Gears we never use

I keep a quote on my desk attributed to Peanuts creator Charles Schultz: “Life is like a 10-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.”

It was my great honor in December to ride 180 miles-through the beautiful hill country of the Judean Desert, Dead Sea, and Negev regions of Israel, then up to Jerusalem-to raise money for a remarkable children’s rehabilitation hospital in Jerusalem called ALYN Hospital. I first heard about ALYN-which JUF’s Israel Emergency Fund has supported-during rabbinic school in 1990 when I would take a young boy swimming each week. Like every organization and institution in Israel, ALYN has suffered greatly during these last 16 months. Nothing has been the same since October 7. I had been to Israel four times since the war started, but wanted-rather needed-to do something different. At the last minute, I signed up. A few key learnings:

1. Forty to 50 miles a day is not the same as a 20-minute Peloton class at home. I probably should have trained a little bit more.
2. Never fly through the night without sleeping, land at 7 a.m., and be on a rental bike, at the starting line, at 9 a.m.
3. Never skip registration and start a ride without a bottle of water, earphones, a charged phone, or something to nosh.
4. Hills in Israel are really hills, and down the hill is even scarier than up the hill.
5. It’s amazing to ride with Jewish people from 10 different countries and to talk with Israelis from all over the country, each experiencing their own trauma.
6. Jewish geography is always easy on a bike. Every person on a bike has a story.
7. There is a special place in heaven for wheelchair hand bike riders and the team of athletes and family members who help them and train them.
8. No matter what, there’s no better way to clear your mind than hopping on a bicycle. True when I was 10; truer at 60.
9. I learned from several riders-including Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s dad, Jon Polin, who has been riding Wheels of Love for 10 years-that sometimes the only way through a tough situation is to “ride through” it.
10. Volunteers always brighten your day, especially after 40 miles, handing out snacks, beers, and smiles.
11. When your rental bike breaks down on the last day at the base of the hardest hill, and the only bike the mechanic can give you is an electric assist bicycle, just thank him, and give a little thanks to that Big Guy upstairs.
12. It’s better to be a lousy bike rider and a really good fundraiser than the other way around. I finished as the second highest fundraiser this year, raising over $110,000 for the children of Alyn, thanks to 120 incredibly generous people.
13. When children in wheelchairs with huge smiles give you a medal after 180 miles of bike riding, you have to sign up to ride again.
14. Like H.G. Wells, I too believe, “Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.”

Rabbi Steven Stark Lowenstein is the senior rabbi of Am Shalom Congregation in Glencoe, and the author of For the Love of Being Jewish and For the Love of Israel.

To learn more about ALYN Hospital, visit alyn.org.