The corner flower shop in the village of Rishpon symbolizes for me the lost Israeli innocence - a virtue by which I’m touched every Independence Eve while watching the torch lighters. Whether the shop’s open or closed, you can always get a bouquet of flowers, leave money or not in the plate, take change or not, and walk away as if nothing had happened. That’s why I did not hesitate while looking for something expressing Israeli empathy, in order to open a new column that would present buildings with environmental concern.

It was Passover Eve, and the spirit of God was upon the little village, whose inhabitants has each, in addition to home and garden, an agricultural area big enough to hold a development town. I almost made the mistake of thinking I was abroad on Christmas Eve or Passover. No officials, no embezzlements, and less harassment.

“It’s so pastoral”, said a passer-by, “to see you standing in the middle of the junction taking pictures”. A piece of cake, I thought to myself, it is all under your nose, just to take it and put it in the papers with a small caption saying “It made my holiday”. But a car that hadn’t stopped at the stop sign got into the frame of the “legend”, reminding me of the easy money farmers make at the expense of the country’s agricultural lands.

Adjacent to the flower shop, a huge sign says “Dayeinu” (that would be enough), probably wanting to say: “If he had given us only the home and not given us the flowers, that would be enough; if he had given us the flowers and not given us the land, if he had given us the land and not conditioned its being in this country, if he had conditioned its being in this country but determined its borders, if he had determined its borders and kept us from spilling out of them - dayeinu”.

Frank Lloyd Wright, I told the pastoral passer, used to compare his houses to the people he planned them for: “...here are the legs, here’s the body and here’s the soul. What you see outside is the inner architectural say”. Nowadays, most of the houses in Rishpon are a recycled version of Wright’s houses, with the enclosed interior reflecting the owners, but the exterior - their opinion about the world.

I looked at the simple illuminated house, and knew that whoever had bothered - belonged to the forgotten Eretz Yisrael. I admired the attention given to each detail, and bet the owners - probably the offspring of whoever had worked hard to establish the farm in 1936, are neighbors it would be fun to live nearby. But the 4x4 driver who hadn’t stopped at the stop-sign made me forget the social injustice when he shouted to me, “Ya’alla, get out of here, who gave you permission to take pictures?”

Since I didn’t have the chance to answer the “neighborhood owner” before he threw the cigarette-box on the ground, I would like to ask whoever knows somebody like that to forward him the following message: In each and every generation, a person must see his home as if it were part of the surroundings, and the more one nurtures the environment and neighbors, the better it is.

And yes, I liked the kitschy flower shop of Vered and Jacky, with the modest house and garden behind it. May there be more of them.

Architect Dr.Ami Ran