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process that raised as many questions as it answered, as something we could learn from.

The second high-point was a couple named David and Leah Zimmerman. Though Mishmar Hasharon, like other kibbutzim, was secular, they introduced us to the Talmud, the ancient compendium of rabbinic discussion and debate on the meaning of passages from the Bible. We focused on two tractates, Baba Kama and Baba Metziah, in which the rabbis drew on verses from Exodus to argue out a system of rules for resolving civil disputes. It was the Talmud of torts. The intricacy and the depth of the rabbinical debate fascinated me.

* * *

Yigal returned from the army a few months after the 1956 war, when, like other teenagers, I was about to enter a pre-military program known as Gadna. There were several options kids could choose. One was linked to the air force, another to the navy. But most of us joined the reconnaissance and scouting group, Gadna Sayerim. It involved studying topography and navigation, as well as field exercises that were a lot like the ones Yigal had put us through a few years earlier. At year’s end, we took part in a national exercise. It was called, a bit grandiosely, Miyam el Yam: from sea to sea. We had to find our way from the Mediterranean, near Haifa, across northern Israel to a lake which was a sea only in name, the Sea of Galilee. It lasted three days. We were placed in teams of four. We were each given a topographical map and a compass, with landmarks marked along the way which we had to find and draw in a notebook to prove we’d been there.

A couple of hours in, we faced our first challenge. We were making our way along a shepherds’ trail, with brush and bramble on either side, when the path split in two. We had to decide which fork to take. The map didn’t help. Each inch covered the equivalent of a mile-and-a-half. The key was to be able to match it with what we were seeing around us. To use points we could identify from the map – Haifa and the sea in the receding distance, and a taller hill to our northeast – and then figure out which path was more likely to take us in the right direction. I knew this mix of calculation and imagination was something I enjoyed. But it was more than that. Each of us had had the same preparation for the exercise. As my trek-mates turned to me for this first decision, and then on

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