32 I Like Tea

I like tea. Especially in winter when it pours outside and I am working in my warm room. I buy my tea in bulk at Wissotzky's Tea House in Tel Aviv. From time to time, on my way to the musical evenings at the home of Rafi Lavi, I make a stop at the Tea House on Hashmonaim Street and stock up on fresh, fragrant tea. I prefer the blue Earl Gray and the mild Darjiling (with its large leaves) but occasionally also try other flavors. For example, Assam or Ceylon, English Breakfast or my latest – green Earl Gray.

I prepare my tea in various ways, almost all of which I discovered at the tea house. I had already tried tea bags hanging on a round frame and serving as filters, metal filters and a micron filter. However, lately I acquired a personal tea kettle that I am very satisfied with. When I used to prepare large glasses of tea, I preferred tea with milk, mainly blue Earl Grey, strong and aromatic. Now my taste has changed and all because of my new kettle which is seen in the picture. When I bought it, it was suggested that I also buy a little glass cup from which to drink the tea. In the beginning the little cup seemed to be a joke. One gulp and the tea is gone. But that is exactly its advantage. The tea in the kettle stays hot (more than half an hour!) thanks to the insulated cover, and every few minutes I pour myself a little cup of hot tea. What a pleasure.

When I changed to this method of preparing tea – and specifically to the new style of drinking tea which is completely different from what I had been used to – I discovered that I prefer tea without milk, as well as a red herbal tea that is sweet and sour. I enjoyed the latest brew so much that I quickly got out my cell phone camera to preserve the image. On the kettle's cover you can see a reflection of me and of my cell phone camera.

31 Plow and Mortar

On my way to the moshava center I cross an orchard, walk on unpaved ground between the orange trees next to the guavas, and before the "dove square", opposite "Yad La'banim" (soldiers memorial) I pass "Beith Harishonim" (pioneer's house). Years ago a plow and mortar were placed in front of it, close to each other so as to constitute a sort of statue. In the young country's heroic years this was a symbol that could be seen everywhere, Like in the song about Trumpeldor: "all day with my plow and at night with my rifle in my hand" and so on. There is hardly a settlement that doesn't have a statue like this from that period – a statue that symbolizes the Zionist dream of conquering the land in both of these ways. Now those monuments seem naïve and tasteless. Their obvious symbolism renders all artistic expression superfluous. Their very existence in settlements centers next to public buildings, gives them their meaning. The plow and the mortar (or the rifle or the tank): the agricultural labor of a people that returned to work the land, and the weapons of war that defend the existence of the new Hebrew entity.

Today one's eye is drawn to the material which these monuments were made of, to the iron itself. I come so close to the plow that it hides the weapon, and then I observe the rusty iron. What does it tell me? Up close it is like a remnant of a previous civilization whose secret it is difficult to fathom. The iron, which is decomposing and crumbling away, is remarkably beautiful.

In order to appreciate it fully, I'll have to get even closer. And then even the plow will disappear and all that remains will be the disintegrating wheel and the pole on its axis.

30 Cats

It all began when I gave my wife a gift of a kitten that someone had brought to my workplace seeking a home for it. Until that time we hadn't had any household pets and I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. I liked the little cat and the cats that came in its wake. I discovered that I prefer cats to dogs precisely because they are supposed to be less loyal and get less attached and always do what is good and pleasant for themselves and not what their owners expect of them.

When we began raising cats we lived in a sixth floor apartment. The cats were always in the flat. They didn't go anywhere and neither friends nor enemies came to them. But everything changed when we moved to a private home with open space and without as much as a fence. Our cats (in the meantime there were already two or three) began to wander around the house, the yard and beyond it and we found that it was more convenient to place their food on the porch. But before we realized what was happening, we found ourselves feeding five additional cats that had discovered the source of plenty and more and more cats appeared.

Today when I open the entrance door, two cats leap out and three cats creep in and that goes on all day long. Sometimes at night or early in the morning the cats complain and ask us to get up and open the door for them. They expect attention, especially the kittens. But exactly then they are the cutest, like the ginger cat in the picture. Every morning when I spread the newspaper on the table he jumps up and sits on it. Why? Because that is the focus of my attention – and that he wants for himself.

