Freedom never comes - Part 26

"Looking around Israel and hearing all these said stories of the past I wonder often whether or not it is possible for an individual and a collective spirit that is in a society to learn and forgive for good and in its own attitude to demonstrate the lesson learnt," mentioned Heinz Wohlfarth sitting back and enjoying life as it is, here and now.

Moshe Freitag sat back in his chair finishing his ice-cream and said with eyes wondering around the place: "When I look into America and remember the settlers form Europe. In Europe they were oppressed in many ways especially on religious grounds, their future taken from them by the rules and regulations of the society. They wanted to look for freedom, not only independence, but freedom in independence as freedom is the source of a great independence, independence only the legal framework to achieve freedom. This problem was so deep in them that out of desperation they set sail to North-America, were confronted with the Native Americans, killed them in their numbers to take their land and killed their buffaloes close to extinction to have food and protective skin before farming could have set in. Then the same people went down to take slaves from Africa as cheap labour on which they build their economy and with that their society and place in history. They even killed each other during the Civil War and the decision of Abraham Lincoln to set the Blacks free and make same equal citizen, something that mounted just a few years go in Civil Rights Movement and its bloody attacks. Till today, as we all sadly know, Blacks are not equal in the American Society even in Europe that had no history of black slaves Blacks seem to be treated fairer than in the country they represent nearly half or more of the population. So sad, I am telling you my friend...so, so sad to see what humans can do and what they are not capable of doing even themselves having suffered so much...so, so much!"

"You mentioned a great point, freedom and the law...I mean that freedom needs to be effective a legal framework...isn`t it so?" asked Heinz Wohlfarth smiling letting his eyes walk around the place as well. Both spotted at the same time a group of beautiful young ladies in military uniform, charming and smart to the max.

They looked at each other and said at the same time: "Which of them for you, which for me?" They were laughing their head off observing at the same time no bad looks would rest on them.

"We should fight over them and demonstrate our freedom of choice?" was Heinz Wohlfarth not able to resist to mention. A serious look from Moshe Freitag was enough of an answer.

Moshe Freitag ordered soft-drinks for both of them, saw the girls standing and giggling in front of a beauty salon before turning his focus again on his German friend and said: “We should not forget our own story in Europe, I mean us Jews. When in Europe business got more professional and divided into professions like carpenters, plumbers, masons, traders, lawyers and so on we were forced to go into banking sector as lending out money for interest was seen as dirty works, so it was given to us. Let us not forget that even Martin Luther interested in the truth of the bible hated us and spoke against us in public. So, it was the society we were part of that pushed us into the dirty work of money for which reason it was natural that we became brilliant in this works. Having a European network form cities across nations soon we were able to give out large sums of money to the rich and famous including Kings and Royals leading a lavish life-style with no sense to keep their expenditures restricted to what was in their true means. So, some of us when asking for the money back saw himself dead without justice served in any way. Beside venturing into Medicine, Law faculty and Arts it took its natural course that we gained great influence on the top of each European society yet were at the edge of it always. It was no wonder that finally we were blamed for what was going on in Europe and the target of Nazis like Adolf Hitler...that never confessed of course that we got into our position in the societies of Europe by force, being pushed into it."

"Can this be a lesson that someone can be great against his will or intention?" was Heinz Wohlfarth wondering looking Moshe Freitag straight into the eyes that had just finished his ice-cream thinking of what else to order for both of them.

"Success in life against someone`s own will?" was Moshe Fritag saying slowly thinking and thinking what to think about such a statement. "I guess," tried he to give an answer on the spot, "this is hardly possible...as long as we think only with our own human brain, our own will and our own decision making process...than this can be possible, I guess. But when we assume...and any man with wisdom and eyes to see and brain to understand, will know that here on earth nothing work entirely by human decision rather be in a framework set before us in which we act and think, but the direction in the end does not come from us. Based on that viable and true assumption someone can be pushed to his stone when the voice that is in us finally takes over and overrides our own free decision which in the end because of that is not free...but is determined in that framework, in the voice hiding in us from time to time ready to jump out when the voice needs to be heard."

"You are basically saying," said Heinz Wohlfarth looking over to the border to Lebanon seeing the tanks had all been shipped into the South of the country leaving the border unattended, no soldier more in sight, "we humans cannot be free as we are humans not by our on will but made by the will of God for which reason he is the Master of our life, our thinking, our destiny even allowing us to have a free will to move left or right no stand still...so, only if we would have been made by ourselves we can assume we can ever be free, I mean absolutely free or to a great extend relatively free as our actions and thinking always hit others and touch their freedom, their ideas what life should all about especially when the framework of a society jumps in and makes things more complicated."

