Kibbutz Ramat Rahel is the southern limit of Shmuel Ash’s winter wanderings in the passage: when he reaches its gate and a suspicious guard shines a flashlight on him, he comes to himself, turns around, and hurries back toward Jerusalem. The encounter gives the kibbutz a brief but decisive role as a threshold that interrupts his disoriented flight through the city.

Setting and Approach

The kibbutz lies at the end of the route Shmuel’s evening walks take through Talpiot and Arnona, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. He arrives there after spending hours outside in the rain, wearing clothes and a coat that have not dried since the previous day’s wandering. His walk has carried him beyond familiar neighborhoods and toward the city’s guarded edges; the kibbutz gate marks the point where that movement can go no farther.

The Gate and the Guard

At the barrier, the watchman illuminates Shmuel with a pocket flashlight. The guard’s wary attention breaks through Shmuel’s exhaustion and distraction: he reacts, turns back, and makes his return in hurried, nervous steps that resemble flight. The kibbutz appears only through this encounter, as a guarded boundary rather than as a place Shmuel enters or inhabits.

Place in Shmuel’s Routine

The visit is part of a repetitive cycle. Shmuel spends nearly every afternoon and evening wandering until fatigue forces him back to bed, then rises again at dusk and is drawn toward the city’s outskirts. Only at the kibbutz barrier does he reliably turn around. Back home, he eats two slices of bread with cottage cheese, spreads out his soaked clothes, burrows into his blanket, and tries in vain for a long while to get warm before sleeping until the next afternoon.

Narrative Significance

Ramat Rahel’s gate converts an apparently aimless walk into a recurring limit: Shmuel’s steps carry him outward, but the guarded entrance sends him back into the same cold domestic routine. The flashlight and barrier provide a brief external interruption to his wandering, while the kibbutz itself remains outside his nightly circuit. Its significance lies in that narrow function: it is the place where his drift stops, not where it finds a destination.