3 am on the avenue. The street is completely empty. I am digging a hole in the hard ground.
A little bit earlier, knock knock at my neighbors door. ‘Do you have a shovel?’
A strange look greets me. I smile and say, ‘I need to bury a bottle.’
‘You never fail to surprise me,’ he responds.
***
A Japanese legend tells that if one was to fold a thousand paper cranes, then one would be granted one wish. The story has roots in Japanese lore, where the cranes were believed to bring luck and a thousand were given to couples on their wedding night. The story gained fame for a less celebratory tale, one involving a Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki who was a resident of Hiroshima when the bomb dropped. A few years later she got sick with leukemia and attempted to fold a thousand cranes, wishing to be healthy again. She didn’t make it and her friends completed the 1000 origami cranes for her.
The story became a symbol of innocent victims of war and eventually of peace. On the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, people fold a 1000 paper cranes and make a wish.
***
When the social protests began in Israel, I joined one of the main tent areas and slept there for a few weeks. Since the protests dealt with the quest for social justice and people’s wish for a better place to live, plus we were all sleeping in the avenue with trees near by, I thought it would be nice to start folding origami cranes, maybe even get to a thousand, but if not at least do something communal and decorative.
I thought that if I could get enough people interested, we would complete a 1000 quickly. I arranged a day with the guy who organized the activities, got some paper donated to me from a printing shop and cut it all into squares. I was excited.
The day before the planned origami activity, there was a terrorist attack in southern Israel. 8 people died. It was horrible. And when the time for the origami activity came about, instead there was an emergency meeting of the tent village – how do we deal with the attack. I was told that I can go ahead and do the origami with the kids that were around, or move the activity to a different day. I chose to do it with 7 kids, mostly folding the cranes for them. I explained the story, the legend, the purpose, as the kids struggled with Japanese art.
We eventually completed 7 cranes, 993 away from the wish. Except, not quite. Two of the kids took the cranes home to decorate their rooms.
***
A few weeks later, Dafni Leef, the main lady who started the protests, came over to our tent village for a Friday night dinner. I knew that this was my chance and I quickly came with my bag of now 50 cranes and told the story and tried to teach her. She didn’t complete her crane. But, a few other people did and two lovely ladies liked the idea and joined the folding.
One of them, N’, even came up with a way of folding a few cranes at once and would return from her very respectable job, with bags of folded cranes. She even taught officers that were watching us how to fold.
We were on our way.
***
On September 23rd, a Friday, we reached a 1000. We hung them all on fishing wire from the trees in the avenue.
All along the folding process people would ask what the wish was and I responded that in time I would tell them. Jokingly, I became known as the wish-dictator, or the crane-tycoon. That Friday eve, we did a community dinner. I requested to tell the story of the 1000 cranes. I then read a poem about fall and planting seeds. (It was a metaphor, no really ☺ ). I told everyone that I would talk about the wish after the Friday night blessing. We did the kiddush and poured the wine. As the empty wine bottle stood there, I said that we are building something here together and that we completed a 1000 cranes as a community. I said that since the project was communal, the wish should be as well. I asked each person to take a piece of paper and to write a wish and place it in the bottle.
Papers were taken, pens were held to them as kids and adults wrote down words from their hearts. The bottle eventually was completely filled with small pieces of paper and stood there, awaiting.
***
Today is the first day of Spring, a time when seeds germinate, flowers grow and a new cycle begins. Today I will plant a bottle in the avenue.
And wait for it to grow.
