I put the cookie in my mouth, and my surrounding environment changed at once.  I was six years old, sitting at my grandmother’s kitchen, waiting anxiously for the new batch of cookies to come out of the oven.  I was able to smell the fresh cookies, I was able to see her wrinkled face, her house robe, her kind smile, and her green kitchen cabinets.  Instead of praising Guy’s cookie, I found myself telling him that I wished Grandma Deborah had known him.  I told him that she would have loved him as soon as she saw him.  I told him that Grandma Deborah loved all her grandchildren, but that she loved me most.

When someone talks to me about time travel, and I must admit that it didn’t happen is quite sometime, I always imagined a machine with knobs and meters, with some smoke coming out from underneath, and some future technology.  I didn’t imagine cookies.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, comes once a year.  Every year, in late September or early October, on the tenth day of the new Jewish year, comes the day that brings up the anxiety level in many Jews around the world.  The anxieties are many and different.  For some it spells the big question.  Will they survive twenty five hours without food and drink.  For others it spells a reflection on the previous year, and whether the judgment will be in their favor.

But for most, Yom Kippur spells riding.  The carefree riding of bicycles everywhere.  Large groups of cyclists from all around the country gather and leave before dawn, on what could only mean a riding mission from God.  Simply stated, what other possible explanation is there for people who use the holiest day of the Jewish year to ride their bicycles?  Children from all walks of life start calling one another a week before, coordinating launching grounds, routes, equipment, and team members.  The popular kids are in  courted into the cool teams, the goofy kids into the geeky ones.  But all, except of course those who don’t own bicycles, or the ones made by their parents to do other things – like attend the excruciatingly long and boring all day prayers – all go cycling.

When I was young, the “bad” children, from the wrong side of the tracks, rode their bicycles on Yom Kippur.  Back then, people went to the neighborhood synagogue and spent the day reciting prayers they couldn’t understand in an archaic language they couldn’t speak.  These people spent the day thinking about exotic food, fine wines, and sweets.  Sometime around noon, they would usually settle for pizza and water.

Those who didn’t do that, stacked up on gourmet food, invited good friends, closed the shutters hermetically, and tried hard not to make noise with the utensils.  Needless to say, growing up, my family belonged to the dreamers.  The ones who dreamed about food,  We were the fasting kind.

When I look around today, I realize the harms of not separating church and state.  The average Israeli comes from a traditional home.  A home where the father was most likely, and the grandfather most certainly, was a practicing Jew.  Today, the growing disrespect to the organized religion is so common, that most non-orthodox Israelis choose to avoid all contact with the religious administration, unless they absolutely must.  A growing number of  people use civil wedding ceremonies, civil funerals.  Most non-orthodox children ride bicycles on Yom Kippur.

But there’s a painful point.  Judaism is an old religion.  The Jewish people is a really old people.  We are forced, figuratively speaking, to make a choice.  Either you fast and spend the day reciting prayers you don’t relate to, or you ride a bicycle.  To that I say no way Jose.  I was not part of the bicycle madness from before.  My family didn’t attend the prayers either.  We were not fasting, we never do.  But we did discuss the holiday, its origins, its meaning and its importance.  We, as a family, decided to be a non practicing Jewish family.  As a Jewish guy I can also state: bicycles are simply too damn dangerous…

The story begins with two young children striving for adventure.  They marry later on in life, sadly unable to have children of their own, even sadder not being able to fulfill their dreams.  They are shown saving nickels and dimes in a large glass bottle.  The “adventure savings bank” keeps getting smashed for its content due to urgent needs: a broken car, a storm, an illness.  The wife dies, and the sour taste of broken dreams fills the screen and the heart.  It is then that I had some reflections, which caused my eyes to water.  My six years old boy saw it and asked if I was catching a cold, so I sneezed a couple of times and assure him that indeed, I was coming down with something…

My reflections were twosome.  One on myself, and the other on a close friend of mine.  As for me, my dreams were not broken.  In fact, I believe I went further than I ever thought I would, I have seen more places than I dreamed about, I met people more exotic than I could imagine, I read books and magazines way more exciting than I could ever hope for,  I experienced.  I have been blessed with a great family.  Wonderful parents, a sister and a brother.  Great children, great nieces and nephews.  You could say that my dreams were not extremely ambitious, and I might actually agree.  But they weren’t modest, and I believe I accomplished at least the realistic part of my dreams and aspirations.  Possibly more.  I am a happy man.

But my heart went out to a good friend of mine, whom I believe had very little expectations from life, but wasn’t even able to have those expectations realized.  She grew up expecting to marry some guy, and to serve him as is common in her community.  Like her mother and four sisters, she expected to have many children, work outside the home, cook, clean, wash, entertain guests, raise children.  She was expected to be happy with what she had, to not spend a lot of money, to save, to be modest.  She dreamed only to be treated nicely.  And she wasn’t.  In fact, she isn’t.  For twenty something years, she has been taken for granted, by her husband and children, day in day out.  Watching “Up”, I was thinking, if I had a big bundle of balloons, at least a metaphoric one, I would let her use it.  So at least one time in her life, she would be able to take off.

And to all I would say: for as long as you breathe, never stop dreaming, and never stop pursuing happiness.  (And never let anyone take you for granted).