A Small Country on a Great Bird Highway
The flocks over the Hula Valley reminded me that choosing a direction is only the beginning.
On Election Day, I traveled to watch birds in the Hula Valley. It seemed like the right thing to do.
An election asks us to consider what kind of country we want. Seeing the country reminded me what was at stake.
I traveled by bus and train, among people whose votes I couldn’t know. Many would choose differently from me. Most, I believed, wanted the same thing: a good future for Israel.
I arrived in the Hula Valley wondering what holds Israelis with radically different political beliefs together. Then I looked up.
Large flocks moved through the sky. What held my attention was their cohesion: so many individual birds staying together over such long distances. Their calls filled the air. Individual cries rose above the chorus, then became part of it again.
The flock kept changing shape without coming apart. One of my grandchildren pointed upward. By the time I followed their finger, the formation had shifted again. The birds adjusted to those around them. I found myself watching the space between the birds as much as the birds themselves. How did they stay together across such vast distances?
Israel lies along one of the world’s great bird migration routes. Here, birds crossing continents find a place to rest. The Hula Valley belongs to a geography much larger than the borders on our maps.
On Election Day, that wider perspective was reassuring. Our political arguments frequently occupy the whole horizon. But in the valley, surrounded by my grandchildren, I felt the continuity of life: birds arriving, resting, moving on, returning.
The birds kept calling. I didn’t understand what each call conveyed, but I was struck by how continuously they remained in contact.
Perhaps some of our own noise comes from a determination to remain connected. Sometimes we argue because we care, because we have something at stake, because we expect something of one another.
Our disagreements deserve to be taken seriously, but so does our responsibility to one another. Each of us gets a ballot. None of us gets a country where everyone agrees with us.
Above the Hula Valley, the flocks kept moving. Watching them, I saw that staying together requires both attention to those around us and a willingness to adjust without losing direction.
Election Day recorded our choices. The coming days will reveal how willing we are to build a shared future with those who voted differently.
I left the valley thinking about the birds and the spaces between them. Each bird needed room to fly, yet the flock moved as one.
We still have a long way to fly.
