written March 2018
“It is magical”. We agreed. “I feel more human here in Israel”, she said. Shoshana. Her new name when she became Chassidic. Years ago. Meaning: rose. “At home, in Toronto, I used to think about stuff like which cleaning supplies to buy, which broom is best for cleaning the floor. I actually discussed that with friends on whatsapp. I wasted so much time throughout my life with things like that.” “I love the messiness of things here.”
Yalla, it’s the Middle East, one big pot of balagan, and heat, and complexity never unraveled, and diversity never unified, but in the end simple, very simple: we’re all in Israel, walking the land, and its earth is simple. What a view. High up on the citadel. Along the way to Zefat, on the bus, one thought: this landscape… You could not even imagine this. It is God-made. God’s seal all over it. His seal even upon every town and city, inhabited by the sons of Abraham, who once set out for this land, leaving his family behind, upon a promise, shimmering mystically, vague, like a single far star in a misty night, a promise to a man married to a barren wife: your descendants as numerous as the stars in the skies…
Avi (on the rooftop of a hostel in Jerusalem): “I think I always need a certain amount of desert in my life.” “You know, they say, the land of Israel is the most human place.”
A prophetic vision, as the one who wrote it down for all following generations was carried away “in the Spirit to a mountain great and high”:
“On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse.” (Book of Revelation)