"Only the man-made creation of man can set a man free, absolute free and relative free buy his own decision. But once we are not made by our own selves but made by God or for the atheist by evolution we are determined in what we are and what we are not...for which reason our capacity and capability to be free and understand what that means and imply, is always restricted to the framework of our creation, of the one we were created by in the first place."

"Freedom never comes!"

"True...freedom never comes...but you have to go there, discover the way, understand its implications, get your soul exposed and dirty...before you can get closer and closer to what you might call absolute or relative freedom...you decided," said Moshe Freitag and got up. It was time for him to go back to his family living at the outskirts of Herliza a few hours’ drive before he would enjoy a good warm cake from his wife homemade. He opened his arms and gave Heinz Wohlfarth a big hug.

"Hamster people," said Heinz Wohlfarth with dry voice and a big smile on his face. "Haster people...mandated to understand life´s matters and get to the bottom of their existence, once close to finding the ultimate answer the answer slipped away and disappears for good, destroyed by the human mind to find it...the answer."

"I guess that is the mystery of human life...to search and search but never to find...only to imagine that we found...so that we can lead a comfortable instead of a depressed life," greeted Moshe Freitag his German friend good-bye and disappeared in the distance. Heinz Wohlfarth took a deep breath, looked down on himself, paused for a few seconds, then tried to find the right street that gave him the best chance to get his ride back to Kibbutz Ginegar.

He looked out of the window of the small car that took him back to his temporary home. Not long had he to wait by the roadside that a couple on route to Kibbutz Ein Ziwan in the Golan Heights had offered him to join them. They would drop him off at his destination. His eyes investigated the sun slowly making its way to be substituted by the evening moon. There was much peace in the car, he felt is deep in his soul. While he looked out of the window and saw the landscape passing by, Heinz Wohlfarth was thinking of Moshe Freitag still. Asking himself why stone and gravel, houses and farms, cows and donkeys, fading away sun light, occasional clouds in the skies were all around him, fresh air touching his nose, was he constantly thinking of where to find it, freedom. Was it to set sail and ride the waves everywhere the world would expose its deepest core, its roots out of which humans and animals are born, plants grow and the storms or was it not the world around him that would finally give him the much wanted and deserved answer to know and understand this world, to know and understand his way on earth, to know and understand the meaning of it all that he saw, just a service to God or a meaning in itself? Peace was with him, filled his soul in every way, brought his breath close to standstill. He looked up into the skies that painted a last shining light into the air before darkness would set in and surround him with another eye to see the world. Constantly was he asking himself why on earth life during daylight is so different from life during the night. People behave so much different, was it that the darkness could uncover their wrongdoings, put a dark blanket over everything that was not supposed to happen, gave the mind a dark black curtain behind which to hide ideas and impressions, opinions and the truth light would so easily unravel and expose. Night, the mystery of the daylight, the other side of life in which humans seem to be more free, yet at the same time diving into the mystery of life. Was possibly the night, a thought flashed through his mind, the place to start searching for the many answers that tormented him for years now? Yes, light without darkness is no light as no one would know that light is light, and darkness without darkness would not be darkness but simply normality, nothing to wonder, no rhythm to follow, no question to ask. What has no opposition, no counterpart, is not different, raises no question and with no question raised no answer will follow. Only when we can look ourselves into the mirror, we can see ourselves and begin to understand. But if you only see us and no one else around us, the world is as it is and never in question, never in understanding. The thoughts run through his mind like a jet sky, fast and on the surface of what his thoughts were touching. He wanted to go down deeper, wanted to fall into the earth as it opens itself up underneath someone´s own capacity to understand and to see, to know and to use for a way of understanding, of finally knowing it all. Can we find freedom only in what we know already or the unknown that needs still to be discovered or the truth in between these two extremes was a thought rushing through his mind?

"You seem to be so far away...so deep caught up in your imagination, your dream...almost looking like a ghost, not quite from this world," smiled Tina Ratherford at Heinz Wohlfarth while turning back to him that sat on the passenger seats behind her. She had warm eyes, blue and warm.

"Maybe true," smiled Heinz Wohlfarth, “I mean the more I try to understand this world and know and know, the lesser I really know and understand. I mean this world truly is a mystery!"

