Kibbutz Nir-Oz celebrated Shavuot with 500 guests, succulent quiches, salads, south american flutes and the usual array of breads, cheeses and kibbutz choirs.
I like the beautiful getting ready scenes
As for me, personally, admitting to a case of the flu, I spent my ‘erev hag’ (evening before the holiday) preparing report cards for my classes from grade 8 to 11. The long-suffering grade 12 kids have already received their final numbers and words from me (including personal goodbye benedictions).
Sneezing doesn’t seem to go along well with meditation or creative outlets, so I spent most of the day watching Sally Fields in”A Woman of Independent Means”, a woman who 100 years ago was struggling with the idea of living life, unconventionally, while walking the line of conservative society. In any case, it was serialized and gave me time to do laundry, bake bread, make a bran cake and generally live a life while watching too many hours of TV.
There’s been a lot of talk of women’s rights and pro-choice in the news. Some people say we’re leaps and bounds ahead of where we were. We slowly have the vote, we slowly have the right to express ourselves without being labelled ‘babe’ or ‘warrior’. It’s all so slow that some of us don’t feel a thing. Some of us who claim to be just a normal earthling get shocked when gorgeous models are air-brushed into further perfection (see jezebel.com) or when some of our most beloved citizens are victims of violence.
No shock, nothing new. All we can do is be open-eyed and prepared. Fast reflexes and staying away from danger zones are good rules to keep. All human beings need to remember the law. No carrying illegal substances in a heavily policed zone. You know who you are. These are bits of advice from someone coming from the ‘discretion’ side of life. Be who you are, be! But if you’re into illegals, be who you are in the privacy of your own home. If you’re into ‘kink’, be who you are at home. Screaming ‘look at me’ in the face of those who can’t handle nonconformists is to bring yourself unwanted distraction and sometimes pain.
Pain is to be avoided. Call me a coward, but politicizing can attract violent reactions. Violence is to be avoided.
Peace begins within the self. Get yourself together and then we’ll talk.
Further news:
While in Sha’ar haNegev High School, testing the Grade 12 students, I met 2 young men, Itai and Ariel, who’d pursued the idea of Protest Songs to awaken consciousness. Itai wrote a poem about Gilad Shalit. His work in Hebrew shows rhythm and rhyme. His English translation did not. So I asked him if I could re-work the English. He said sure. But lo and behold, re-working English means re-writing a poem. So we’ve now got his original Hebrew and my adaptation. I’ll post both. First a photo of the two students who worked on this project:
- Itai and Ariel
English Adaptation: ‘HaHalom hu Shalom’ (The Dream is Peace)
