A further 20-minute drive on the highway, with fields on both sides of the road and birds cutting across them in the sky, and I reached a “Ma’ayan Baruch” sign. On the right-hand side of the road were avocado groves and trees bedecked in leaves of bold green. When I reached the gate to Ma’ayan Baruch, my cell phone alerted me to a message from Dani, a message with a single word.
“Sorry.”
Another message immediately followed. “Thanks for visiting me. I signed my release and Tal’s taking me over to her house.” It was so clear to me that she was still hospitalized. My heart dove inwards. I passed through the gate and dozens of colorful buttercups welcomed me. Then another message beeped. “Rotem, when can we meet?”
Luckily for us both, I wasn’t anywhere in her vicinity. If I hadn’t gone away, we would have met and talked and I’d have ended up postponing this trip forever. We’ll see how it goes, I told myself. In less than an hour, I’ll deposit my cell phone and become encased in blessed silence, which will envelop me like a thick fluffy cloud. I kept driving and reached the center of the kibbutz, left my car at the main parking lot, and continued on foot. Aged trees shaded the whole area with their vast foliage.
“Hi Dani, I’m driving. Get to Tal’s and we’ll speak later. Okay?”
I didn’t write her about being away for more than 10 days, which is a lifetime at times like this, and without a phone on top of that. I was scared of rattling her already-shaky ground. After she gets to Tal’s and before I part from my phone, I’ll talk to her and explain the situation, I decided. Maybe my absence will motivate her to return to the team at the unit. Or something else, perhaps. A girl can dream.
Ma’ayan Baruch is a 73-year-old kibbutz, established a year before the state, with bright lawns and massive trees covering its older areas. A couple wearing shorts and flip-flops crossed the path and I approached them. “Do you know how to get to the Vipassana workshop?”
“We’re from the army preparation course. These are our buildings here. You probably mean the yurts at the entrance to the kibbutz. You need to get back on the path towards the entrance and you’ll see them on your left.”
A man bowed and introduced himself. “I’m Yehuda.” So this is the Yehuda who got us all to come here. Where are all his followers, and what is he doing giving me information leaflets himself? That wasn’t how I’d imagined him. He said that we would start the first session shortly. The papers listed the schedule as well as the commitments we were to take upon ourselves for the duration of our stay. The appropriate morality, ‘Śīla’, on the road to the purification of the soul. Basic moral behavior that is supposed to calm the mind enough so that one can practice self-reflection. I deposited my cell phone, as well as the Mary Oliver book that I took with me everywhere I went. I’d left my jewelry at home and felt a strange, naked sensation on my finger where the ring I’d bought for myself usually is.
Yehuda turned out to be a very pleasant man, dressed in jeans and a plain T-shirt. I’d expected a guru dressed in white, donning a cape, or at least loose pants, with his hands on his pot belly and a piercing look in his eyes that reflected all of your heart’s deepest secrets as he’d say something like, “You’re a wounded person who has experienced a lot and wants nothing but goodness.” Who doesn’t? But this guy didn’t even have a pot belly.
There was a plastic box for shoes at the entrance to the yurt. I took off my pink wooden sandals and slowly walked across the soft rug. The yurt, a round tent made of white fabric, was divided into two − the men on the left and the women on the right. On cushion No. 12 I found a card made from recycled paper with “Rotem Golan” on it, and I sat down. There was a young woman next to me who looked like a teenager, but I remembered that the website stated the minimum age for the workshop was 20.
Yehuda began to speak. “Welcome. ‘Vipassana’ means seeing things for what they are − the art of living. The purpose of this technique, which isn’t affiliated with any religion, cult, belief, or nationality, is the complete extinction of all negative emotional sediments, leading to complete release and true happiness.”
And nothing less. I sat cross-legged on the mat, and after 10 minutes my legs were already numb and my back was creaking. I shifted my left leg a bit, but a minute later my right leg started sending distress signals. I focused on breathing according to Yehuda’s instructions. He showed us how to shift between breathing through the narrow bit underneath the nostrils and the wide area at the top of the skull. I discovered that I really was glad about the whole silence thing, but I wondered why it couldn’t be achieved on a comfy sofa. I also wondered when I’d finally see Emily and be able to stop this whole thing already.
