A cycling addict reflects on the current events in Israel - opinion

Sixty-one years ago, hit pop duo The Everly Brothers did pretty well with a song written by Carole King called “I’ll Do My Crying in the Rain.” When I’m out on my bike, an activity I indulge in quite obsessively every couple of days, chalking up 200 km. or more a week, I not only get plenty of physical exercise, but it is also a time for meditation and pondering the flow of everyday life, personal quandaries, and the human condition in general.

These days, cycling helps me maintain something approaching an even emotional keel. The calming, stabilizing effect has always been there, ever since I started getting addicted to the sport around 20 years ago. But in these dark days of madness, violence, and sorrow, it is crucial for my spiritual well-being, as well as my respiratory system.

I never really know what route I’ll take, which way I’ll turn when I pass through the gate of Moshav Matta, an idyllic spot betwixt Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh. The last two excursions, last Friday and this Sunday, I turned right and sped down the twisting and turning drop of Ella Valley toward Ella Junction and beyond. On both occasions, I chose to take a left at the T-junction traffic lights, passing along the northern reaches of Britannia Park.

Having cycled through the area hundreds of times over the years, I was aware of the existence of a tarmac expanse on the right-hand side of Route 38 but never paid much attention to it. It didn’t have any markings and I never noticed anything special going on there. I just took it as a fixture I glimpsed as I trundled by at around 25-35 km. 

Last Friday, the parking lot was filled with dozens of vehicles. Putting one and one together, I realized it was a parking facility for a regional cemetery. As I slowed down I, sadly, saw a gate with people filing through it. A sinking feeling in the gut and tears quickly followed. Another soldier had been killed in the war. Another life cut short. Another family doomed to mourn their loved one and somehow learn to live without them.

I sped on, trying to shunt those emotions to one side through physical exertion while producing mood-lifting endorphins. This on a day when I was due to fly to Vienna to honor my Austrian-born mother’s parents, brother, and sister murdered in Auschwitz 81 years ago. 

My flight was canceled by the airline, which left me frustrated at not being able to stand by the Stein der Erinnerung – memorial plaque – I, my siblings, and my mother paid to have installed on the sidewalk in front of where my mother’s apartment building once stood. But it also left me mightily relieved not to be leaving Israel, even for just a couple of days, at this terrible time when we can all help in some form or other.

I opted for a similar route on Sunday. This time when I passed by the cemetery, there were hundreds of vehicles in the parking lot, and along both sides of the main road. Yet another soldier had, no doubt, been killed. More lifelong anguish for those left behind. Once again I kept on pedaling through the tears and leaden feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I was reminded of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – not for the first time on one of my frequent trips on my 22-gear carbon-frame steed. In an overly distilled nutshell, the 1974 cult classic novel, written by Robert Pirsig, ostensibly about a 19-day motorbike trip from Montana to California, examines various philosophical handles on self-perception, objective reality – if such a thing exists – relationships, and values, to mention but a few of the attributes and areas of life that crop up during the journey.

Some of the scenes Pirsig described so graphically around half a century ago suddenly hovered in the far recesses of my long-term memory. Then the overriding joyful feeling of just being out there on a bicycle, actually corporeally providing my own momentum rather than just pressing my right foot down on a gas pedal encased in a motorized metal and glass box, began to take over.

ONE OPPRESSIVELY hot day a few months ago, I met a fellow cyclist, albeit of the mountain variety, who told me he rides every single day and that as he pedals, he processes thoughts and feelings. He said that by the time he gets home everything is hunky dory, and solutions for every problem have been found. That idyllic state of perception lasts for a bit before quotidian reality begins once again to assert itself.

I get that. In addition to the pure undiluted joy and sense of freedom induced by the simple repetitive act of pedaling – some might consider climbing up the Ella Valley or Mount Hermon or riding to Eilat anything but “simple” – I find myself in a meditative state, sometimes bordering on the euphoric. 

That certainly helps these days and, for a while, I lose myself in the Zen-like here and now. Then I hear the distant ominous thud of artillery or, more likely, a missile interception, and I am summarily disabused of any notion that all might be well with the world.

