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".

20 Timna Brauer Sings for Peace

'Voices for Peace', the project of Timna Brauer and Eli Meiri arrived in Or Akiva to give a concert. This excellent performance, which combines Moslem, Christian and Jewish music featuring choirs from Tel Aviv and Shfaram, has been traveling the world these past seven years and delivering the message of fraternity via music. There is something naïve and touching about this hope that music is capable of uniting peoples engaged in bloody conflict. I remember the excitement that gripped me on first hearing 'Zaman El-Salam' (Time for Peace) adapted by Yair Dalal for the special concert 'Shalom-Salam' which took place in Oslo in 1994 to commemorate the first anniversary of the Oslo Accord. What hope was contained in the words only partly understood of 'Zaman El-Salam'. What yearnings were heard in the Arab language, so musical, so beautiful. But it seems that the songs create this magic for only a short time.

On the stage we see two choirs, the Jewish one and the Arab one, singers intermingled. The Jews sing 'Allah Ya Mulana', the Arabs sing 'Avinu Malkenu', and all together they sing 'We Shall Overcome'. The audience is moved and for a moment it seems that this is sufficient to bring down the walls between us. However, the following morning reality stares us in the face again.

Timna Brauer is a wonderful singer. She is a Yemenite, an Israeli and an Austrian who studied in France, and perhaps all this helps explain her mastery command of different and varied styles, and makes it possible for her to feel at home in all of them. She has a unique voice and a personal mode of presentation that always contains playful jazz elements. It is fun to hear her and to hope with her that music is the voice of peace.

19 The Old Houses

There are old houses on my street that send messages from the past. I can not decode all of them but I observe the architectural style of these houses and imagine very much about the world of the people who built them. Look at this house for example, its forthright functionalism, simple style (straight lines and no ornamentation what so ever) and think of the imagination run wild as seen in many buildings built today. How they are situated far from the street and have many annexes, corners, columns, gates, porches and storage facilities as well as parking lots. When they are surrounded by foliage and fences our new houses become indistinct when viewed from the street. It seems as if they want to disappear, fade away into empty space, cease to be part of the street and become something independent that can be detached from one street and transferred to any other street or even any other community.

The house in this photo, and others like it, are built right at the sidewalk. They are not bashful and do not hide, nor do they deck themselves in superfluous finery. They are part of the street which they create and the street's character is the sum total of their presence. It is a shame that these houses are neglected now, to say nothing of the sidewalks that look like remnants of naïve optimism. It seems that Pardes Hana did not developed as quickly as the people who built these houses long ago hoped it would.

18 In My Wine Store

I buy my wine in the store of a wine cellar, on the Benyamina – Zichron Yaakov road. I save the empty Magnum bottles (one and a half liter each), and from time to time I go to refill them with good young wine that is remarkably inexpensive. Waiting for me at the store is a large stainless steel container and next to it there is a line of wine lovers who have also brought bottles to refill. The system is simple and cheap. You pay only for the wine, since there are no middlemen and no packaging costs – straight from the container to the bottle.

The light in the photo may be misleading. It may give the impression of molten metal flowing but this is not alchemy or flowing gold. The lamp is placed near the faucet of the container because the store's interior is rather dark and the man who fills the bottles is working without a funnel and he must accurately direct the current of wine into the bottle opening.

In a bag in the lower right hand corner can be seen the empty bottles I brought with me and next to it is a bottle that has already been filled and corked. The green object in the lower left hand corner serves to cork the bottles. It looks like a large orange squeezer. The bottle is placed on a bright round base and when the handle is pulled down the cork is pressed into the neck of the bottle. Since I discovered this simple delicious inexpensive wine I drink a glass of wine with almost every meal. They say that red wine is also good for the heart. Lechaim.

17 The Picture in my Bedroom

There is a picture hanging in my bedroom made from a poster of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam of the painting "The Beautiful Shepherdess" by Paulus Moreelse from Utrecht, from the beginning of the seventeenth century. I like to look at this picture. It has complete mastery of technique and style. It is realistic in so far as the face turned towards us is in exact proportions, the shadows create the illusion of natural light that comes from a definite direction and the face has a live expression that speaks to us.

