them again as adults because we fear that the magic will not repeat itself and perhaps the opposite will happen: looked at as an adult, the books might seem tasteless and there would be no way to balance today's sober view with yesterday's mythology that we can not erase, and remains present even when denying it.

The book "Satan from the 7th grade" by Kornel Makuszyński, in its old translation from Polish, was one of those reading experiences for me. A few years ago I came across a new translation of the book by Uri Orlev and I immediately bought the book. Of course I didn't read it. However I was recently requested to evaluate (in my capacity as a lector) a biography of a famous Israeli personality that was written for young readers and its didactic childish style without faith in its readers, made me uncomfortable. Suspecting that I was perhaps judging the book too severely, I wanted to compare it to another book that I like and remembered "Satan from the 7th grade". I picked it up and – believe it or not – the magic returned. I became engrossed in the book and didn't put it down until I had turned the last page. That is the way to write for young readers. And actually, why only for young readers? That is the way to write – with wisdom, humor and love of humanity. Here is the book lying on my desk.

24 Russian Beer, Romanian Wine

Years ago when I first entered the wine and liquor store near my house I discovered the "hidden imports" that are not seen in the large supermarkets. It contained brands from Eastern Europe that aroused my curiosity. The customers in the store also attracted me. The clerks who spoke fluent Hebrew with me, albeit with a slight accent (and who in Israel does not have a slight accent) switched immediately to their mother tongue when another customer entered. Suddenly their language became softer, livelier, quicker and more natural. Only then did I realize that what had formerly seemed to be fluent was indeed a matter that required considerable effort. Israel is a land of immigrants.

The special brands that I saw in the store were almost all in the low price range and I couldn't expect any miracles, but in spite of that my curiosity was aroused and I tried different kinds. I tasted the strong Russian beer which contains a higher percentage of alcohol than I was accustomed to and could not get used to its taste. I tried the vodka flavored with honey and pepper which is imported from the Ukraine and could not even manage to finish the small bottle that I had bought. I had already heard about Murfatlar wine from Rumania and I was not disappointed – it was excellent. But when two of my children became religiously observant, I was obliged to do without it because the wine does not bear a kosher seal.

These days I don't buy much in this store. It seems to me that it carries fewer brands of the kind that are not found in supermarkets. But in spite of that, the store attracts me. I go in, walk around aimlessly and then buy 6 bottles of mineral water. Here they are in the nylon bag on the counter. The angle of the photograph I owe the stores salesman, who asked me to shoot it in such a way that it would show the bottle of the gold labeled "Vodka Absolute", that he is so proud of.

23 The Ramlah-Lod Market

The "Ramlah-Lod Market" is the commercial name of a market that travels throughout the country and displays its wares every day in a different locality. On Thursdays it comes to Pardes Hana to what used to be the main "Egged" bus station which is now vacant and serves as a parking lot for busses on Saturdays. People flock to the market and the traffic on market day is insufferable. Cars park in every place they can squeeze into and this is a serious nuisance for the local population.

From my workroom I sometimes hear the hucksters hawking their wares and had thought of going there to see what was going on. That is what I did today. I went through the market's gates – and immediately found myself in another world, overwhelmingly colorful, noisy and pulsing with life. I felt the way I did a year and a half ago on a trip to Romania in Târgu Mureş's market. I thought to myself that we travel great distances in order to have a "genuine" experience like this and I tried to see the market near my house through the eyes of a tourist. That is an excellent exercise. Try once to see your house, your street or the Public Square through the eyes of one who, as it were, comes here for the first time and for whom all these things are totally new.

That is the way I looked at the "Ramlah-Lod Market". I gazed at the clothes, the seeds and the dried fruits, the household utensils and the baked goods. A young man standing next to a woman, perhaps his mother, as she is preparing a Druze pitah, sprinkling it with labane and za'atar, rolling it and serving the pitah warm – simply delicious. Notice the colorful pile of clothes. And note the date trees in the background that hint at the world beyond the other reality of the "Ramlah-Lod Market".

22 On the Banks of Lake Kinneret

"Lake Kinneret is not just a beautiful sight, nor simply a part of nature – the fate of a nation is embodied in its name", so wrote the poetess Rachel about the days she spent on the "young woman's farm" which Hana Meizel established in 1911 on the shores of Lake Kinneret. Indeed, the destiny of many was determined in those turbulent days on the banks of the Kinneret. The Young Woman's farm seen in the photo is part of the Kinneret collective where pioneers of the second aliya (wave of immigration) settled and from where several of them went to "Um Juni" and established the first kibbutz – Degania.

Today it is fashionable to attack the kibbutzim and to present their ideology as a kind of madness. "Sweet Mud", a film that was made out of severe personal distress, is regarded by many as an indictment that reveals the kibbutz as a form of hypocritical and repressive life that is also mean spirited and devoid of even one iota of nobility of spirit. On the other hand there is a yearning for the early days of the kibbutz movement, for the great dream, for the personal dedication and pure faith. What a magnificent undertaking arose from the hut in Um Juni. Not only the kibbutzim, but all settlement in the country owes much to these groups of dreamers that danced at night on the shores of Lake Kinneret.

I joined a group that descended from Upper Beitaniya – where members of Hashomer Hatzair once settled (Yehoshua Sobol wrote a Play about them) – to the Kinneret farm and from there continued on to the Eucalyptus groves of Naomi Shemer and then to the Kinneret Cemetery (where Rachel and Noami Shemer are buried as well as Berl Katznelson, Moshe Hess, Borochov, Serkin and other famous people). What stories were told and were not told on this trip! Yes, there were indeed days and there were nights on these memorable paths between Degania and Kinneret.

21 My Feldenkrais Lessons

Once a week, on Wednesdays, after swimming forty lengths in the pool, I get on my motorcycle and go to the place where there are lessons given according to the Feldenkrais method. This weekly hour is very important to me because even swimming cannot correct the damage that bicycle riding does to my back. A friend of mine, a firm believer in Yoga, says that it is better to stick to a system that has been tested and proven for thousands of years. But from outstanding teachers that I have had in various disciplines – I have already spoken of my violin teachers and at a later date I shall talk about my math teacher, as well as my phys. ed. trainer – I learned that it is not the system but the teacher. As a rule I think that "educational systems" in schools, for instance, are much less important than good teachers. However, good teachers are rare and outstanding ones even rarer. It is my good fortune that my teacher of the Feldenkrais method is a "master", that is to say, she is one of the best.

Moshe Feldenkrais was a colorful character. He was born in the Ukraine in 1904, immigrated to Israel alone when he was fourteen and later went to France where he studied science with Marie Currie and her son-in-law Frederick Julio-Currie (also a Noble Price winner) and received his Doctorate from the Sorbonne. At the same time he also studied Judo (and even taught it to the Currie family). In 1951 he was asked to come to Israel by President Chaim Weizman to establish the electronic branch of the Israeli Army. From the middle 1950's he devoted all his efforts to developing, applying and advocating his Feldenkrais method (incidentally he also stood Ben Gurion on his head).

Here we are, students of his faithful students, getting ready for our lesson. The teacher is sitting opposite us but does not appear in the picture. The empty mat is mine. I have taken the picture and am going to the mat to lie down on my back and try to observe "how my body meets the floor today".