When rambling, I try not to think, just write, so here it goes.
I get worried sometimes that these rambles are getting all too boring and too much about me, but then I get your responses and it makes me feel, well, maybe it is worthwhile.
The process of rambling for me is very fascinating and it is going way back to my school years. We had a teacher for writing composition, which was one of the few teachers I enjoyed. Often the teachers were brutal, or bored, or treated teaching like any other Kibbutz duty, herding the sheep into the chute so to speak. But few teachers stuck out as different and our composition writing teacher was one of them. Once he asked us to write an assay about something. I had an idea that if I just write whatever comes to my mind without thinking, it will have the quality of what I am trying to describe. I did just that and the teacher singled my composition out to the whole class as an example for good writing. I felt proud of myself and the "unprecedented" technique I had just discovered. This is the historical root of my Rambling idea.
I get feedbacks telling me how wonderful or how rich with ruby glow, or how this or that these rambles are. My hope is to have some impact, that somehow by reading these rambles your life, my life, even by a minute degree, will be richer, and your day, my day will be just a little better.
I told a friend today that she can ask me to ramble about anything and I will, and now I am going to fulfill that promise. What she was asking me was to write a ramble about how the Kibbutz life influenced my psychology or character. Not an easy task.
I think religious kibbutz life gave me a sense of a mission. Life was/is important and has a purpose in it. We do not live to fulfill only ourselves. You are working for the community, for the greater good. You wake up before sunset to get to the olive trees on day break so you will have enough time before it gets too hot. So you can pick up as many olives as possible and by your efforts the whole community will be richer, you are a part of a bigger operation.
As teenagers we had countless discussions about what is the best Kibbutz branch to work in. Is it the 1000 acres of cotton fields, which for some reason enjoyed the highest prestige, or was it the one of its kind chicks' hatchery and the chickens coops, which brought the most profit?! My tendency for talking things over and forever may have stemmed from that. In childhood chocolate was a rare commodity, we could only hope for a small piece at a time if at all, my parents used to bribe us with a piece of chocolate if, over dinner, my friend and I will be quiet for just 5 minutes, so there.
We had discussions about everything forever, in class and between ourselves. About the meaning of life, the meaning of religion, the meaning of our particular ideology and why it is superior to all other ideologies. We felt we are better and therefore had more demands on ourselves.
We had adult responsibilities from young age. For example, one of the more rewarding periods was when I became, at age 16, responsible for the operation of the huge and complicated ginormous dish washer machine, used by hundreds of people few times a day. We ate 3 times a day in the communal dining room which served up to 1000 people every meal.
It was a state of the art machine, many things could go wrong. If you were not careful you could have a serious burn, the temperature had to be right, it had many bells and whistle and a particular smell. If you loaded the dishes incorrectly, they could be broken by the machine. On Shabbat it was operated by a special clock which turned it on and off. Everything had to be just right and often things will go wrong, the machine got stuck and dishes would pile up. The whole operation had to be smooth or else there will be a huge plates and knives and forks traffic jams.
I felt very proud to be trusted with such as enormous task. I loved making things clean. I still do. This work was by rota, and when my allotted time was over it was over and I went back to working in the apple orchards or cotton fields irrigation. So I guess it had the influence on us and me of wanting to do a job right regardless, for the sake of "it" not for the monitory or even complimentary reward. I get stunned when my mom proudly tells me how my nieces are willing to help her, but of cause only for money, times have changed.
I worked for a long time at the irrigation, that is another story for another ramble. Thanks for listening.
Over and out,
Boaz Pnini
Bridges 2 Israel
Greetings,
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