September 1999

The day school’s back, I start yearning for the joy and freedom of the summer hols. This is a précis of what we did in the finest summer holidays in recent memory.
Here’s a thing
Here’s an interesting paradox. Everyone knows that schooldays are the best days of your life. But, ask any schoolboy, the best days of his schooldays are his holidays. So I suppose it follows that the best days of your life are your school holidays, which is actually the opposite of your “schooldays”.
NOT! a Dvar Torah
The Talmud says, “Those who wish to be wise, should go South” – either that or North, I don’t remember for sure – which is why, this summer, we spent a week in the South and a week in the North. Just to be safe.
A Week in the South
Our first summer holiday consisted of 5 days based in Ye’elim, a holiday village 40km north of Eilat. Like last year, we drove down through the night on Saturday night to Eilat, arriving before the birdsong. While most Eilatians and all the lobster-red sunburnt well-stuffed hotel guests were lazing in their King-sizes, we were already cooling off in the clear, calm, waters of the Gulf of Eilat. We spent most of the next 4 mornings on the beach, swimming, snorkelling, following the fish and admiring the corals.
Being versatile amphibians, one day we pulled ourselves away from the sea for a fantastic visit to the Timna reserve – the oldest copper mines in the world. The views of the Timna valley can take your breath away (asthmatics, beware). It’s a geologists dream-park. The valley is surrounded by towering rock-faces with numerous layers of clearly distinguishable geological strata of black, brown, purple, red, green yellow and white hues. A remnant of Unspoiled Nature (except for the occasional coke can), or rather Pure Nature spoiled only by the tectonic movement that created the Syrio-African rift valley and the ravages of rain and wind over the last billion years of so. (A journalist who visited the reserve recently is reputed to have blamed the rain and wind erosion on the intransigence of the previous government.)
We did the full Timna Tour – we scaled the mis-named Solomon’s Pillars; sheltered from the sweltering heat under the mushroom rock; visited the natural arches ; admired the artwork carved on the walls of the mines by ancient miners (that was before the unions forbade them from impinging on the work of their brother engravers), and others.
In every outing, the best entertainment is always a short jaunt off the beaten track. Underneath a mountain face we espied a sand dune that was begging to be climbed up and run down. What could be more reasonable than climbing a sand dune at 2 o’clock of an August afternoon in the Negev desert near Eilat? It didn’t look so high (from the bottom). Turns out that sand dunes are oddly like ski slopes. Coming down is easy, but getting up! With every pace, your feet sink in the sand up to your ankles (the parallel to skiing beaks down at this point), and you start sliding back. Paraphrasing a former buddy of mine, One step forward, three meters backwards.
Sweating and heaving, grabbing on to every crumbling loose stone that offered a hand or foot-hold, and burning our hands and feet on the scalding sand, it took us half an hour of puffing and panting to scale that little sand dune. It reminded me of basic training, when you reach the stage where your brain tells your legs to move, but, with all the will in the world, they just can’t. But what a feeling of achievement at the top! It was the same as the feeling I got the first time I managed to crack a sunflower seed open, eat the seed and spit out the shell – all without using my hands. A feeling of total success and belonging. Well maybe not quite as exhilarating, but it was close.
The Week in the North
You all know the Isaacs family is cool. We have nothing to prove. Every year for 5 years already we have spent a week of our vacation under synthetic nylon (the modern replacement of canvass). This year we indulged ourselves at the dream-like 5 star camping site of “Hurshat Tal”. And I’m not apologising for that. I think that at the advanced age of 35, and after working hard for nearly 15 years to achieve relative financial stability, Judy and I are entitled to indulge ourselves a little, without people whispering “those yuppies”. So if we can now afford the little extra that it costs to pitch our tent on grass, rather than on stone, that’s our business. I don’t need to justify myself to anyone and I don’t owe anyone any apologies. So don’t look at me like that.
Hurshat Tal is located in the dramatic landscapes of the northern Galilee between Kiryat Shmona and Metulla. I described this camp site exactly a year ago – rolling lawns, shaded by mature oak and fruit trees, with an enchanting meandering brook gargling through the camp site. I could have happily stayed in that Garden of Eden for another week.
We used Hurshat Tal as a base for outings. We picked blueberries, strawberries and raspberries at moshav Sha’al in the Golan; we ice-skated at the Canada Centre in Metulla (as we slipped and stumbled on the freezing ice, it was 40° outside); we descended down a treacherous cliff to bathe in the ice cold waters of the Devora Waterfall of the Jilabun wadi (that’s a great tiyul, highly recommended); we walked up through the rushing white waters of the Hatzbani river to the point where the Hatzbani and the Dan join; and we barbecued every night. I could write pages on each of these.
But I’m not going to. Instead, I’m going to reveal to you a new side of Judy’s character. Judy, I discovered, is a closet fruit-picker. Plonk my wife down in any forsaken corner of the Holy Land and she will sniff out the land’s fruits – grapes, figs, pomegranates, and whatever is in season. First thing that happened in Hurshat Tal, as Michael’s hauling the tent, tent-poles and bags out the car – Judy disappears quietly and mysteriously, only to return later with an armful of the sweetest figs I’ve ever tasted; another time we’re driving up to an observation point near Manara atop the Naftali hills when suddenly she shouts “Stop!”, gets out the car and denudes a tree of all its fruit.
It’s interesting to postulate why she has this tendency. It’s not kleptomania, because I’ve never seen her shoplift, unscrew taps from hotel bathrooms or anything like that. And I don’t think it’s hunger because – like all slim women I know – she’s always on a diet. And I’m sure it’s not some spill-over from a previous life, because we have already established beyond all doubt that in her previous lives Judy was a High Priest.
I guess she just loves to pick and eat the sweet fruit of Eretz Yisrael, and for that, together with many other reasons, I love her.
Shana Tova
What’s left at this time of year is to wish you all the traditional blessings of “Shana Tova” and “Ktiva Vechatima Tova”. May you and all your families be written for a Year of Health and Happiness. A year of genuine Peace, both inward and outward, for every individual and for all Am Yisrael. A year of freedom and redemption for those in captivity. May you merit to forgive and be forgiven.
And when you’re handing out indulgences and dispensations, please don’t forget the humble sinner, signed below.
Lots of love

Michael (the sinner), Judy, Ari, Eloni, Naftali and Orli Isaacs