by Yaël Dayan
His reconciliation with death was so far-reaching that it stopped just short of becoming a death wish. “Death was not the termination of life, but somehow its peak, a continuation,” he wrote, an idea which would satisfy a believer in life after death, which my father was not. I returned home, to my children, and told my family about the operation. I didn’t think of it in dramatic terms. There was no reason he shouldn’t emerge from it better than before, and indeed, when I entered his hospital room the next day, he had a tranquil expression on his face, and even the smile of a winner. The tumor was local and isolated. There was no doubt—even before the final laboratory results arrived—that it was malignant. It was removed with twenty centimeters of colon, high enough not to inhibit normal functioning of the bowel. There seemed to be no metastases, a conclusion which was later confirmed by the scans. Father could resume work within three weeks. I visited him in the hospital every single day. At times, he greeted me with a warm, loving smile, and on other occasions, a few, he did not wish to be disturbed but granted me a few impatient moments. He showed my children the scars, explained to them the cardiology monitor he was attached to, and was proudly on his feet very soon, sooner than the doctors expected or wished.
When I visited with my brothers, Father showed us the healing scar, explained to my brothers how well he was, and how lucky, and unexpectedly felt the need to talk about his will. At that time he was talking about a previous will, one which did not deprive us of a fair share, but he chose to remark: “I wrote a will, and I am allocating in it a penthouse I own, to Udi’s big children.” We must have nodded approval, and as he was well and his prospects were good, there was no reason to pursue, react, or even comment. The three of us found the subject distasteful.
After the signing of the peace treaty with Egypt, Dov was appointed chairman of the Israeli delegation to the Israeli–Egyptian Joint Commission. The treaty had to be implemented, the various phases of withdrawal supervised, the multinational force installed, and the Sinai demilitarized—different sectors in different degrees of demilitarization. His job took him to Egypt often, and he was busy weaving the delicate tissue of coexistence in peace, together with his Egyptian colleagues. The peace agreement became a daily reality. “Cairo on the line”—when the phone rang; Egyptian coins in Dov’s wallet; his clean shirts packed in plastic bags from the Mena House Hotel, and boxes of sweets from the Groppi patisserie.
For Dov, a visit to the hospital—other than the maternity ward when I had the children—was an excruciating ordeal. He visited my father with me on several occasions, and was grateful when Father talked business to him, as if they were having a regular office meeting. On July 15, three weeks after the operation, my father attended the weekly meeting of the government and was back in his office. He was still weak and hoarse, his vocal cords bruised anew from the inevitable tubes inserted in his throat. He needed no chemotherapy or radiation.
Why then did I feel this was the beginning of the end?
In retrospect, I can say now that my father lived for sixty-four years and died for two years.
At the time, it was a vague sensation, which I managed with a little effort to quell. Had I pursued this feeling, the last two years we had together would have had a different meaning. But no. I wasn’t wise or brave enough, and I let him die for two years, years of pathetic agony. Where I should have screamed, I murmured; where I should have taken a stand, I yielded silently; where I should have made him angry, for often he fed on anger and conviction, I covered things up. The petty, pseudo-sophisticated life he led suffocated him, and what was defined as “protective” was his shroud. My father’s constitution was molded in strife and strengthened in battle. He soared on tensions and flew highest in spontaneity, and when he was least protected, most cruelly exposed, and the highest demands imposed on him, he performed best, and in the final account was at peace with himself and as happy as he could ever be. He was a man made for labyrinths, and history supplied him with many, for mazes extracted from his mind the genial sensors to point out the only secure route—not routes of escape, but those that lifted a nation sky-high. For the two years of his death, he was stripped of the fight, padded in endearment, and smothered with comforts. He was loved, obeyed, pampered, and diapered until he withered. A desert plant shrivels with excess watering and lack of scorching sun.
I could spare myself, and declare all these to be afterthoughts. I would be guilty of dishonesty, for I was an active partner in all this. I didn’t want to risk a rupture, and I was a junior partner, a dispensable one, in the team that erected a hothouse around him, a hothouse for a plant that needed the variety of changing seasons, the brisk winds of dry khamsins and the chilling frosts of desert nights. In October of that year, 1979, three months after the operation, my father resigned from Begin’s cabinet. Begin and his ministers appeared to be willing to enter into negotiations on the proposed autonomy for the Palestinians, but the objective they had in mind, following the five-year interim period, was exercising Israeli sovereignty over the entire territory west of the Jordan River.
Father was opposed to a Palestinian state, but he was against imposing annexation and, in the meantime, against appropriating private Arab land for Israeli settlements. He was prepared to abolish Israeli military administration in the territories and advocated the implementation of autonomy unilaterally if necessary. He believed our armed units should not be deployed in the populated West Bank areas but should serve as a defense element in the Jordan Valley, the Etzion region south of Jerusalem, and on the ridges in Samaria.
Basically, he understood the links of the West Bank population with Jordan to be vital and believed an interim period would create a “functional division,” rather than a territorial one, where Israeli sovereignty would not be imposed on Arabs and Jews would not be foreigners in the West Bank, parts of which could subsequently be federated with Jordan on some constitutional basis. He was in a minority in the cabinet on this issue, and the subject was too cardinal for him to compromise.
