Mitzvah

photo from Dada

A “mitzvah,” as even your average atheistic non-practicing cultural Jew can tell you, refers to something you’re commanded to do by God, and while no one would accuse the Angry Hippy of being an all-knowing perfectly good Creator of the Universe, I’m pretty sure most of the thirty or so cyclists on this year’s version of his annual bike-camping debauch, Ben Country XIII: The Ben Mitzvah felt—if not commanded—at least strongly advised to fulfill their quasi-religious duty to ride a bunch of unnecessary hills, traverse miles of unexpected trails, and best (that is worst) of all, complete an absolutely ridiculous hike-a-bike (or just camping gear for those whom discretion turned out to be the better part of valor for) through “half a mile” of deadfall and brambles at the end of an already long day in the saddle and under the influence.

But just as Abraham unquestioningly raised the dagger to slay his son Isaac when Yahweh told him to, so did the assembled obediently transgress numerous secular commandments (such as the admonition never to follow Ben up a mountain or Fred down a gravel road) when the route called for it; so great was our faith that we’d be rewarded, not in some possible afterlife but right here and now in this one—at least when we finally managed to stagger through the woods to the washed-out highway to which we were directed.

The suburbs go on for a remarkably long way, but when they finally turn into pastoral valleys and gorgeous mountain watersheds, it’s hard to believe that all those McMansions are just through the woods over the hill.  It’s a little—all right, a lot—of extra work to get to real seclusion, but when it means you can roar as loud as you want for as long as you want, it’s worth it.

If Ben Country were a young Jewish boy, he would now officially be a man.

Mazel fucking Tov.