National Bicycling Day aka Yom Kippur

The main reason why I like to stay in Israel during the High Holidays is Yom Kippur. When we got back to Israel after spending many years in the US, I was delighted to discover that Yom Kippur was no longer the dreary holiday of my childhood, it has totally changed and gained a uniquely Israeli interpretation as a  national bicycling day.

That year, about two weeks before the High Holidays, our daughters informed us that they absolutely had to have bicycles for Yom Kippur, all their friends had them. That is how we first learnt about the new tradition.

Imagine a big city where on a regular day the streets are packed with noisy cars and buses, and then all of a sudden, as though by magic -- everything comes to a halt and there is silence.

Earlier today I checked and saw  that on this year Yom Kippur in Tel Aviv starts  shortly before 6 pm. When I got on my bike around that time there were still some cars. But few minutes later everything stopped. While riding I saw families in white walking toward the synagogue, and some very well dressed young children with their parents on tricycles, and scooters.

When I rode back the busy Hatayasim highway was totally empty of cars and filled with older children on their bicycles. Later tonight I expect to see the streets become even fuller with people, this is the night when everybody goes outside.

Tomorrow, like most Tel Avivians,  we will ride our bicycles, in previous years we headed to the sea and rode along the shore before finally arriving to Hayarkon river and then back home. It is literally a once in a year experience. For me this is also the only day that I feel confident enough to ride on the roads and don’t have to worry about being run over by a car.

I don’t know who invented Bicycling Day and whether  s/he works in the bicycling business, but she is clearly a genius. Naturally every year before Yom Kippur the sales of bicycles increase tremendously.

Probably for many Orthodox Jews the practice of observing the holiest day of the year has not changed much throughout the years, but for me as a secular Jew the holiday has become meaningful once it stopped belonging only to Orthodox Jews. As a child every Yom Kippur we hid at home and I remember my mother asking us to eat quietly and not to make noise because the neighbors were passing by our kitchen window on their way back from Shul.

Bicycling has changed all that, Yom Kippur stopped being a holiday that had nothing to do with me or my life style and became a favorite holiday, one which I could enjoy as an Israeli, if not as an observant Jew.

On that same Yom Kippur when we returned to Israel we were walking  at night behind our two cycling daughters. Dizengof street was quiet and there were no cars. All of a sudden an old and noisy Volkswagen beetle came toward us with all its windows open. We saw that the driver of that car was the poet David Avidan.

It never occurred to me before, but perhaps Avidan did not realize that Yom Kippur has changed and wanted to protest. As one of the greatest  poets of secularization I believe that he would have loved the new Israeli holiday of Bicycling Day.

The essay appeared at the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/national-bicycling-day-aka-yom-kippur/

The National Bicycle Day: Yom Kippur in Israel

Going back to Israel after spending many years in the US, we were quite surprised to discover many new customs in a country which we had thought we knew really well. Recently I wrote  a post about the secular ritual of the Friday night dinner ("TGIF ISraeli Style"), and the new practice of observing  Yom Kippur is another one.

In the first year in Tel Aviv our daughters told us that they had to have bicycles for Yom Kippur, all their friends had them. That  is how we first found out that Yom Kippur has become the National Bicycle Day

Imagine a big city where on a regular day the streets are packed with noisy cars and buses, and then all of a sudden, as though by magic -- everything stops and there is silence.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-national-bicycle-day-yom-kippur-in-israel/

Please Forgive Me: The National Bicycle Day

September 14, 2013
When I was a young mother I wanted to attend exercise classes, but since I had two children, it was hard to get away.  My resourceful husband suggested that we’d  find an exercise program on television that I  could  do at home. As much as I hated this idea I had to admit that it was a reasonable solution. To make matters easier he fixed a wooden board to save my knees from jumping on the concrete floor.

That is how I began my romance with the legendary television instructor Charlene Pricket. Charlene taught aerobics, but she also loved to talk and to give advice. As she was jumping about she dispensed her views about the importance of leading a balanced life, and the latest information on exercise and nutrition. Exercising with Charlene became a significant part of my day, and I felt that with her common sense and knowledge she taught me much more than exercise.  

I hadn’t thought about her for many years but today, Yom Kippur, all of a sudden I remembered one particular piece of Charlene’s advice.

Yom Kippur is the holiest day in the Jewish faith. It is the day of atonement when God supposedly makes the decision whether we will be “signed in his book” for yet another year.

But over the last twenty years, the practice of observing the day in Israel has changed drastically. Since there are no cars driving on the road, Yom Kippur has become an unofficial National Bicycle Day. Imagine a big city where on a regular day the streets are packed with noisy cars and buses, and  then all of a sudden, as though by magic --silence.  Gradually the streets are filled with happy children on bikes, scooters, or skateboards riding with their parents or their friends.

This morning Johnny and I rode our bicycle for over four hours in totally silent and peaceful streets: we headed to the sea and rode along the shore before finally arriving to the river and then back home. It was a wonderful experience. 

Still, using this day for exercise could seem irreverent; shouldn’t this day of fasting be observed in prayer or quiet meditation?

This is when I thought of Charlene. Once when asked about her position on fasting in order to cleanse one’s system, she answered that as she washed her body and watched her diet, she felt clean enough. 

I like her answer; although fasting in Yom Kippur is spiritual and is not done for health reasons, I choose not to fast as my way of atonement. Actually, I have never fasted in my life; my formerly- religious father was adamant against it. When as a child I wanted to fast, he asked me if I intended to follow any other religious precept. When I answered that I didn’t, he said that he felt it was hypocritical to fast and suggested that instead I should try to be “good” all year around. I have tried to follow his footsteps.

However, by making our cities peaceful and quiet for one day on the holiest day of the year, I feel that we ask for forgiveness by giving Mother Earth a day of rest -- a Sabbath.  We could see it as a variation on another significant precept in Jewish law which is called shmita(translated literally as release).  According to Jewish law, every seven years the land is left to lie fallow and all agricultural activity, including plowing, planting, pruning and harvesting, is forbidden.

So whether we fast, ride our bike or just enjoy the quiet day, in a time of pollution and the rising greenhouse effect, letting the earth rest for one day of Yom Kippur could be considered a small and necessary act of atonement. Gmar Hatima Tova