Begin expressed his regret, but accepted the resignation, praising the Foreign Minister for his service and particularly for his part in securing the treaty with Egypt. Father resumed his seat in the last row of the Knesset, away from the government table. He did not choose to resign from the Knesset, but did say: “This will be my last Knesset … I have no wish to form an independent list or join one of the small parties.” He defined his feeling upon resigning as “relief tinged with disappointment.”
New elections were not due for another eighteen months, and to the obvious question “What will you do now?” he had all the obvious answers. He would write, lecture, meet with the Jewish communities of the Diaspora, and add to his collection of antiquities. As long as he had something to say, he assured me, he was going to make sure his voice was heard, and for this he didn’t need a government post, a title, or even a Knesset seat. He now had ample free time, and rather frequently he would summon me to share a morning coffee with him in the garden.
I devoted many hours to my studies, taking a course in cytology, having realized how poor my biochemistry was. I had to work harder than others, and if I didn’t give up, it was because I felt I was finally on the verge of grasping the elementary structure of biological existence. Happily, I lost the Alice in Wonderland sensation and was able to treat science, not as a stage where a magician performed miracles, but as an arena where, with trial and error, the human brain in its perseverance and consistent logical pursuit unveiled processes which it then sought to manipulate. Home was center-stage, and it was not with resignation but with a fair amount of pleasure that I ran it, as boring and Sisyphean as the daily chores were. My frustrations did not run deep, and my excitements and aspirations did not soar high. Many external manifestations of status had lost their meaning, and as long as I could travel occasionally, learn, teach, and be left alone, I was quite satisfied. Rather than collecting, I was in the process of disposal. Objects, papers, memorabilia, and people. My addres
s book shrank to the essential minimum, and I was happy to contribute and give, provided I was not obligated by receiving. I was debt-free, other than the self-imposed debt to the immediate family, and I depended less and less on the outside world for stimuli. An occasional letter from a faithful writer or an anxious publisher reminded me that I was a professional writer, but I knew that when I was ready for a next book, it would be written. I never felt missionary about writing, and I was certain that the growth and expansion I was experiencing, together with sharpened selectivity, would produce a fertile sediment.
A year earlier, in 1978, my father published his book Living with the Bible, which I think was his most accomplished and beautiful piece of writing. The book was exactly what the title indicated—a perfect juxtaposition of life in biblical Israel and Father’s own life as it related to it. A series of episodes, free associations in chronological order as recounted in the Bible. The Patriarchs he associated with the first settlers in Deganya and Nahalal; the Redemption and Exodus call forth in his mind the Sinai wars; the Promised Land, the War of Independence. He was writing of Judges and Kings, of King David’s Jerusalem, the Six-Day War, and David Ben-Gurion. Father did not attempt to reinterpret the Scriptures, but he selected the particles, anecdotes, and episodes which for him were the essence of our claim to the land and which gave us the motivation to secure it, to live in it, and to die for it. The sense of continuity which he expressed in his archaeological pursuits gained a deeper meaning when he wrote about it. What was lacking was a whole dimension of Judaism which he failed to relate to. In this book, in life, in the little poem he wrote for us to read after his death.
The Patriarchs, the quest for freedom, the land, a tribal society turning into a nation, and the first Kings. The physical struggle for survival against foes and the elements, men falling in battles—in past and present wars—the pots of clay, the burial vessels, the trophies and the idols. His associations were physical. The cracks in the thirsty soils, the lilies in the Sharon, the caves in the cliffs of Ein Gedi, and gazelles in the Judean wilderness. His heroes were Moses the legislator, Gideon and Barak, Meir Har-Zion of Commando Unit 101 and Yoni Netanyahu of Entebbe, David and Jonathan and Saul, Ben-Gurion and the poet Natan Alterman. Of the three elements—the land, the people, and the book—he took of the Book what related to the land and the people. The vast depths of Jewish morality, the gap in time when the people had the Book without the land and survived on faith alone, the heights of ethics the Prophets demanded of the people, the post-biblical writings, the Talmud and the Mishnah, without which self-preservation would be impossible—he did not relate to. He identified with all his living fibers with the family: “In Wadi Beersheba, two thousand years ago, before the Patriarch Abraham. It knew every wadi and hill. This is its country, its native land … I don’t even have to close my eyes to relive it, to see the live coals and the woman bent over them with a pot for her family … my family …” His family was not exterminated in Dachau; it did not worship in secret in medieval Spain or fight in the Warsaw ghetto. His family did not derive strength from the Hasidic tales of an Eastern shtetl or hide in caves in the Atlas Mountains. His family did not joke in Yiddish or read the Bible with a guttural Sephardic accent, and in his poem to us he wrote about the sword and the land to be protected by it.
