By Joel Brodsky, Special to JTNews
With sweat dripping down the side of my face and my legs aching from hours of uphill cycling, I wondered to myself, will this hill ever end? Lifting my head and looking out at the expanse of lush green and high rolling hills of the Galil, I saw our destination. High up on a hill was the beautiful city of Tsfat, one of the four “holy cities” in Israel (the other three being Jerusalem, Tiberias and Hebron).
According to legend, Tsfat is where Shem and Ever, son and grandson of Noah, established their learning center and where Jacob studied for many years. According to a mystical book written in Tsfat, it was the city were Joshua began the systematic destruction of idol worship, preparing the Land of Canaan to become the Land of Israel.
Over the past decade, thousands of Russian and Ethiopian immigrants have made Tsfat their home. Tsfat has also welcomed home many baalei teshuva, people who made the effort to connect to their Jewish soul and heritage. Many artists who have settled in Tsfat over the years have turned Tsfat into the center for Israeli art.
I was instantly jolted from my focus on pushing my bicycle uphill to the realization that I was not biking on my typical routes. This was not Lake Washington or the Burke Gillman trail in Seattle. I was biking in my ancestral homeland, a place where remnants of Jewish history are scattered everywhere. And on this particular moment, I was following a ridge, high in the Galil, in one of the many places in this incredible land that is the birthplace and home of our people. I pulled over to the side of the road to capture the significance of where I was.
This past November, I joined over 160 cyclists from Israel and around the world for the Alyn Hospital’s 4th annual “Wheels of Love” bike-a-thon. This five-day bike ride from the city of Ma’alot in the north — located a few short kilometers south of the Lebanese border — to Jerusalem, is an annual fundraising bicycle tour whose goal is to raise much needed funds for Alyn Hospital in Jerusalem.
Established almost 50 years ago, Alyn Hospital is one of the world’s leading specialists in the active and intensive rehabilitation of children with a broad range of physical disabilities. It is the only facility of its kind in Israel. Alyn is a non-profit organization treating physically handicapped children and adolescents, regardless of religion or ethnic background.
Over the years Alyn Hospital has developed a wealth of expertise in such fields as the treatment of trauma and head injuries, neuromuscular diseases, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, congenital deformities, rehabilitation of cancer patients, and burn victims.
The best way to describe the ride was that it was like an adult summer camp. This is the only way to express the atmosphere of physically challenging days: team spirit and camaraderie; rooming with strangers; pre-sunrise wake-up calls; tefillah (we prayed in some awe-inspiring places); picnic lunches and days spent outdoors. We received constant admonitions, especially from my wife Claudia, who volunteered on the support team, to drink water, apply sun-block, and stay away from cars. After each day, we would listen to the ride organizers wax on about tomorrow’s schedule while we all craved the idea of getting into bed before 10.
This was no vacation. Each rider had to pay airfare plus a $300 registration fee to defray costs, in addition to the minimum of $2,000 we were also expected to raise from friends and family. There was also the blood, sweat and tears each of us would shed along the grueling 360-kilometer route. That, of course, does not include the significant training regimen beforehand.
The stiffness and fatigue factor was high. We ascended seemingly endless hills, including Mt. Meron, which at 1,100 meters is pre-‘67 Israel’s highest peak. There were several mentally draining off-road ascents and descents, like the roller-coaster slalom from Usfiya to Beit Oren in the Carmel mountain range, near Haifa. The last day’s climb to Jerusalem had me in tears.
For me, participating in the ride was a healthy blend of tzedakah and athletics, topped off with a ton of fun. The ride has given me and others a positive outlet where we can perform a tangible act of tikkun olam — fixing the world — and it reduced our cholesterol levels as well!
If you would like more information about riding in or sponsoring me in next year’s Alyn Bike Ride, contact me at joelbr1@comcast.net.