But the picture is not realistic, and its name gives us a hint of this: "The Beautiful Shepherdess". This delicate shepherdess, fancifully dressed and decorated with flowers, did not get up at the crack of dawn, open the gates of the sheep pen and lead the herd to pasture, dirtied by mud. The entire picture is a mythical fantastic image of the shepherdess as a beautiful, aristocratic maiden, as gentle and heavenly as an angel. That is the way seventeenth century Europeans imagined "the shepherdesses" of ancient times – the ideal, imagined golden age, in which the door between heaven and earth had not yet been closed, and the gods intervened in human affairs and beauty was divine.

What attracts me is the enigmatic, cryptic aspect of the picture. What is the beautiful shepherdess thinking about? Is she in love? Is she about to burst into laughter? Does her expression indicate resentment? Irony? It seems that the secret of the picture's magic is that it captures an unexplained emotional expression and thereby enables the viewer to interpret it in innumerable ways. The shepherdess gazed into our eyes. She doesn't leave us in peace, and she demands an interpretation. But at the same time she enables us to ascribe to her glance a vast number of emotions.

16 Bicycles

The weather is no longer suitable for walking barefoot on the sand by the sea, and the beautiful rainless days are ideal for bicycle trips. I have been watching people riding bicycles for a long time – on highways and by the side of roads, or when their bicycles are hanging on the rear of their cars, and If I had not been wary of becoming another fan of this latest fashion, I would have become one myself a long time ago. Finally I succumbed to the temptation, got on my bicycle and rode to the fields.

Earlier I had checked out the relevant internet sites and learned something about bicycles manufacturers and shock absorbers (I am particularly interested in this because of my problematic back). At long last I crossed the Rubicon and purchased a modest mountain bicycle. Here it is on my first Saturday excursion in the fields between Kibbutz Mishmarot and Kfar Glickson. I went alone, with only a water bottle and a map. It was a pleasure.

The scenery seen riding through fields is surprising, and the difference in the conception of space is even more surprising. The driver on roads has a totally false conception of the region we live in, of distances or directions. If you glance at a map you see that settlements quite close to each other are joined by roads that frequently make detours of tens of kilometers. In spite of the fact that everyone knows that long distances on highways are not necessarily long distances as the crow flies, it is nevertheless the roads that create our conception of distances, to say nothing of the fact that they completely confuse our sense of direction by their many curves. Riding on a bicycle through fields between settlements teaches us the correct direction and distance between settlements and corrects the false concept the roads created for us.

15 Fortress Yechiam

A few months ago I was scheduled to enjoy a weekend in the Galil. For obvious reason (the War) that plan did not materialize. However, lately I managed to take that vacation. I went to a moshav near Nahariya. On one of my vacation days I traveled to Fortress Yechiam. I am interested in the history of the Middle Ages, especially in its architecture, for example the great cathedrals in Europe. The crusaders left behind them in Israel impressive citadels and fortresses.

Yechiam is one of them. Although the fortress the crusaders built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is almost completely destroyed and what remains today is a reconstruction from the eighteenth century. None the less there is an impressive tower from Crusader times. Its stone stairs wind between thick walls and shooting slots. The scene from the top of the tower is simply breathtaking.

I took this photograph near the entrance of the tower. I stood with my back to the tower and photographed while facing west. Notice the beautiful arc, the shaded interior stone wall, the hinted rear curve, and of course the tree growing inside the building. The reconstruction was done accurately and artistically. Consequently the building does not look like a shattered ruin or like a polished toy. The tree growing within the structure provides color, shade and a calm atmosphere that softens the stony grimness and enables us to forget that the building is a military installation.

On my way to fortress Yechiam I went to see the statue dedicated to the memory of Haganah fighters who died in the Yechiam convoy before independence. Ninety Haganah members traveled to embattled Yechiam. Their convoy was ambushed and more than half of the fighters were killed. The death toll on that day was forty seven. At that time the population of the Jewish community was about one tenth of what it is today. Those facts help us to consider realistically the meaning of existentialist war – its geography and its price.