Assi Dayan knew how satirical the location of this funeral would be, but in the end the timing also joined the location. The eve of Memorial Day, Sunday, four in the afternoon. At the "Yad Labanim" house at the entrance to the settlement, the youth, most of them immigrants from the Soviet Union who study at the boarding school in Nahalal, are holding final rehearsals for the ceremony. Inside, candles are already lit next to the pictures of the fallen. In the cemetery, on Moshe Dayan's grave, there is already a flag and a wreath. The same goes for all the military graves, in one of the most pioneering and combative cemeteries there is. Everyone is here, from the first swamp drainers to Ilan and Assaf Ramon. I find a place to stand, between the grave of Arik Schlein ("Man of the Earth," the tombstone simply says) and the grave of Hillel Ozhytsky, whose tombstone tells the whole story, his and the valley's: Ozhytsky was born in Bialystok in 1918, changed his name to Hillel Eshkol, died in Nahalal in 2005, and "from his family tree that was cut down, he took root and grew a magnificent tree.".
True, much has already been written about the contrast between the Zionist narrative and the bohemian narrative in the Dayan dynasty, but you had to be there to see with your own eyes the ethos shattering into each other.
A few rows from the open grave is the grave of Shmuel and Deborah Dayan, the founders of the dynasty, the parents of Moses. Rachel Katznelson-Shazar, the wife of President Shazar, eulogized her friend Deborah in 1956 and said at the time about the founder of the first moshav in Israel: "Everything merged in her love of homeland - the home, the village, the mothers, the farm, the guidance of immigrants and their children, the fate of the sons in the war campaigns and the fate of bereavement.".
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""I feel like dancing, I feel like nonsense, I feel like laughing, and I don't feel like you," suddenly a different kind of eulogy sounded over the speakers. At the family's request, Dana Vishinsky sang "Shir Ha-Praha" written by the deceased. Then Naftali Alter sang "Tan Pa'm'at Thrasher al Duna" and then announced: "We're done and we're done." "Almost done and we're done," the man from the habara kadisha replied, and took the microphone to pray to God, who is full of mercy.
All of this, combined with the intense heat, seemed like a brilliant cinematic opening scene for a subversive film by Assi, but no. At the end, he is buried in Nahalal soil, shortly before the Memorial Day siren. "What a childhood landscape..." says the press photographer next to me, looking at the beautiful valley spread out before us, "With a view like this, who needs Ritalin?""
""It's very important to us to fix his image," they tell me. "We want to tell the media that there are things that the public doesn't know." This is a group of Israelis of state age, who look like the beauties of the blurb and the title, and want, they say, to tell about Assi Dayan that we didn't know. Usually when hidden secrets are revealed about someone, they are dark, exciting, sensational revelations. But what is there to reveal about Dayan, whose entire life seems to have been one long episode of "connected"?
So that's it, they want to talk about the settled side of him. It turns out, and sorry for shattering the myth, that he also had such a side. They didn't provide him with drugs, didn't save him from himself, weren't there during his repeated marriages and divorces. They are – unbelievably – "the guys from the reserves." The next day they send me their internal correspondence by email, since his death, under the title "Parachute Mortar Battalion 7038". They also attach a lot of photos, the black and white ones from the Yom Kippur War. The color ones – from the War of Peace in Galilee.
""Friends, fortunately we met Assi at an earlier stage," writes Lt. Col. (res.) Doron Harpak, an industrialist. "We remember him from training, exercises, operational employment, and also from two wars. As a young officer, it was the best feeling for me to be surrounded by soldiers like you and team commanders like Assi." Raanan Salomon, an engineer, writes: "I will always remember him as a soldier who carried the burden like everyone else despite his background. Gunfire and shells around him did not affect his composure. He was an intellectual who was always fascinating to talk to and glance at the books he read at every free moment.".
Haim Breitbart, today a professor in the Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University, recalled: "During the Yom Kippur War, we were together for six months near the Suez Canal. Here is one story about his great sensitivity: On Shabbat evenings, we held social evenings. Itzik Ohayon brought an accordion to the unit, but it was decided that he would not play on Shabbat night to allow us, the religious, to participate. Assi did not know about this arrangement and protested against it during the evening. I was hurt, I left the tent and went to the position. After a few minutes, Assi came and apologized to me for his lack of understanding. He demonstrated, even then, great human understanding. May his memory be blessed.".
This week's Torah portion, "On the Mountain," deals extensively with the subject of Shemitah. In its simplest form, it is a command to stop working the land once every seven years and to cancel old debts and encumbrances: "Six years you shall sow your field... and in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of rest for the land.".
Next year, which will begin at the end of 2014, is a year of Shemitah. Most Israelis are not farmers, so this year could pass without them noticing that it is a year of Shemitah. Here and there they will hear in the media about the dispute between religious Zionism and the Haredim over the correct halakhic method to follow this year, and that's it.
This reality is being attempted to be changed by a few idealistic young people, who are spreading the "Israeli Shmita Charter." In the Western, capitalist, and consumerist reality to which we have become accustomed in recent years, Shmita offers a radical, almost anarchistic perspective: capital accumulation is not everything, this race can be stopped.
Chief Rabbi David Lau has already signed, along with dozens of other activist associations, educators, and Jewish identity organizations. The goal is to make the coming year what it originally was: a year of rest that allowed for a new beginning. "In this year, possessions are not the main thing," the Shmita covenant states. "Time is not pressing and nature is much more than a resource to be exploited. The Shmita year presents us with an alternative that seeks to renew our quality of life, in all systems. A year of social engagement, spiritual renewal, and environmental contemplation. A gate in time that opens once every seven years and calls us to renew the covenant between us. A year that will leave its mark on the six years that follow.".
One of the organizers' initiatives is a Shmita Fund for families who need assistance with their debt arrangements, to allow them to "straighten up" financially during the year. Another initiative is a "Volunteer Hour Bank," where community members deposit their private hours in which they are willing to act for the greater good. The first major conference has already taken place in Tel Aviv, and they are continuing to prepare to create awareness in advance of the upcoming special year. The slogan chosen is: "Prepare, Prepare, Shmita!""
Jewish status: ""The individual renounces worldly life every Shabbat. When Shabbat comes, rest comes. The same action that Shabbat performs on each individual, it performs on the nation as a whole" (Rabbi Kook)
• A column by Sivan Rahav Meir is published in Yedioth Ahronoth
