I try very hard. Usually it works and I'm quite successful at suppressing it, but sometimes it comes back and hits me right in the face, a kind of paralyzing feeling that prevents one from thinking clearly. I can't describe it in words, but on Saturday morning I felt that I was about to suffer a severe attack of it. I can't stay in the room, I can't stay in front of the computer, I have to keep myself busy, to distract myself, otherwise it's liable to overcome me. Although I've learned from experience that these are passing incidents - still, each time, I'm afraid that the present attack will last forever and will completely destroy my life.

"Let's go," I find myself shouting, in order to overcome the trembling in my voice that takes over in such instances. "Let's go out somewhere - to the zoo! What do you say?"

It's important to take a deep breath; yes, the most important thing is to breathe. I try to share the children's joy, to really be there when I dress them, to concentrate totally on preparing the sandwiches. I'm supposed to forget what I am experiencing, my thoughts are not allowed to stray beyond the physical thing that I'm doing at that moment. If I'm tying shoelaces, they must be my entire world.

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I'll drive slowly and pay attention only to the road. I'll breathe deeply, maybe hum along with a happy tune on the radio. I'll hold on tighter to the steering wheel and in that way I'll control the trembling. My palms are perspiring, but I almost manage to keep them still. I must exchange the sequence of pictures in my mind for others - the zoo, I remind myself. The elephants, tigers and lions.

"Are we going to see the elephant?" I ask the baby. "Do you want to see the elephant?" Elephant, I have to concentrate on the elephant. "Yes, a big elephant, with huge ears - an elephant with a trunk. Say 'elephant.' Good! An elephant with lovely white tusks."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, why are you asking, am I pale?"

"No, I was just asking."

"I'm fine, my head is a little ... I didn't sleep well, I was dizzy."

The sounds of the animals - I think it is the monkeys' screams - upset me. I feel that my pulse, which was fast to begin with, is reaching new heights and that the fuzzy pictures in my head are changing at a dizzying pace.

"How sad," I hear my wife whispering next to the lion's cage, so the children won't hear. "He is depressed, that lion."

"Why are you depressed - tell me?" I find myself shouting at the lion, and the visitors are staring at me. I try to stop myself, I know that I'm behaving like a lunatic, but I can't stop, and my voice only goes higher and higher. "You're pretending to be depressed? You want to switch places - come on, let's go, let's change places, you crybaby!"

"What are you doing? What happened to you?" says my wife, pulling at me with tears in her eyes.

But I stand on the concrete barrier opposite the cage and turn first to the lion and then to the audience that has started to gather. "What, what exactly hurts you, eh? What's so bad here? Once I really had pity on animals in the zoo, that's why I didn't come to visit. But now I understand that they have it good here, they have it good here, lion! Do you hear? Better than outside. What exactly are you lacking? Freedom, liberty. I'm like you: Freedom was the supreme value for me, but what does it really mean to run around in the wild with members of your species? Freedom, my dear lion, also means the jungle, with the laws of the jungle. So isn't a cage better? At least here you'll feel protected."

More and more people begin to gather around the lion's cage. Very quickly the rumor spreads that there's action here, and parents have rushed to bring their bored children closer, and push to find a good place opposite me.

"I wish I had your sense of security," I shout to the lion, "not to mention the other animals of the jungle that are weaker than you. Take the zebra, for example. Here a fence separates you from her and, excuse me, but you both look quite satisfied. Zebras and other less fortunate animals wouldn't survive like you, but you also should thank your lucky stars. Even you, if you were outside - you would have to fight other lions all your life over territory. Even out there a tough lion would make your life bitter and would attack you! Isn't it better here, in a protected space, without wars and with one guaranteed wife for the rest of your life?"

The audience applauds. I nod my head slightly and continue: "You're thinking of escaping, but to where? Is there anywhere to escape to? And what exactly can you do in a foreign country anyway? You need a lot of money in order to emigrate with a family. Sometimes I think I'm too old to emigrate, I don't have the strength to learn about a new country, to understand its culture. If I emigrate I'd certainly be more like those Turkish people who refuse to speak German - not out of ideology, but from a lack of desire. If I were to move to London, it's likely that that would be the only city I would even be able to identify on the map of England."

My wife is crying next to me, with tears in her eyes, pleading: "Please stop, please."

"Just a minute," I say to her, turning to the lion. "Listen to a story. I got up this morning ..." And suddenly I recall how the attack began.

"I turned on my computer and what did I see? Muslims and Christians fighting in the North, casualties in a gang war the Galilee Triangle, Border Police photographing Arabs entering the shopping mall in Kfar Sava, and one girl with a bloody face crying in a hospital in Gaza. What are they, dear animals, that they are treated that way? What are they, animals, that they treat one another that way? Excuse me, I apologize to all the animals - this is only a metaphor. I have no intention of insulting you."

I see that the lion accepts my apology, nodding with his mane as a sign to continue. "It's better here, where it's safe. In other words, it's clear that a zoo in England is preferable, but you get what I mean. At least in a zoo there are no herds - there are no nations, if you will. The emphasis is on the individual, each with his own cage; he can think whatever he wants and do as he wishes without being influenced by social pressure.

"It's frightening to be part of a herd, it's frightening to be a nation, it's even more frightening to be a majority in a nation, and it's frightening to be in a democratic regime. Democracy. Another supreme value on which I was educated that has turned into a serious threat. Majority opinion scares me. Over time I have understood that it is almost impossible for mass opinion to be moral. A majority opinion that is dictated by business or government is motivated primarily by economic domination. Look at you, look at us. The fact that the masses are convinced that they are right is definite proof that they are mistaken. A majority is always wrong - ask the lion."

The audience applauds, children throw me peanuts. I bow to them and climb down from the cement barrier.

"Let's go home," says my wife with swollen eyes, holding my arm tightly. "Come, I'll take you to the hospital."

"Why, what have I done?" I protest. "I was right, did you see? The majority agreed with me."