Biking: It's nothing without your own effort

But one of the great things about cycling is that you have to get on with it, you have to be actively involved. You can’t just drift off and let the bike do its own thing. Hence, as I espy an IAF helicopter scouring the rolling fields near Route 353 that leads to Beit Guvrin, I consider the possibility that there may be Palestinian terrorists, armed to the teeth, prowling the vicinity – but only for a moment. There are bends and dips in the back road that connects Routes 353 and 38 to be negotiated, and I soon get back to observing my rustic surroundings. 

I pass a bunch of bulls filling their outsized faces from a trough. They don’t seem at all perturbed by the echo of the aforementioned military sound effects rippling across the countryside. And why should they?

SUMMER IS definitely, and definitively, over. That much was palpably clear as I flashed down the Ella Valley at 50-60 kph. For the first time in over half a year, I opted to don a windbreaker jacket. 

Still, by the time I navigated my way down to the nether end of the valley, the sun began to make its presence felt between the towering fluffy clouds, and the protective garb was dispensed with.

Even in the direst of times, humor can seep into one’s thoughts and then find its way into conversations. The exchange with the guards who manned (and womanned) the main gate to the moshav on my return from a three-hour ride was cheery and, yes, prompted some jocular asides. 

Then again, when I left home that morning, one of the guards on the previous shift, for some reason did not take too kindly to the Jewish driver of a truck trying to deliver foodstuff to our makolet. The trucker’s plea that he was a settler didn’t help, either. That was not a pleasant incident, but the deleterious baggage quickly dissipated as the wind rushed by me. 

Cracking jokes in tough situations can clearly help us weather the storms. Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning: “The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living. Yet it is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent.”

There have, indeed, been reports of humor in concentration camps. Many years ago, I encountered a quite astounding character by the name of Joseph Bau, a highly creative Polish-born survivor of the Płaszow concentration camp who set his highly talented hands to graphics, animation, poetry, comedy, and all sorts of groundbreaking inventions. 

He also penned several books, littered with subtle dark humor fueled by his time in Płaszow. One is called Dear God, Have You Ever Gone Hungry?. You get the idea. Bau and his wife, Rebeka, appear in the epilogue to Steven Spielberg’s multi-Oscar-winning movie Schindler’s List.

So perhaps we can take a lead from Bau and Frankl, take an intermittent step back – as far as we can manage – from the unfolding tragedy and allow ourselves a recuperative breather from the doom, gloom, and sadness.

Cycling may not be a risible pastime, although I do occasionally recall funny incidents and having a giggle or two over the handlebars, but it certainly provides a wholesome, physically and spiritually healthy pick-me-up on a regular basis, and in this particular hour of need.

Personally, cycling past forests, fields, vineyards, and flowers as the seasons follow each other is a panacea for so many of life’s challenges. Autumnal colors, beginning to emerge from the summer-withered vegetation and foliage, are also happily espied from my saddle.

And with many called up for reserve army duty, some holed up at home caring for their kids, and others wary of venturing out, the roads are currently delightfully light on traffic. Then again, the pervading silence is not of the tranquil kind such as the gentle national ambiance on Yom Kippur. 

As I made my way past Srigim, Agur, Luzit, and Beit Nir, along the aforementioned Route 353, even without the sound of explosions rumbling across from the southwest, there was no getting away from the tension for too long.

Then again, that was offset by the more than normally patient drivers, some of whom even gave me a friendly honk as they passed me. One driver even checked that I was okay when I stopped to take a photo of a sign that read Am Yisrael Chai, the Jewish People Lives. Cyclists tend to ask if help is needed if they see a fellow pedaler stopped by the roadside, but drivers inquiring after our welfare is a – possibly exclusively wartime – rarity.

Fewer people out and about also translates into less litter. One of my regular pit stops, a small parking area at the foot of the Ella Valley, was blissfully almost entirely devoid of garbage. It put me in mind of the pandemic lockdowns when the air felt cleaner, too. 

In contrast, however, back then birds proliferated and were almost constantly in full fine voice. For some reason, I have heard very little twittering and cooing in the environs of the road over the past week or so. Perhaps our feathered friends sense the negative vibes and destruction in these here parts and are giving us a miss, and right at the start of the migratory season.

I also noted several deserted building sites, presumably because the Palestinian workers are not currently allowed into the country. But cycling along much emptier roads is a boon if one manages to forget, for a kilometer or two, the reason for the thinner traffic.

All was, indeed, well as I returned home tired and rejuvenated. Even the boom of yet another missile interception washing over the moshav sounded a little gentler – a least for a while. ❖