29 The Messenger

I do my work as a book editor at home. I sit facing my computer or sheets of paper on my desk in my room, surrounded by books and sounds of music that come from the radio, my discs or internet radio stations: I erase and change the text before me until I have created clear, corrected texts. Today, when communication via e-mail is so convenient and the transfer of texts is so simple and fast, there is almost no need to meet people in order to transmit or receive pages with editorial symbols. Everything is done on the computer and the texts pass quickly from hand to hand. The exchange of opinions that accompanies the work on texts is done by e-mail and from time to time telephone conversations serve to clarify matters. Face to face meetings are almost superfluous. From the initial communication, to the order for the work, the editing process, contact with the authors and finally the payment – everything is done without a face to face meeting. You sit at home and edit books for people, publishers as well as research and publication institutions, without having seen each other.

From time to time I need the mail service to receive books and texts that are sent to me. Mail creates contact. Not with the person who wrote the texts that I edit, nor with those who transferred them to me to edit, nevertheless it is contact. I leave my house and walk to the local mail branch. Almost invariably I meet someone there that I know. I observe the people standing near me and listen to the conversations they have with each other and on their cell phones. When my turn comes, the clerk hands me my mail. Sometimes a messenger comes to my house to deliver or receive a package.

But since the "doarmat", the automatic service for receiving mail packages, my work can be accomplished without even seeing the messenger.

28 A Kibbutz Seder in the sixties

In a few days I will be sitting with my family at the Seder table reading the Haggadah. I have a small collection of Haggadot with explanations, and these explanations are dear to me because they not only clarify the text but also tell the stories of their commentators. My curiosity is aroused also by the Haggadot that dare change and add to the traditional text – for example the Kibbutz Haggadah – which was perhaps the most extraordinary cultural endeavor that originated here, before pioneering-secular momentum ceased. A year ago I acquired a Haggadah that combines both traditional and Kibbutz Haggadot and I discovered in it the Seder of my youth in the 1960's in the kibbutz.

The Seder in the kibbutz began many weeks before the actual Pesach evening. The choir rehearsed "Kumu Toei Midbar" ("Arise Ye Who Are Wandering in the Desert") and "Se'i Saviv Einaich" ("Lift up your eyes and Look about You") as well as "Leil Shimurim" ("It is a long Night"). The youngsters of the "mosad" (high school) prepared a modern dance (to music by Prokofiev!) on the exodus of the Jews from slavery to freedom and the younger ones rehearsed for the highlight of the evening – but about that later.

On the day of the holiday all the furniture was removed from the dining hall and instead long rows of tables were brought in, which consisted of simple wooden planks covered with white paper serving as tablecloths. The benches were construction boards. The seating arrangements, for which there was a special committee, were a well kept secret. The places were marked on the white table covering, and only on the evening of the holiday did each family receive an envelope containing the numbers that revealed their seats.

Before the holiday we received new sandals which squeaked when we walked and white shirts (in the 50's they were "Russian" shirts). And so, all excited, we walked to the Seder. Songs were sung at that evening, poems and many quotations from the book of Numbers were read. Most of it was not from the original Haggadah. One member of the Kibbutz, always the same one, would begin with "Ha Lachma Anya" ("This is the Bread of affliction") and the Seder would flow from there. The local "intellectual" would get up and deliver this "our" speech: "Again we sit circles in circles…" and would review the "Circles of our Life" from the eldest to the last of the new born babies. And before the "Shulchan Orech" (the festive meal) the choir would go on stage and enthusiastically sing the canon "Let's Drink a Toast, Friends, For We are Yet Strong Enough".

Before the end of the Seder and the never ending circles of the "Hora" came the time for the highlight of the evening – the "chad gadyah" (one lamb) dance of the young children. Here we are dancing to the tune of the pioneers' chad gadyah. The somersaulting gadyah (lamb) standing on his hands – is me.

Chag Sameach!

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.