Lunch was announced. It had only been 30 minutes since we’d started. We were supposed to begin again at 4:30 the next morning. God, what was I thinking? A kibbutz cafeteria cart rolled into the yurt and I hoped that Emily would peer out from behind it, but instead there appeared a scrawny bald guy.
At night, I dreamt about my clinic. It was full of women, friends of mine from different periods in my life. Two of them, Dafna and Nina, are big-bodied mamas who deal with therapy all day long. Dafna was sprawled all over my armchair, which had become an extended couch, and at the end of the room was a stroller with a newborn in it. When they asked, I told them that Dani had left her daughter with me and hospitalized herself. I tried to figure that out throughout the entire dream. Where did the baby come from? How did Dani suddenly get a baby? I woke up feeling uneasy. Maybe Miko, whom I’d left at Yulia’s in order to go to Emily, was this child of hers? Hey, I told myself, you left Yotam there too. Calm down.
I wished that Miko was the abandoned one. Deep down, I knew the truth. It was Dani, and it didn’t matter that she was hospitalized. She’d left a part of herself with me, a very young and needy part, and I went off somewhere that didn’t allow phones. Even when I traveled abroad, I left her with the overriding code for my call-screening so that she could get through to me.
I went out for another long day of practicing. I sat in my spot on cushion No. 12. Yehuda spoke. “Good morning. Today we will further sharpen our consciousness skills.”
We remained beneath the nostrils and above the upper lip. Yehuda cautioned us about yearning. “Be pleased by what is happening right now.” After sharpening our skills, we broadened our observation onto our entire body. Not to react to anything, whether pleasant or irritating − all sensations are temporary and everything changes. Simply observe. Nothing is eternal. Every feeling eventually passes, appears and vanishes. In order to break the habit, we must reach the depths of our souls and heal ourselves from the roots up. Longing and postponing. Sensations appear all the time. Pleasant . . . unpleasant . . . Repeatedly scanning the body, from head to toe and back up, observing without trying to change anything, or without controlling what comes up. Just observing.
The monster keeps getting closer. I look at it. I know it so well, those dirty black nails threatening to dig into me, the sharp teeth wanting to take a bite of my heart. It always paralyzes me and wraps me in self-pity until I become so heavy and huge that I start to sink down to my own private rock bottom, where I encounter helplessness, all by myself. My brain takes its shoes off, too, and walks around barefoot, cruising a few inches above my head.
I managed to cope with most of the feelings without reacting, but the disconnection continued to loom over me. I and continued observing, until I was gently placed back in my spot and resumed thinking about when lunch would be announced.
“If desire awakens within you, you must observe the sensations arising within the body at that precise moment. You will then discover that desire cannot control you,” Yehuda quoted Goenka.
What did God create on the sixth day? Man. “Let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness.” I felt like a new person. All of my neuroses vanished into thin air and I managed to fall asleep easily − well, it was more like I fainted. I wok
e up before the sun came up and had had no dreams, at least not any disturbing ones that I could recall. I had no craving for sweets, or salty food, and I didn’t feel like I absolutely had to have a pizza. I didn’t try to figure out when the next lunch break would be. Something freed up inside, relaxed. I didn’t even feel like smoking; the mere thought of the smell was revolting. What has become of you, Rotem? What will you do once this is over? How will you enjoy life?
And where has Emily been this whole time? Is she even here? The desire for Emily was the only thing that hadn’t been extinguished.
Where is she? To be perfectly honest − which was all I could be at this point − I’d been certain that we’d meet on my first day and then I’d get out of here straight away, which was probably the only reason I’d dared go for this whole thing in the first place. I thought that I’d meet her and then end this thing. And I committed myself to moral behavior with no self-deceiving. Rule No. 4: No lying.
