The actual meaning of the words “Bar Mizvah” in Hebrew are a person who has come to the age where he's earned the right for doing mizvahs – no longer a little boy who sheds in his parents' doing, this is the ultimate crossroad between the children and adults' worlds.

 

When my son Ziv neared that crossroad, I felt as if the culture around me has little to offer in terms of ways to signify this important day. To the help came the tradition which emerged in my family for the past few years – what we, the Almogs, like to call “Journey of Values”. Sounds bombastic, true, but in reality there's nothing less basic and simple than that: you just take yourself, a close soul, and start walking. And walking. And walking. You connect with the landscape around you – the physical and the human landscape alike – through your stomping feet.

 

It began with my firstborn son Or – some six years ago on his Bar-Mitzvah, we took a 600 kilometers journey surrounding the Israel National Trail, a hiking path that crosses our small country from south to north (yet come to think about it, when you're confronted with walking through it all – Israel suddenly starts resembling the huge plains of Texas. Here's what a bit of walking can do to your perception).

 

My middle daughter Shahar also took a walking journey with her mother and three close friends at the time of her Bat Mizvah, and a full mizvahs circle was completed just last Passover with Ziv, my youngest son. We decided that this time we're going to walk all the way from our home in Yahud to Jerusalem – 5 days of unstoppable walk towards the holy city.

 

Only this time we thought, why not invite people to share with us what we already know is such an extraordinary experience? And so we wrote to the Jewish Agency, told about our plan – and soon came an answer from Howard and isaac – father and son from Brooklyn, NY, who never visited Israel before and wished to join us and celebrate this way Isaac's big 13.

 

For 5 days, the four of us walked 17-18 km, full of challenges and difficulties we simply had to overcome together. We visited Israel's memorial sites, heard about the area's history from different people and perspectives, and on the last day we got up and, well, conquered Jerusalem.

 

As Howard described it in his words, sent to us from Brooklyn a few weeks after their flight back, “Our hike was a unique way to get to Jerusalem, different from the tours anyone else goes on”. And summing it up in a few sentences that were thrilling to read, he also wrote: “Being with Isaac, just the two of us, created a memory and a bond he and I will share for the rest of our lives. It changed the way we interact and has helped him to meet the next set of challenges he is facing as he gets older”. I don't think there's a better way to illustrate the true meaning of the expression “Bar Mizvah