Israel Ramble – what is an inflection point anyway?

 Few weeks ago when I visited my parents my dad gave me a large reel, and said “here, this is from your Bar Mitzvah” I did not know it even existed, a voice recording of my Bar Mitzvah. I still have no idea what is on it because I lost it, imagine, waiting for something for 43 years only to promptly lose it, but be of good cheers, it was found few weeks later somewhere in my sister home in a hidden place, someone is playing tricks on me, I suspect it is my memory. In any case I am still waiting for it to arrive in Seattle, I cannot imagine what I sounded like all these years ago.

My only Bar Mitzvah photo

 It was not my intention to make these letters about the Kibbutz but somehow that became the focus and many of you said that this is what they enjoy most, and the photos as well.

 For our Bar and Bat Mitzvah we all got the same 2 things, our first real bicycles and our first watch. I was quite attached to my bicycles for many years, it is your legs, they takes you everywhere, we did not have to lock them, theft was unknown to us in those days and quite inconceivable, just like lying, it was simply not a recognizable part of life. For some reason I always wore my watch on my right arm, I think I wanted to find out what it felt like wearing a watch on the “wrong” arm. Wearing a watch was being a bit like an adult, and being an adult means you can drive a tractor, and driving a tractor means.. well, the dream of every boy I knew, the pick of manhood, the thrill of a life time, the greatest achievement I could have imagined.

 One of the initiation rites for boys, before the age of 16 when we got our official tractor driving license, was to steal one of the 40 or so Kibbutz's tractors at night, to drive it in the fields and bring it back without being caught, that was scary, it was so scary in fact that I have never tried it, I chickened out, (In Hebrew we would say - I was rabbit-ing). Once they even called the police to scare us from this practice, that was scary, I don’t remember ever seeing a policeman before, real live policeman, not in a book. I remember how proud I was when at age 16 I passed my tractor driving test on first try, now I was a man, a real man, the top of life achievements was mine.

 There are many more such inflection points, we all have them, and then we are never the same. And they happen unexpectedly, one moment you are a biped and suddenly you are a bi-wheeled. I remember the exact moment and location where that happened. My young enthusiastic dad was running behind me holding my bicycles for days, until suddenly it kicked in, I knew how to ride them, I still thought he was holding the bikes, shortly after realizing  I am actually riding them on my own I crashed to the ground, but what a thrill that was.

Not yet my “real” bicycles, but a bicycle nevertheless

 Have a great day,

Boaz Pnini

Bridges 2 Israel