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Writer's pictureMicha Strauss

the week that passed and how to be of service

Last week I was away from the studio for the entire week, plus some 2 days in the week before.

The reason was, we live in a small community that is called a Kibbutz. This word in English means "to gather" or a "gathering of".

This gathering of can be of things and can be of people. To gather together means we are a community so this word in Hebrew was chosen to describe our community.

Some history of what is a Kibbutz – well, if I start to describe it here it will sound like a paradise and it is very near to that state!

There is nothing more wholesome than to gather as a community and live together and help each other to thrive.

This community and many like it sprouted in Israel before it became the State of Israel came to be in 1948… we were here since 1937 and we were friends with our Arab neighbors who lived here to work the land, which was owned by a wealthy Effendi who lived in Haifa and had many workers on the land working/farming it.

You can read all about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ein_HaShofet

 

The bottom line was, we bought the land, we were friends with our neighbors till the war of 1948 when our enemy told our Arab neighbors that they should flee because we will eat their children if we invade….

We tried to tell them that this is absolutely crazy and that they should stay in their homes and nothing will happen to them.

But they listened to the lunatic and fled.

 

I was born into this community in 1973 at the end of the Yom Kippur war to a Hungarian father who came here from the holocaust after the Nazis did their best to kill us all but did not do such a good job, and an American mother who came here from NY.

I was born into a community that sheared everything. We had nothing that was "ours".

All clothes were made by the Kibbutz ladies who worked at the sawing shop of the Kibbutz. All the houses were not ours but the Kibbutz's, we had (and still have) a main dinning hall where we all gather to eat meals together…

There is something amazing about this place.

Think about it, everyone is giving all they can to the community and take only what they need.

There are people working to make food for everyone.

There are people working in the laundromat to clean the clothes of everyone.

There are people who are working in the fields, the cows, the sheep, the chicken coop and so on…

All children are grouped together by age and live together in the children house. There are two women who take care of every class of children, my class had two amazing women who brought us up… not our parents, who we only saw for like 2 hours a day and even then, we used these hours to play outside together… so we were 17 brothers and sisters who grew up together till we were 18.

we lived together, slept together, showered together till we were about 11 years old...

our day was like this: wake up at 7 AM, shower, eat, go to class, study till about lunchtime, eat together, go back to class, finish study at 14:00 PM, have rest till 16:00 PM, go to our parents for 4 hours till 20:00 PM, then brought back to class to sleep. parents left us there together to sleep from 20:00 PM till next morning at 07:00 AM.

As children we had no adult supervision after 20:00 PM which was kind of nice! we had SO much fun!!! we did some crazy stuff....

This was the way we lived and grew up together.

We were brought up to be people who see each other and think of the other person. This is quite an amazing idea, plus, the being alone with no adult supervision gave us (those of us who were strong) the ability to be self sufficient and strong.

all children houses had an intercom on the wall we used to call "the night guard"

there was one house that had a machine that could listen to all these devices and there was a weekly job that went around all year, one mother/women would stay up all night for that week and sleep in the daytime. her job was to listen to all children houses and listen if someone is crying. if there is a boy or a girl who is crying in one of the children houses, this women would go to that house and calm the boy or girl back to sleep.

this system was very strange now that we think about it... what if there was a boy crying and the women could not hear him because she left her station to go calm down a different girl in a different children house?


but, we all grew up, we are all older now and some of us (most of us actually) are now parents to small children.

when i ask my friends who grew up like me or with me who now have children of their own if they would grow their children like this?

i always get a no.


even though for us to grow up like this was amazing, to now be parents to children and think about leaving them alone for so many hours does not compute.... hahahahaha!

we were an experiment in social study....

it was a crazy experiment

we are the outcome.


one of those outcomes is the boy who turned to a man who is now you prayer wheel maker ;-)


much love

keep on being kind to each other

it is almost over

life is so short

 

So, last week one of the workers at the grocery shop had to go to the army and one more worker there had a daughter get married and needed a week's vacation.

Since I know the grocery shop well, and the manager there is one of my class mates who grew up with me and she considers me as a very good worker, asked me if I can step in for the week and give them a hand?

Of course, I said yes. After all, this is our community's grocery shop and we need to keep it going!

What is one week away from the studio?

I will now give you my experience of this week.

There is something that comes out of me when I am asked to serve.

When this happens, I am 100% considerate of the person in front of me, and not interested in anyway to my own self and what I think about this or that.

Just 100% of service to the "other"

This practice is quite amazing if done for hours every day and for days in a raw.

It makes me feel so amazing! Free of self-judging, self-clinging and so on…

Just being of service with a smile and a good heart.

What a special week it was!

Usually, we think of ourselves with the passing of the moments in our lives, but this was an experience for the books!

Everyday, just being of service. Not interested in what I need, what I want, how I feel, what I think…

I was working with a crew of 4. One young guy and 3 amazing women, and me.

The crew, who does this job every day, did not think as I did and had plenty to say about serving others.

I took the time while we were together at brakes or while stocking up that actually, we are here only for one reason, and that reason is "to serve". Nothing else!

When we go to the supermarket in the city, we love it when all the shelves are all stocked up!

We love it when someone is doing this job and we get served! Don't we?

And what about the people who serve you? The shelf stockers? Do you think of them?

They are only there to serve you!

 

Usually, when people are serving others, the servers feel "lower" than those being served.

But for me it was the exact opposite!

I felt like a king! Given the opportunity to serve without thinking of myself!

This practice is priceless!

So, to sum up the week, it was one of the most special weeks! I got to serve and to practice being of servitude!

 

Now, I am back in the studio crafting prayer wheels!

May we all see that we are one, may we all realize that there is no other

 

Much love

Micha

 

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