I’m traveling a lot these days, enjoying the holidays with family and friends… we move from one holiday to the next, with barely enough time to refresh. My young cat Nechama, moves right along with us, in a special traveling carriage we bought for her; it has a handle on the top, and a very cushy pillow inside, and there’s room for her to walk around a wee bit or to sit, or stretch out if she wants to do so. She doesn’t seem to mind it much, but she’s not enthusiastic about it. Still, she prefers the traveling carriage to being left behind.
In the beginning I traveled with a number of cameras, but it seemed like one was the most right for this series of travels. I’ve gotten some very interesting photos. Though usually, I don't rush to share my photos with others. Sometimes, they stay in the drawer for quite some time, and I look at them from time to time, and as the time passes, I am able to judge them more objectively. Sometimes I change them a wee bit, lightening or darkening, changing the composition by cropping. It is all a part of the photography, the way a painter will pain on a part of the canvas that seemed finished, or will scrape a little away, and replace it with another variation.
It’s the beginning of winter. All the normal people have expended their energy for camping and nature resorts in the summer, and are getting back to normal life and work as the winter starts in. Not the Jews. Just as the rainy season starts, we move out of our houses into little booths or tent like structures, with roofs of bamboo and palm leaves, and celebrate the holiday of tabernacles. Its to remind us that we were slaves once, and had to give up the life we knew and go off into the desert on the way back to the land of our forefathers, from Egypt to Israel.
A great Chassidic rabbi was once asked, which was the mitzvah that he found hardest to perform. I wrote about this earlier in "living with a heart". His answer was that it was hardest to be happy because of a commandment. As most of you know, three young people were shot to death while waiting at a bus stop, a couple of days before the holiday. One of them, was the sister of one of my favorite students. I know the sister very well, and when I started hearing about the victim of this latest attack, I realized very quickly that she was just like her sister. Sometimes, when you hear good things about someone who has just died, you wonder if it's true, or if it's just a last gesture to the dead, remembering his or her good points.
Many of the Arabs around Jerusalem were cheering this murder (there were also injured who suffer greatly), but the Fatah, the major organization of the PLO took credit for the attack without hesitation. This is the peace that we have bought by more concessions; this is what happens after you relax barricades so that civilian Pals will have a little easier time going about their business. Well, you can imagine that it was very hard for me to be "happy". I really felt I couldn't stand the test. But with the help of friends and family, I went through the motions, and cut off from radio and TV in Eish Kodesh, watching my grandchildren playing with lambs and goats and dogs and cats, I was able to find some inspiration.
feeding the kid
When we were in the little village of Eish Kodesh, there were a series of births of goats and lambs. It was amazing to see the little critters running around and calling out a couple hours after they had been born. I also saw a couple of the actual births. Looking at that, the births, and the difficulties of birth sometimes, and the way the mother cares for her children after they are born, and watching the roosters walking around between the lambs and the goats, picking off an occasional bug off the animals in the herd, and the dogs watching that the kids don’t go off by themselves… all of that gives you a different view, and a different feeling about life. I was very moved, and inspired too. Took a lot of photographs.
David in the barn
The milk is different right at the beginning after the kid is born. Gamliel made sure that the kids got their first milk, because it contains a lot of vitamins and chemicals that insure the resistance of the kids to disease. Sometimes mother goat or lamb was worn out from the birth and figured the shepherd could handle this milk business without her. You’d think that nature would have that mother anxious to feed her young, but I guess farming isn’t 100% nature. Or maybe we expect too much out of nature. In any case, Gamliel would sometimes have to milk the sheep or the goat, and then feed the kid from a bottle. He was very patient. It was raining. When we went to the barn, it was dryer and warmer than in the tabernacle. But of course, when it rains you don’t have to stay in the tabernacle. You can go back into the house and gaze out at the wintery weather as the decoration in the huts get soggy and wet.
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