WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.350 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.350 --> 00:00:07.170 align:middle line:84% This poem is about my mother, and it's 00:00:07.170 --> 00:00:12.300 align:middle line:84% based on the motherly advice, which maybe some of you 00:00:12.300 --> 00:00:14.310 align:middle line:90% still remember. 00:00:14.310 --> 00:00:19.110 align:middle line:84% I don't know whether modern mothers still 00:00:19.110 --> 00:00:23.190 align:middle line:84% have this advice that you should never sleep 00:00:23.190 --> 00:00:24.990 align:middle line:90% with flowers in your room. 00:00:24.990 --> 00:00:27.270 align:middle line:84% Always take out flowers from bedrooms. 00:00:27.270 --> 00:00:31.440 align:middle line:84% And even in hospitals, the nurses in the evening 00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:33.370 align:middle line:90% rush to get out all the flowers. 00:00:33.370 --> 00:00:38.580 align:middle line:84% I always think, what do they do with all these flowers now? 00:00:38.580 --> 00:00:43.800 align:middle line:84% But, anyhow, it has some scientific reason 00:00:43.800 --> 00:00:46.410 align:middle line:84% with oxygen and nitrogen and something like that. 00:00:46.410 --> 00:00:52.030 align:middle line:84% But no one has ever died of a death of flowers. 00:00:52.030 --> 00:01:00.440 align:middle line:84% And so I think this advice-- and, actually, 00:01:00.440 --> 00:01:04.980 align:middle line:84% it's very funny that all of us keep 00:01:04.980 --> 00:01:10.440 align:middle line:84% these kinds of almost silly or foolish advice, or anyhow 00:01:10.440 --> 00:01:16.380 align:middle line:84% very unimportant advice, with us and the real advice 00:01:16.380 --> 00:01:19.720 align:middle line:84% we never take with us because we don't do it. 00:01:19.720 --> 00:01:22.830 align:middle line:84% So I think mothers and fathers have long given up 00:01:22.830 --> 00:01:25.410 align:middle line:84% to have this advice, and they just 00:01:25.410 --> 00:01:30.570 align:middle line:84% limit themselves to this kind of almost ridiculous advice. 00:01:30.570 --> 00:01:33.150 align:middle line:90% 00:01:33.150 --> 00:01:34.598 align:middle line:90% And these stay with us. 00:01:34.598 --> 00:01:35.640 align:middle line:90% That's the strange thing. 00:01:35.640 --> 00:01:42.000 align:middle line:84% I remember in World War Two in the Jewish brigade group, 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:48.660 align:middle line:84% we had a song in Hebrew, which a mother or sending a letter 00:01:48.660 --> 00:01:53.610 align:middle line:90% to her son, and it went that-- 00:01:53.610 --> 00:01:57.210 align:middle line:84% if you go to attack the enemy, never 00:01:57.210 --> 00:02:05.370 align:middle line:84% forget to wear a sweater, which, again, is one of these advices. 00:02:05.370 --> 00:02:08.250 align:middle line:84% But if you come to think of it-- and it 00:02:08.250 --> 00:02:11.490 align:middle line:84% was meant to be funny because soldiers 00:02:11.490 --> 00:02:14.220 align:middle line:84% want to overcome the deep fear, so they 00:02:14.220 --> 00:02:16.650 align:middle line:90% make fun of all these things. 00:02:16.650 --> 00:02:21.270 align:middle line:84% But, actually, I think this advice is just 00:02:21.270 --> 00:02:24.750 align:middle line:84% a kind of representative of the real thing she wanted to say. 00:02:24.750 --> 00:02:28.260 align:middle line:84% Actually, this mother wanted to say, don't go to war at all, 00:02:28.260 --> 00:02:33.690 align:middle line:84% and if you see the enemy, run as fast as you can. 00:02:33.690 --> 00:02:36.580 align:middle line:90% But she knows it won't help. 00:02:36.580 --> 00:02:43.260 align:middle line:84% So it's actually this advice which we carry around with us. 00:02:43.260 --> 00:02:46.140 align:middle line:90% 00:02:46.140 --> 00:02:54.570 align:middle line:84% "My mother once told me not to sleep with flowers in the room. 00:02:54.570 --> 00:02:58.230 align:middle line:84% Since then, I have not slept with flowers. 00:02:58.230 --> 00:03:02.700 align:middle line:90% I sleep alone without them. 00:03:02.700 --> 00:03:08.280 align:middle line:84% There were many flowers, but I've never had enough time, 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:13.140 align:middle line:84% and the persons I love are already pushing themselves away 00:03:13.140 --> 00:03:18.660 align:middle line:84% from my life like boats away from the shore. 00:03:18.660 --> 00:03:23.640 align:middle line:84% My mother said not to sleep with flowers. 00:03:23.640 --> 00:03:25.410 align:middle line:90% You won't sleep. 00:03:25.410 --> 00:03:29.640 align:middle line:84% You won't sleep, mother of my childhood. 00:03:29.640 --> 00:03:36.690 align:middle line:84% The banister I clung to when they dragged me off to school 00:03:36.690 --> 00:03:43.380 align:middle line:84% is long since burned, but my hands clinging 00:03:43.380 --> 00:03:46.670 align:middle line:90% remain clinging." 00:03:46.670 --> 00:03:48.000 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