Writing from the Heart: A Hug of Man

There is some special charm in childhood friends. Those who know us even before all the scratches life has made for us and before the masks we chose for ourselves to go ahead and build. I was standing next to my girlfriend's dad, when the chorus came he bent down and cried, as if all the pain and loss for his wife was concentrating on him in the song. Efrat writes from the heart

Friends are the oxygen (Photo: ShutterStock)

40-plus friends spend time together (Photo: ShutterStock)

There is some special charm in childhood friends. Those who know us even before all the scratches life has made for us and before the masks we chose for ourselves to go ahead and build. There's something clean about it. pure. More simple and bare.

One of them I lost somewhere a few years after we finished high school together. She had lost a brother, and I had lost the ability to be there for her, and that was how he was severed. A year ago she lost her mother, and I told myself that this time I was there. In one of my busiest weeks, I thought about giving a five minute jump, hugging and moving on. I arrived and gave a hug, and along the way I stayed for three hours of conversation.

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Full of God and empty of man

How much we had to complete. Years in which we were able to build and destroy and build entire worlds. We recalled the company sandwiches sitting next to me, such fat and pampering as only her father could make, in the history lessons (even from the rest, but this was already another topic) in the "Schwartz refrigerator" - the refrigerator in my parents' home that had always been blown away As if they were raising an entire orphanage with them on the roof. Suddenly the click resumed. What a fun moment to win a childhood friend who comes back to life again.

A year went by, and she called to invite me to her mom's birthday class. Her mother died on Tu B'Shabbat night. She loved the Land of Israel so much that she did not want to miss another Tu B'Shvat here in the world. I chose to talk there about the desert generation and the incoming generation in Israel. It has in the wilderness something helpless, pending the miracles of God. If none of them are starving, if there is no pillar of cloud in the day they will not know where to go, and if there is no pillar of fire at night, they will freeze a cold. It has in the desert something full of God and empty of man, full of the wonders of the Creator and empty of human power. And after 40 years, when they suddenly enter the country, they discover themselves, their ability to plow the land, plant a tree, build a house.

The bridge between me and strong forces

This bridge between the desert and the land of Israel is the transition from 0 to 100 passing through the waters of the Jordan and in need of integration and reciprocity between God and man. Between my human activity below and the blessing of God from above. Maybe just about every moment of our reality is just that, that critical bridge between us and our strong and superior forces.

The evening was accompanied by two very special and talented women in music and song, and when they reached the closing song, 'Little Leaf', I stood next to the father. When the refrain came, he bent down and cried, as if all the pain and loss of a whole year on his wife against him concentrated on 4 lines of magic created by Yishai Lapidot; "Hold strong my little leaf, because not everything is always bright outside, and a storm wind and a cold storm. Remember and strengthen me with you."

We all want and need a hug from above, just like a people who came into the country and received a new reality for him, which on the one hand will reveal all the glory of his self and doing and on the other hand will place all the weight of responsibility on him.

The evening was over. I got a flower pot, just to remember that it needs to be nurtured to grow and grow. And the childhood friend I won again? She sent me a few hours later pictures of Friday from the Mahane Yehuda market. And I answered that I enjoyed her cheesecake with Friday morning coffee. Because there's nothing like childhood friends. Something there always remains exposed, and most importantly.