(photo didn't go the last time; here it is again) Hi everyone, Mid-august, summer at peak heat and dust level but there is just a hint of turning the corner now. Saw some leaves already turning red on my grapevine. Figs are getting ripe, and olives are swelling, the promise of October's harvest. The yuccas in my back garden are in bloom. Wonder what pollinates them here….looks like a moth flower. The vineyards are harvesting grapes now for winemaking and the Arabs are selling sweet black Hebron grapes for eating. It's the age old rhythm of the Middle East . Soon there will be plowing to catch the first rains that usually come around Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. In August we all pause and take a deep breath before the start of the autumn High Holy Days and the beginning of another year. A lot of people go on vacation: Turkey , Greece , Switzerland . It's a kind of in-between time. Jewish New Year begins with the autumn, which makes sense here. There has been no rain since last March – really none at all – and the clouds will start to gather for a month before we get the first fat drops of the winter. The light changes somehow, gets softer. Little bulb flowers like crocus and squill sense that and send up blossoms even before they send out leaves. I'm told they sense the change in daylength down the dead stalks of last year's flower. That's pretty cool, but how does the firstyear flower know?? My Dutch student finished his report today. As far as I'm concerned, he's free now. But he wants to stay on in Israel , and will move to the Carmel , where the Ramat HaNadiv Park will pay him a couple months to work with them. Then he goes home for Christmas, and wants to come back in the winter to work with me again, next time in the Negev Desert . I'm setting that up now. I'm preparing for two weeks in the Czech Republic . First a conference in Prague where I have to give a lecture, and then a week's vacation in Karlovy Vary, the famous spa town in western Bohemia. It's the Dvorak Festival then with concerts every night. I plan to walk in the autumn hills during the day and listen to classical music at night, with maybe a few massages and hot spring treatments thrown in. And a good book; this time I'm determined to finish James Joyce's Ulysses….. All the project work is perking along okay; we visited the venue to make sure all is okay at that end. It's a nice little village, unique in being half Jewish and half Arab, but very typical of the old kibbutz and moshav guest houses. Simple, sunny, and open, with big spaces to spread out and lie on the grass if you want. I like the place; its physical setup reminds me of the Galilee back when I was first came to Israel in the 1980's. Nostalgia? We have stuff going at the national level, I guess. Bring Shalit home (from Hamas captivity). Haredim protesting parking lots open on the Sabbath. Iran blustering. Watching American antics over economics, and remembering our own funny money days of the 1980's. Nostalgia? Anyway, Israelis open one eye, and go back to summer vacation drowsing. We aren't at war, the Israeli shekel is a stronger currency than the dollar, and the swine flue epidemic looks like it can be managed after all. No immediate threats. So, the kids are home for vacation and driving everyone crazy; we are either packing or unpacking for summer vacation; melons are in season and cheap, and we all just collectively sigh and stretch out our legs. Mikmoret is offering a million shekel reward for a documented mermaid sighting off its shores, and that was the big news today. Tomorrow is another day. One odd thing: the army has decided to move out of Har Gilo, where I live. We have only a skeleton staff of border patrol now. After living with 400 or so conscripts since the 2nd intifada started in 2000, the quiet is deafening. So Har Gilo is eerily peaceful and serene these days. It reminds me of the old story of the rabbi and the goat. Don't know that one? Everyone does….Okay, for the Goyim: "Once a poor man came to his rabbi with a problem. He had a small house and many children, it was too cramped to live. What to do?....."Put a goat in the house" said the rabbi. Huh? Well, the obedient Jew did that, whatever he thought. A couple weeks later, the rabbi saw the poor Jew and asked "how is it going"? "Oy, terrible" said the Jew. "The goat stinks and shits all over the house and it is more cramped than ever before". "Okay", said the rabbi, "Now take out the goat." Another two weeks pass. Again the rabbi meets the poor Jew. "And now how is it going?" asks the rabbi. "Wonderful" said the poor Jew. "Ever since we took out the goat, it's been like a mansion. So much room and so clean!" "Ah, I thought that would solve the problem" said the wise rabbi…. So, we just got rid of the goats, and it is so clean and peaceful and quiet at Har Gilo……. Shabbat shalom, Linda |
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