2003_05_23-26

Fight for a Tree and Flight to Egypt

[as to the original story in HEBREW , see the second and third page]
[See also the letter to the legal advisor of the Israeli Government in June 1996,
in which I justified myself for having planted a tree in the desert.]

"Sowing in tears" not yet "reaping in joy"

SongGame

Since 1992 I had phantasized about the first "Midbaron",
a hamlet in the desert, which would serve 12 Succayahs.


The location that stimulated my imagination,
seemed to have once been an agricultural site,
maybe even till Israel, as any "modern" State,
started to evict the Bedouins from the Desert.
It is in an inconspicuous wadi, like thousand others,
which runs down from the cliffs of the Ramon-Crater
to the north into the Nitzana wadi, towards the Mediterrenean

By car it's about 7 km west of the Succah on the road to Egypt,
but in time, I traced a track, up and down the hills, about 10 km.

"To walk my talk", I walked there often,
and my phantasies finally crystallized in
"Altneuland 2003", written in Nov.1993.

During Pesach 1995 the Succah hosted graduates of the four "courses", called "Aetgar ba-midbar" I was not involved except in one program: I proposed to engage together in something tangible: make a path between the Succah and the Midbaron. This kind of young Israelis, still brought up in the tradition of the Zionist pioneers, who dreamt and realized the most incredible dreams, are frustrated: "You left us nothing to do." I wanted to give them a dream, and I wanted to show them, how to start realizing it. Since I had followed my laws for "desert hosting econimy" I had - already in Oct. 1994- done my lekh-lekha from being "the Mother of the Succah", I, therefore, needed the permission of both, Itai, the "director of the Succah", as he called himself, and Amitai, the ranger of the Nature Reserves Authority. "NO WAY! You'll break the law", was the verdict of both. No way! but we walked, carefully, one after the other, to make a difference on the desert earth, to, maybe, leave a trace for a future path.

I taught them how to make a "rujum" of stones, to mark a path in the desert.

In Oct. 1994 I parted from the Succah as a hostess.
This was deeply regretted by Maike from Germany,
who was scheduled to be - as a volunteer- with me.
At the end of her 6 month term, - as a compensation -
I suggested to walk together to my imagined Midbaron.
It was between Holocaust-Day and Remembrance-Day.
I adviced her, to ask her co-worker Natalie,
to meet her there later with the Succah jeep.

After a strenuous walk without path for about 3 hours,
up and down the hills bordering on the Ramon Crater,
we arrived in "my" Midbaron Wadi.
And there was, indeed, Natalie.
I let the two friends meet alone on a slope and roamed around down in the ancient fields,
fantasizing ever new details of the human, nature-compatible civilization I imagined there.

It was a day of "khamseen", a hot dry depressive wind.. Suddenly - out of the khamseen sky - rain-drops fell! I lifted my arms in joy and surprise, to receive the gift, and while doing so, saw, that the two girls did the same, and then - then they started to dance, there on the slope. Even now tears well up in my eyes remembering this scene. While I drew closer to them, cautiously, not to disturb them, it hit me: There is our victory! It's exactly 50 years after World War II "ended", and with it the annihilation of the Jews by Germans, and there are these two young women dancing with the rain in the desert, unaware, that one of them is German-Christian, and the other is Israeli-Jewish. [March 8, 2012- Since I want to win over "Daffi" in Arad, to adopt her real name "Dafna", the tree, which I planted on this spot of the dance, I'm re-studying this page and I've tears...]

The morning of the Day of Remembrance. In the so-called "War of Independence" in 1948 5000 young Jews, fresh Israelis, survivors of the Holocaust, died. There were only 500000 Jews then in the Land of Israel. And since then I don't know how many thousands more. I - who was not imbued with the trauma of neither Jews nor Palestinians, can afford to judge: it was not necessary, all this dying. On the Day of Remembrance, when the siren brings the country to a stop, I allow myself to identify with the victims and to grieve the grief of their loved-ones. I drove my bike to the Succah office at Mitzpe-Ramon. We wanted to be together - my beloved and I - through the phone during the minute of silence. While the sirene yelled, I had a kind of vision: My father and his brother were approaching me: "We failed. You must do a better job". My soldier father was killed in 1943 at the age of 31, his soldier brother committed suicide even earlier.