"It is meant to be a mystery...," replied Tina Ratherford smiling at him, "as otherwise if life would be a solution ready available for all, obvious to anyone...would any one try to strive to make it in life and move and move... ."

"Us...the hamster people!" laughed Heinz Wohlfarth seeing the landscape passing by faster and faster.

"If you want to call it that way...sure!" agreed Tina Ratherford turning back looking out of the front window. "But if you take it in a wrong and dark way, you fall into depression, serious one. So, it is better we take this momentum in our life as the meaning of life to head towards our ashes to ashes and dust to dust momentum... ."

"For me it is important to know that we all have the capacity and mandate to leave a stone behind and not just run and run in the hamster wheel for nothing!"

Tina Ratherford turned to him again and smiled with wisdom in her young eyes: "Wise man!" She kept silent for a few moments and added: "To breath, eat, drink, have sex and children, getting divorced, showing off expensive cars and mansions...truly not...that cannot be what life is all about. That in fact alone is a disgrace to life and the maker of life."

"My saying!" laughed Heinz Wohlfarth sitting back relaxed in his seat enjoying the ride in the company of nice people. They reach Kibbutz Ginegar, he got out of the car, looked through the passenger window to say a big thank you and receiving a piece of paper with the contact details of his new friends inviting him to visit them in Kibbutz ein Ziwan one day, stressing out it should not be far in the future. He smiled promising do come as soon as possible. Waving them off, the car drove down the road towards Afula.

It was dark, pitch black dark. The church clock stroked midnight. It was cold, not freezing to create goose bumps yet still very fresh to surround him with uncomfortability. He looked around and around wondering where he was standing, looked down and up, all darkness in every corner. No sound to be heard from anywhere, a place surreal as a place could get. He closed his eyes to make sure he was still of sound mind, tried to hear voices in his head to hear at least something and not being left alone abandoned of even the company of his thoughts. While walking through the day he constantly noticed that thoughts punished him with their ideas, their words, and pictures even his mind had never asked for them to appear. When his mind got hold of such pictures before his inner eye, would hear voices that were not his own, ideas of the past and future, dreams and imagination, he would hold his breath for a second, ask God to help him to get rid of the powers that tried to take control of his mind and actions, ended his short prayers with a long Amen and moved on only to realize minutes later another power overcame him to think and see and hear in a way his mind was not willing to be confronted with. Often did he feel not to be the true master of his body and his mind but like in a spider net the outside world would take hold of him to mess him up. Most times such pictures and voices where not of positive min ut intended to cause him harm, to bring up his blood pressure and confuse him, to distrust him from forward thinking of a better world for him. Only when he used his own mind intentionally, positive thoughts went through his mind to initiate positive results. He often was wondering about it not to be the master of his own life, his own will, his own thoughts. His mind truly was a battlefield and he was determined to win the fight and move his pictures, his thoughts ad his feelings into the direction he wanted his life to ventor in.

At this moment, standing in the middle of the darkness, the black darkness all around, he wished these strange voices that invaded his mind would talk to him, at least he would know he was still alive and part of it, life as it was for him. No picture, no voice, no idea, nothing was with him, in him, nothing surrounded him, only darkness, black, black darkness. He wanted to open his mouth and shout outload ask for help, ask for the voices that used to torment him always, but felt a cord around his neck making it impossible for him to say anything at all. He stood upright, straight upright thinking this might impress someone that might appear suddenly from nowhere, his only possible weapon to save his life. With all his might did he try to keep his mind sharp and open like his eyes, his ears were ready to listen and be aware of the unknown, the unexpected, the magic of the moment, the darkness of the deep night.

He made a step forward, slowly, and gently to avoid any possible noise that his shoes could cause. He made a second step forward while looking behind him to see whether someone would attack him from behind while moving forward. no one to be seen, he was safe. He made a third step forward, stood still, looked behind him, no one to be seen, black darkness all around. As he turned around to look forward and take his fourth step ahead a figure appeared out of the darkness. He was holding his breath, tried not to give a signal in whatever form that he was standing at the place he was standing, no movement with his fingers, no movement with his head, eyes under control. The figure came closer and closer, it was the figure of a man with an iron rod in his right hand that stood tall before him suddenly even being away in a respectful distance. The figure, a man obviously, was all dressed in white, was covered all over in shining bright white as seen not even during daylight. The light blinded him. He closed his eyes and opened it carefully, step by step until his eyes were used to the light and able to embrace it.