Feb 2-3 2016 From the lowest to the highest: a Dada trip! To mum and dad:
We went‌ from the lowest point of earth: The Dead Sea Where the silence was deafening, the looming mountains of the Dead Sea Its caves looking out like the orbital sockets of a newly discovered skull, The receding line of water a testament to human greed and climate change, The tractor ride takes a full five minutes to reach this shore line, Where the crystalline salt grabs onto anything touching the water And wraps its silky white smooth bullous surfaces around pipes Where the few cacti spread their branches in all directions, twisting and turning to capture the sunlight and grow, Where the silent masseuse insinuates her soft hands into your 90 years old frames Making your bodies come alive if only for a short time, Where the warm sulfur baths enveloped and carried you floating As if weightless in outer space And the fields of date palm trees stand like uniformed soldiers on the drill quadrangle From the youngest plantings to the oldest trees topping 50 feet tall,
Mature and producing their sweet succulent fruit close to the trunk, Like poker players holding their cards. To The highest elevation you have flown (in some 8 years) Having been banned from flying for medical risk Here you both were once again In a helicopter! Hovering above the Old City The Mount of Olives, the Walls of the Jerusalem, The Herodian mountain in the distance (off limits to us by military rule,) And even Rehov Trumpeldor from 500 feet above! The horizon sports a reddish haze But still the view is crystal clear The gentle slopes of the Judean Hills The Har Menuchot cemetery… From the lowest to the highest This attitude of elevation and depths The soul’s ascent from the depths “mimaamakim” from “the depths I cried out to You, Lord” both your lives lived well… from The depths of the Shoah, the depths of the Dunera The Australian outback Mum from poverty, from Colonial Life, the Blitz…the fear alone in post-War London new life new struggles burdens of providing for larger surviving family slowly slowly building wealth, brick upon brick children, careers, public duty to community and larger society honored by both, surviving most friends struggling through cardiac and neurological illness
rehabilitation, walking, pacemakering… to Eretz Yisroel Jerusalem Ulpan Bookbinding Shul Painting Yad leKashish Good food! Grand children Great grandchildren Still on the way! The heights of accomplishment. The next generations assured Following your paths Your exacting standards In life, quality, self demand, and faith. Looking back… Looking down from the helicopter At this landscape This beauty The green slopes of the hills The trees, evergreen The sandy buildings of villages and shechunot, In this life! Landscape and memory melt Past and future blend Generations all fuse together We are but links in this wonderful short lived chain From the lowest to the highest At the end of the day Only you can look back Look up Look down And say “I have lived a good life”