My Own Private Theater
I finally stopped thinking about Emily. They appeared before me one after the other − the desire to control, the anger, the yearning for freedom. No one would tell me what to do, no one would even dare to think about doing it. Each in their turn, rising and falling, appearing and disappearing. And not just Emily, with my rest being disturbed by the proximity to her − the main goal of this trip. Dani, too, and Yotam, and Yochai. All appearing and vanishing. I deposited the book when I arrived, but its words remained within me. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” All of the stories faded, all of the knots unravelled. Only a gentle feeling remained. A vibration of energy.
Yehuda began the day: “And ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” The Tree of Knowledge divided the world into the good that you want to grab onto, and the evil that you want to repel, and yet it was itself the thing that drove them out of the Garden of Eden − either good or evil, no such thing as both. But the Tree of Life is everything as well as nothing.
Warehouses filled with used and recycled feelings, years of hoarding suddenly make room. Small and large baggage, bundles, crates, chains, and loops, more and more heaps having piled up, insults I had taken and endured. I deserve this and I deserve that. I deserve goodness or I deserve evil. I’m amazing and I’m also not good enough. To each his own. I can’t hold on to both of them simultaneously. Rejection, revolt, neglect, yearning, and despising, reels of endless indecisions, despairing spirals, yes or no, truth or lies, hate or love, rolled-up emotions pulled out of their moldy abodes, slowly melting, making room. Compassion, airiness, softness − they sparkle and slowly become stronger. It’s easy for me. I can fly, but my back is broken and I still haven’t gotten used to that. That may be the reason for the comfy couch’s absence from my daydreams, so that we don’t fly off and disappear somewhere over the rainbow. So that we’ll come back down.
“Nature is the guru,” Yehuda spoke. “This is the last day − supportive love and good will. Today we will share the purification of our souls and the happiness we’ve accomplished during the workshop. We will share it with all living beings. We are part of the creation. May all those created be happy, may they all find peace, and we within them,” he said quietly.
It was lunchtime. The kibbutz cafeteria cart rolled into the yurt for the final time, stopping at the same safe-distance from the rug in order not to soil it. Something felt different this time. There’s no doubt about it: my sensations had definitely sharpened over the last few days. I first recognized the vibration arising from her, before I even saw her behind the cart. A current flowed within me from my head down to my ankles. My sister.
“Hello, Rotem. I thought you’d never come,” she said smiling.
She’s one to talk! I approached her for a hug and she backed off. Electricity ran along my spine, a deep pain sliced through me. Well, some things never change, monk or no monk. All of the demons I had befriended so nicely for the past 10 days suddenly jumped up at once, like crazed monkeys within my mind. What’s wrong with her? Is she crazy? Why won’t she touch me? I haven’t seen her for a year and it doesn’t matter whether she’s a monk or not… But Emily didn’t budge. She stood there looking at me quietly, her face radiating such warmth that my shoulders relaxed and I slowly calmed down. “Where can we sit and eat and talk, Emily?”
“I no longer eat any meat,” she answered, aware of my cravings, “but I haven’t yet parted from cheese. There’s an Indian restaurant just across the road, the Thali.”
The restaurant was indeed like a little trip to India. Big cushions on the floor, low and wide wooden tables, elephant chains hanging off the walls, the sound of Indian music, and a delicate scent of incense filling the air. A meticulous celebration of the senses, and I was excited about the taste that was to join in. A smiling man bowed and served us the dishes. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Kalu.”
“Baba Kalu is an Indian Brahmin, a private import of Lilac’s from her trip to Pushkar. Yehuda and I enjoy sitting with them when their shifts end,” Emily told me.
I didn’t know that monks had such busy social lives.
“If you’re already here, you must try the Malai Kofta. Its flavors are delightful and it’s intoxicatingly spiced so you won’t miss meat for a second,” Emily said, smiling, looking incredibly tranquil. Who would have thought that meditation, combined with childhood sweethearts, could do that to her soul?
Yehuda was her wound, I suddenly realized. Insult and relief mixed within me. It turned out that I wasn’t responsible for that either.