Nobody took a photo, when we planted the laurel. When I now - 8 years later - searched the Web for an image of a laurel, I discovered more than I'd asked for: an image of a laurel planting, by ~~~~ astronauts! "October 27, 2001 Back on Earth after their five months living aboard the International Space Station, Expedition Two, astronauts Susan Helms and Jim Voss recently visited the Kennedy Space Center where they planted a commemorative cherry laurel tree."

"A tree has to be planted in the Midbaron, David! Where the Jewish and the German girl danced!. A Dafna Tree David did not question the order, nor did I, though I'm not the kind of psychic, who is used to such visions. "I'll find a sapling of a dafna and we shall plant it together." At home in my bus I searched for info about the Dafna / the laurel tree. I was shocked: the tree grows in the Galilee, never in the desert. It needs water, shade and a certain kind of soil. What crazy idea to plant a dafna in the desert. But then it hit me: exactly because this tree needs water, shade and a certain kind of soil, it is meant to be a symbol for human economy in the Desert. Aren't these the conditions, I had been preparing for all along? Water and shade and a socio-economic infrastructure, desert compatible, nature compatible, Space-Purity-Silence compatible? On May 13, 1995, ten people gathered to plant the laurel sapling, which David had found in a nursery in Ramat-Ef'al, called "The Succah"!

Astronauts plant a Dafna Tree

The dancers' slope faces the opposite hill with its ancient water-course. at its bottom once must have been a huge cistern to collect the rain. From there the large, now barren fields must have been watered. From there, across the ancient terrace, we could have watered the Dafna. If only I could have won over the government to renew ditch and cistern.

For the next 11 days I came every second day to water our Dafna.
mostly by walking to and fro - 20 km - or by asking friends with a car.
I felt it was vital that I walk my path, as I had done so often before,
to give energy to the realization of my vision.
But the Dafna started to show signs of exhaustion.
I was troubled and terrified.
Natalie said:
"Maybe you should build a tiny succah over it."
"I thought about something like that, yes."
"I'll help you with the jeep, just prepare for it."

After I had done my lekh-lekhâ from the Succah 7 months before,
I never asked for the jeep, though everything was still in my name.
But Natalie, the hostess, proposed this, and another justification:
Rita, the secretary, confined to town, was eager for a desert trip.

So on Wednesday, the 24th of May - by chance? - today's date
we put palmfronds and tools into the jeep, and drove to the west.

It was towards sunset, that we set out on this fatal journey.
Fatal? No one died. Or so it seems.

We took the road, of course, not my pathless walking route. We arrived at the confluence of my wadi into Wadi Nitzana. From there we followed the 2 km dustroad to the Midbaron. When we were almost there, we noticed two jeeps behind us. Two, not one! rangers! the Israel Nature Reserves Authority. I braced myself, breathed, we had reached the tiny sapling. We did not dare to unload, but sat down above the dafna. Amitai stood before us with a block of paper and a pen. No discussion. I was to tell him the details of my crime. I made it a long story, used the chance to make my point. Then I had to sign what I had dictated. Then the little pick-axe was confiscated. And then came the outrageous order: "You shall now uproot this tree!" "Over my dead body", I said, intent to stay all night to guard my tree "If you'll stay here one minute longer, you are breaking another law, THIS IS A NATURE RESERVE!"

Natalie urged me, not to push it.
"We need others to help us."
What a correct observation!
But where were the helpers?

We got back into our jeep.
They will not dare to do it,
I kept telling myself.

The next day I traveled to Tel-Aviv, then Hadera,
to a gathering in Israel's first "Democratic School",
to talk about the realization of my dream.
I've just done some "Driving back" to this experience,
and to my encounter with Miriam Klein (Shanti-house),
another dreamer there.

