Love of the Land: Sweet Defeat on the Hermon

Sweet Defeat on the Hermon

Moshe Feiglin
Manhigut
21 Adar 5770
07 March '10

It was two o' clock in the morning. We packed our bicycles into the car, added our backpacks, helmets, warm clothing and some food and headed north.

It all began two weeks earlier, on a routine bicycle trip that I had taken with my son, David, to the Kaneh Stream, near our home. After splashing about a bit, we began pedaling up the path that leads back to Karnei Shomron. To my surprise, I saw that my young pedal pusher had turned into a full-fledged mountain cyclist, thank G-d.

"Someday you will even ride up to the peak of Mt. Hermon," I said when we got home."If I ride up the Hermon will you buy me a new bicycle for Pesach?" my son retorted with a question. "No problem," I answered. "If you can make it up the Hermon on this bicycle, throw a snowball at me and hit your target, you will get a new bicycle for Pesach."

I didn't really believe that in such a short time the young lad would manage to acquire the physical fitness necessary to accomplish his goal. At the bicycle store, where we took his old bike to fine-tune the gears and check the brakes – the technicians were highly skeptical, especially with his vintage bicycle.
But the young generation joined me every morning at daybreak for a mountain ride, and continued pedaling during his free time. And so, a captive of my promise, I found myself driving north with my son in the middle of the night, wondering if we would really manage to touch the snow and return on our bicycles all in the same day.

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Love of the Land: Sweet Defeat on the Hermon