Pilot's Spring in the Jerusalem Hills

5/10/2006

here's something from two months ago .... I went for a long walk today in the hills outside of Jerusalem today, hot sun, feeling that I am eating too much and not exercising, feeling like, what’s the literary term, well, basically, i think it is something like,.... a blog. I had two hours before i had to pick up Ilana at the mental hospital. (she works there, incase you were wondering.) There are all these trails and dirt roads in the hills next to the hospital - this hill is dedicated to an air force memorial monument. I was looking for the "pilots spring," somewhere down the hill. I went down, down, the dirt road winding around the hill, getting worried after half an hour that I would be late for Ilana.I got to musing about how useful this road would have been in the war of independence. Starting to fantasize, if I was there in '48, in that same place, fresh out of Buchenvald, gun in hand, running into a Jordanian soldier. . and the fantasy went up in a puff of smoke (though i was not smoking). over twenty minutes of walking on the dirt road and i start to burn off a little fat. ... so I reached ayn hatayasim (pilot's spring) and someone had made it there by car. As i am climbing up the path, I hear the chatter of young Israeli women. lovely spring, but it was taken over by a four lovely young ladies, and i didn’t feel so much a part of the chevre (crowd).

But it is an absolutely beautiful spot I came back several times since the first visit I am in the middle of describing - pine forest, wild rosemary, wild sage. no parsley. Wild forest chickens running along the path, and the birds! You would not believe the sweet music they sing, forget Beethoven, forget Bach, and definitely forget Messian the bird man. (a French composer with a thing for JC and birdcalls) Snake slithered into a hole in the rock on the side of the dirt path. I am running along shadow boxing and singing the theme to "Rocky." The spring itself is ancient, I have not idea, at least a thousand years old, maybe two or three. two by four meters filled with a school of centimeter long fish, and one big orange fish - the Tsaddik - wonder who was so privileged to be reincarnated into this Eden! When I would stand still for a minute and then move the hundred of them would all jolt as one, making a delicate splatter on the surface of the water like reverse raindrops. I would strip down and jump in, grossed out by the mud slithering in-between my toes at the bottom of the pool (it is a little over a meter deep) , perform my ritual ablutions while visualizing the proper names of God, and then get out, hoping no tourists would catch me bare-assed, get dressed wet, and then sit in bliss at the side of the pool looking at the fish and the reflection of the green boughs and splatters of sunshine rippling on the surface of the ritualarium. Silent, soaking my feet in the cool water, listening to the music the wind plays in the trees and the birdsongs, loving God and envisioning His name, and feeling a scent of a whiff of prophecy that used to descend on these parts in another age when this spring was much the same as it is now ...

So back to the story of monday, 5/10/06
so i kept on up the steep path, up, up, bitch-slapped (what does this expression really mean, folks?) by the hot sun on the back of my neck, my bald forehead fried, gasping for air, small near empty bottle of water in one hand and watch in the other, realizing that blobs like me should really take it easy on their first time out. , rock, bush, sun, dirt, tehillim, tehillim, (no, i am not about to die)/ shir hama'alot. mi',maamakim kraticha Adonai (a song of ascents, O God! I cry out to you from the depths) ..... and by the time I got to the last verse i can truly say that i have never said it with such pure honesty, because I just didn’t have so ,much air... v'hu yifde et yisrael micol avonotav (He will redeem Israel from all their sins.) Then i started davening for Jews in trouble, "may He be merciful with them, and take them out from darkness to light, from trouble to safety..." and i start thinking. am I saying this for myself? This is totally ridiculous, is this how my life is supposed to end, passing out from heat exhaustion and falling down a mountain in Israel? No, stop fantasizing, stop dreaming, you are fine! You are saying this for people with real troubles, stupid! and I made it up the hill to the car - hot car hot middle eastern sun British planted forest soaked with sweat and feeling great - and picked up Ilana five minutes late ....