Emily told her tale over an exceptionally tasty bowl of malai kofta. Yehuda was her first boyfriend, even before Ohad. They were so young that she didn’t tell anyone about it. She was scared of Dad’s reaction.
Ehud’s father was the CEO of one of the only factories in the north of Israel in the 1970s. He would make up for being gone all year long during the holidays. While we had spent whole summers at the Sea of Galilee, the Alkabetz family conquered Disneyland. During the summer vacation of 11th grade, Ehud invited her to join him there. She couldn’t resist the temptation. She’d told Yehuda that they were just friends, but they returned from that trip as a couple. Yehuda couldn’t recover from that. His parents had separated two years earlier, and he believed that young love was the answer to all ailments. He cried and pleaded with her. Eventually, he withdrew into himself. He was exempt from army service, traveled to Thailand, and joined a Zen temple, coming down from the samsara Ferris wheel.
He returned to Israel a decade later, sharper than ever, and went straight to Tel Aviv University to do a doctorate, the dissertation for which was “Zen Buddhism as a Remedy for the Soul.” Once he’d completed his degree, he was hired by the Tel-Hai College psychology department and was happy to return to the quiet of the north. A few months after Ehud passed away, Mom was readmitted to the hospital in Safed, and Emily came to visit her, handing out instructions to all the doctors. Yehuda was accompanying one of his students. They bumped into each other, and have remained embraced ever since. Their souls embraced. They’re monks. They fundraise donations. They have big plans. They want to start a new institute for women of varying ages.
“So,” I asked Emily, “they who had betrayed along with you shall betray you too?”
I had so many questions to ask her, but that was what ended up leaving my mouth. I quickly apologized but Emily, in keeping with her new state of mind, just quietly answered, “I don’t know about anyone else, only about myself. But perhaps she who had betrayed shall always carry a sense of guilt.”
Before I left, Emily made an announcement to me. “I’m not coming back. But I’ll go to Ya’ara. I’ll make it in time for the birth.”
All of the thoughts I had anguished over during the last few months melted at once, like a giant snowball coming apart, leaving behind it trails of water. I didn’t need to tell her anything. I just knew. Emily wasn’t dealing with the past the way that I was.
I felt that it had started to fade within me, too. All the stories I’d made sure to keep hold of, maintaining them as sharp and clear as reels of film, could all be taken out. The world has long moved on to other media. All the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. Not a puzzle actually, but rather like Tetris, falling from above and organizing themselves one part after the other, conjoining. Just like me, my sister had battled the need for control, for freedom, for strength. Just like all of us, really.
We had a shared history. Parents, siblings, and one specific shared story that remained stuck deep in the body like a thorn refusing to stop pestering. But she’d moved on long ago. She resolved it, untied that complex knot, and now that she let me observe her, she didn’t seem complicated at all. She actually looked pretty simple.
I got back home at midnight and crashed on my bed without brushing my teeth or even turning the lights off. I woke up at 3 am from a dreamless sleep, and sat up to read. The screensaver had disappeared from the computer, a white compact laptop, just like I’d always wanted. The screen reflected my image back to me, tired green eyes and messy chestnut hair. I grew tired of lying down and reading page after page of love, Buddhism, and therapy. I waited for the break of dawn, when I could get Yotam back and we could touch life together again. I wanted to put my palms around his warm cheeks and ask, “What would you like to do today, my boy?”
Of Life and Death
Slivers of a white woolen sky floated in a sea of azure above me. At my feet, dark, heavy Australian shoes. I climbed, exhausted, my leg muscles stretching and aching. I wasn’t in good shape. Not good enough for mountain climbing, anyway. That required a set of muscles different that what’s necessary for riding a bike. The sky grew darker, and I continued climbing up into the night. When I finally reached the top, a huge shadow spread over me, and I slowly rolled all the way down the mountain, crashing onto the hard ground. Two giant rocks rolled behind me and finally halted between my knees. I couldn’t move an inch.
A Room of Their Own Page 16