On Friday I returned to the Succah for a workshop, which I was to conduct ---- as the Succah's guest! It was the group of Avi Dagan, a close friend then, a businessman, 4 companies, and spiritual teacher, who had pushed me and Gadi Lybrok into founding "The Company for Realization of Desert Resources". At the end of the workshop, late Shabbat afternoon, I see myself in our big circle in the Tent of Encounter. I share with them my fear, ask them to join me now. Two came with me, Avi Dagan and Keren Krotchik, a very young girl, the daughter of two of Avi's group. Our eyes had met at the beginning of the workshop, and it was, as if we had recognized each other~~~. Later she was to become an angel on the abyss. We reached the spot of the tree, the pit was empty. Amitai had uprooted my dafna from the desert, because I, a daughter of Eichmann's Germany, had broken the law.

The Dafna pit - viewing the west (Egypt)

After 7 years, 2002_12_28, I visited that sad wadi. The unbelievable occurred: I refound the pit from which Amitai, who is no longer alive, uprooted the Dafna, I even unearthed my kitchen knife, with which I had loosened the soil around the sapling, when I watered it.

The Dafna pit - viewing the south (Ramon-Crater)

It was then, that I started to loose my mind. Was it the incessant harassing of the authorities? Was it the fierce adolescent-parent-fighting of Itai, who had become my successor in the Succayah? It was something much deeper, which nobody could have possibly understood: It was the excruciating pain of the woman, who belonged to both sides of the holocaust, that of the perpetrators and that of the victims. It shot through my stomac, how Rafael, whose wife I became later, had ridiculed a sign on a German lawn: "Rasen betreten verboten!" "To step on the lawn forbidden." And in a letter he contrasted German obedience with Israelis standing up against authority: How the British had searched a kibbutz for hidden rifles and explosives in "slicks", and how crowds of people lined up to confuse the searchers and protect the slicks.

I roared my pain into the wadi , echoed back by the mountains.
Avi and Keren had learned my "theory" of moving emotions
and stayed by my side, supporting me by their presence.

"You are breaking the law!" said Amitai and uprooted a baby tree.
"You are breaking the law!" said also Itai, and was not there for me,
neither to plant the tree, nor to protect the tree, nor to listen to my pain.

I came "home" alone. The guests had left, the hosts had not yet come back. They used the chance that Rachel was with the guests, to make a trip with the jeep, without even informing me. Only Renata and Daniela had stayed behind. I approached them: "The tree has been uprooted!" Renata turned her back and walked away. Daniela took me in her arms and let me cry. Daniela, Gadi's and Efrat's closest friend, was very sick. Working in the Succah was the last chance she gave Life. And indeed, it postponed her death - for some years. But not Daniela - Renata was supposed to hold me!

Renata, the carpenter, showing Daniela, what needed to be done, 1992?

And where was Natalie?
My pain now grew into monstrous proportions:


I, who have been teaching for 21 years,
how to turn adversaries into partners,
how did I create such utter betrayal?
My self-esteem sank into the grave.

March 15, 2011

Now more of the big show of ice and snow, in which I see a promo of the fulfillment of the many prophecies about Water in the Wilderness Water in the Wilderness is the strongest symbol for "a New Earth and a New Heaven" in the Bible. Even if Water is not mentioned, it's the Wilderness, the Desert, where it will begin. I therefore allow myself to edit the recently scanned negatives of Jan. 1990 - Jan.1992 in as big a size as can still be seen on one screen, and insert these in the empty spaces on 8 pages which have to do with "my Vision about Peace through Desert Hosting Economy." See an additional sequence of the snow in the Succayah, with the guest Uri Goldin and my son Micha on his motor-bike. The image taken on Jan. 1, 1992, from inside the Hagar Cabin, in which I lived then, is inserted in ".integration 2001-2003-My Life's Harvest"

Even after about two weeks of the first snow (for in February there was given a second show...)
- there still were patches of snow, for instance in the part of the sewage from shower and kitchen

A child in Germany, from where this volunteer came from, could not be happier with the miracle of snow in the desert

I'm inserting just one image for the sake of   c o n t r a s t   between a usual winter and the snow of January-February 1992:
When there is rain at all (annual average 100 mm...), this is how the tracks from the Succayah to the road to Egypt look like!

The great Middle-East Observatory: did the creatures which observed us from other dimensions enjoy the unusual sight?

continuation in the 7th stage of Succah