In his modern dictionary, every milestone and border stone had a meaning. “The future boundaries of Israel is the issue closest to my heart since the foundation of the State of Israel,” he wrote on the last page of Living with the Bible. The betterment of society, the ideological foundations of egalitarianism and socialism—of which the world of his parents consisted—the spiritual contents of our revived civilization were not dominant in his priorities. I hesitate to give him credit for this missing dimension by simply presuming or taking for granted that he possessed it and had no need to elaborate on it. I find it difficult to accept that all of us, as a society, are satisfied with a way of thinking in which this dimension is clearly absent. Not because we are secular, not because of the absence of God, but we seem to have failed to substitute for faith in God something more than a golden calf. The tremendous vision Ben-Gurion had could not be implemented without his spiritual and moral force. Based on the Prophets rather than the Kings, on Greek philosophy as well as Talmudic wisdom, and not ever at the expense of clarity and a deep sense of realism vis-à-vis issues of state. My father had followed his mentor in vision and farsightedness. What he lacked in systematic broad education he supplemented with sharp intuition and discerning perception, but the battle we all go through, between spiritual monotheism and the golden calf, was not resolved for him, and in his last two years the clatter of gilded trinkets appeared to be overpowering.
Not one of these thoughts would I share with my father. His ill health made him more irritable than ever, and my compassion for his fragility prevented me from suggesting, repeating, or even hinting at anything contradictory. If I had reservations—and often I had—regarding the prudence of my behavior, there was always Rahel to reassure me, with a ready list of all he should be spared. With the best of intentions, the deepest concern, and complete confidence in her judgment, she frisked me, and perhaps others—it didn’t work with Dov or my brothers—upon entry, and cautioned us against saying anything that might be bad news for him. The gap between what went on in my mind and what crossed my lips was growing, and, in direct proportion, so was the distance between my father and myself. It was suggested to me not to tell the whole truth. I was afraid of what he knew; I was uncomfortable with the pretense and was afraid to shatter it, or him. I fell into the trap, which is excusable between teenagers and parents and is unforgivable among adults. A vicious circle of pretense in order to accommodate or please, which results in loss of dignity and confidence.
Thus, we sat near the Corinthian capital in the garden and watched the birds drink from the stone basin, and talked—in fact, Father talked, about electricity bills, a raise in taxes, and the current inflation rate. The fact that he was miserly had always been a subject for family jokes, but now there was no way to laugh at it. Money became a near-obsession at a time when he needed money least.
And he was not at all well. A hernia operation followed, a diet, and loss of weight, which was welcome at the start but alarming later. He had to take medication to reduce the pressure on his eye socket, which was bad for the heart, as it lowered blood pressure. The heart muscle was weakening, and perhaps his general state did not permit major surgery. What bothered him most was the loss of eyesight, which was evident in his stumbling walk and his inability to read or concentrate. He grew bitter and short-tempered. He did not for one minute lose perspective and scope on public affairs, but privately he walled himself in. A wall which had openings. Often, when Rahel was out, he would call me and ask me to come over. At times, it was to show me a new acquisition or an article he wrote—before sending it to the newspaper. Rarely, to talk about things which he felt uncomfortable discussing in Rahel’s presence.
In a strange way, he felt apologetic. Not sufficiently so to change his ways, but enough to want to talk to me about elements in his life which he assumed I would find displeasing.
I sat there bemused as he was; in fact, having dialogues with himself. Wondering about face-lifts, mink coats and diamonds, and cocktail parties. He desperately tried to excuse a superficial, costly self-indulgence as some appreciation of high aesthetics, or attribute it to the intangible but acceptable “feminine mystique.” He claimed he was bored with the groupies, with the dinner parties and free lunches, where he couldn’t, and didn’t much care to, see or hear too well. He did not complain, he made his choice, but he had a bizarre need to make sure I knew what his real priorities were.
He stole moments with me to inquire about Mother, who was still working in Latin America, out of Washington; about her work, her interests, her needs, and her health. He cared a lot for my grandmother and never failed to ask about her, and of course my brothers, his sons. We talked ab
out Nahalal. Somewhere he was trying to make a point, to say that really he knew the difference between the shallow sophistication of his present life and the basics of the past, and he had a strange childish need to reassure me that the concessions he was making were only skin-deep. Whenever Rahel appeared and interrupted these little reunions, he almost blushed with guilt. She inevitably exclaimed: “Yaël! What a surprise!” and rather than admit that he called and asked me to come over, I almost had to apologize for being there: I happened to be in Zahala …
In an odd way, he resented the fact that I traveled with my children on school vacations. Lecturing for the U.J.A. was fine, and he was forever proud to hear of my success, but private travel, at my own expense, he found extravagant. I tried to explain it once and later gave up. We traveled on charters; we stayed with good friends—Mrs. Leonard Cohen and her daughters in Geneva and France; or used an apartment in Paris which belonged to close and dear friends from Chicago. I almost showed him bills, explaining that, rather than have a part-time maid, I saved so as to travel in the summer, but it didn’t help. He held it against me as if I were sinning, and I couldn’t even share with him the wonderful experience of my first trip to Egypt with the children. I couldn’t care less about face-lifting or mink coats, Cartier jewelry or expensive outfits, but when friends of theirs told me they felt they were being used as the Dayans’ “credit card,” I felt humiliated. My mother was poor and too generous, which fell into the martyr complex I had long resented, but my father was rich and stingy, which was an unattractive combination.