2 April 2004 (11 Nisan 5764)
This was a very special week for me. My parents visited me from Sunday through Thursday. It was the first time that they came together to visit me since I started living alone at the age of 18. This must also be a special visit for them for another reason: they had not traveled together for many years. I wanted to show them where (and how) I live. During their five-day stay here we visited such various places as Kitano (the area where I live), Kobe Port, Mt. Rokko and Arima Spa in Kobe and Kiyomizu Temple, Kinkakuji Temple, Ginkakuji Temple, Ryoanji Temple, Mt. Hiei and Arashiyama in Kyoto. I am sure that the time we spent together will remain as one of the unforgettable memories in our mind.
Even in these happy moments (or precisely because of happiness), however, I often felt sudden bursts of deep sorrow. In addition to the sorrow that these moments were ephemeral, what tormented and is still tormenting me is the guilty feeling for not supporting my aging parents by living with or near them. By observing them and what they experienced from their viewpoint I saw that Akita (the prefecture where they were born and live) are so different from Kansai (Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and their vicinities) not only culturally but even linguistically, as if they were two separate countries.
What can I do in Akita to make good use of what I have studied? Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do not only there but actually in Kobe and other big cities in Japan. What I specialize in - Hebrew and Jewish linguistics - has no demand in this country. Israel is probably where I can make the best use of my training as a Hebrew linguist. The question that has been rehaunting me since my parents' visit is whether I should or have the right to precedence to my professional pursuit over everything else though my parents have been telling me to do so. Having traveled with them for five days, however, I have felt anew how much I owe them, and in spite of what they tell me, I simply do not know what to do and am torn between three possible alternatives.
9 April 2004 (18 Nisan 5764)
Unlike most other uses of language, verbal greetings are essentially phatic in nature in that the very act of greeting is the message itself and far more important than the content, which is mostly formulaic probably in all the cultures of the world, hence is not interpreted literally. When two people with two different cultural and/or linguistic backgrounds have to greet each other, they can do so either according to their own culture and/or language or according to the culture and/or language of their interlocutor. Even if someone should greet you according to their cultural tradition or value that may contradict yours, a sensible behavior would be to thank them for their good intention and greet them back in whatever way you choose.
I have seen a lot of insensitive behaviors by others and I myself might have behaved insensitively, but the one I witnessed this week is one of the most enigmatic and shocking I have ever seen. Does a person have to go so far as to publicly criticize those who greeted a group of people including him with good intention, even though they did so in a way that he did not like because of the literal meaning of their greetings, and to threaten to greet them back in a most malicious way if they do not stop? Unfortunately, it is often the case that the louder noise one makes, the more successful one can be in forcing one's own agenda upon others. Seemingly, he has succeeded in convincing them and others in this group of people not to dare to greet each other in a way that may be perfectly acceptable to most of them but gets on his nerves personally, but I am afraid that he has more losses than gains as he has proclaimed to the whole group that he is insensitive to others and ignorant of the phatic nature of greetings.
16 April 2004 (25 Nisan 5764)
Three Japanese - two peaceniks and one freelance journalist - who had been kidnapped in Iraq a week before were released last night. The more I know about the background of this incident, the more annoyed I feel by the behavior and thought of the three, especially of the two peaceniks, though I am not of course justifying the act of kidnappers. At least according to what I have read on online bulletin boards and in nonleftist newspapers, I do not seem to belong to the minority in this respect.
I am annoyed more than anything else by the naiveness of the two leftist peaceniks as well as some of their family members and two leftist parties who shifted the responsibility on to the Japanese government. In spite of their seemingly noble motives, what they were trying to do was mostly self-gratification after all. What can unarmed civilian individuals do to help people in such a wartime situation? This is exactly the reason why the Japanese government dispatched troupes of the Self-Defense Forces there.
One has the right to believe that everyone in the world has good intentions like oneself, but one also has to face the reality; one cannot change the reality as one wishes just by believing naively. One may have the right to behave according to such naive belief, but one has to be responsible for any outcome that follows one's own folly; if one cannot be responsible for it by oneself, one should not put one's plan into practice.
To the detriment of the Japanese government and the whole nation, what these three did - to go to Iraq now in spite of the repeated warnings by the government - was such an act of folly. And who is paying the price? The very government they criticize for dispatching the Self-Defense Forces and we tax-payers the majority of whom support this decision by the government.
"All is well that ends well" does not apply to this case. The three have the responsibility to explain about their folly to the whole nation upon their return to Japan. Having heard enough about what they were reported to have said about their motives, many people back in Japan may not be so hospitable to them as their kidnappers are said to have treated them.
I am glad that the government has managed to overcome this crisis without succumbing to the demand by the kidnappers and anti-Japanese Japanese peaceniks. It seems to me that this incident has thrown into sharp relief how naive, irresponsible and untrustworthy leftist peaceniks are.
23 April 2004 (2 Iyar 5764)
I used to consider communism as the greatest peril to mankind. It seems, however, that I have to change this idea, not because I have stopped seeing communism with suspicion, but because the more I know about a certain ideology, the more convinced I become that it poses far greater danger and damage to our species than communism.
In talking about any ideology, one has to distinguish between what it originally preaches, hence is ideally supposed to be on the one hand and how it is actually applied in real life on the other. I used to think that the ideology I am talking about is originally noble but is corrupted by its fanatic adherents. Since these "corruptions" seemed to me quite rampant, I started examining its "holy scriptures" with commentaries by its researchers and rather self-justifying explanations by its adherents.
When I read these scriptures many years ago, I did not notice anything wrong though they did not appeal to me, either. Quite surprisingly, however, as I read them now, they emerge before my eyes as writings that are full of internal contradictions and encourage negative character traits such as fear and hatred. In other words, this ideology is not corrupted by some of its fanatic adherents but is fanatic by definition from the very beginning.
What hinders its progress and bothers me personally more than anything else is that just like communism, it is not ready to accept any criticism against it by anyone, even if it is constructive, nor does it allow its adherents to leave it for anything else. I just feel sorry for those who have to continue living pretending out of fear to follow it ardently while in reality they are disillusioned.
30 April 2004 (9 Iyar 5764)
Every year about 30-40 students come to the first lesson of an elective course in elementary Modern Hebrew I have been teaching for the past ten years. By the third lesson, however, more than half or even two thirds of them have generally dropped out of the course. In the first lesson I always ask my potential students what made them come to this course, and in the third or fourth lesson by when the number of "survivors" has stabilized, I ask them again the same question.
I have not encountered any single student who persevered until the last lesson without enough motivation before the start of the course. Many of those who come to the first lesson without enough motivation may be expecting to be motivated by the course and the instructor themselves. First of all, I do not think a language course is required to motivate students without enough prior motivation to start learning a new language. Secondly, motivation generated in the course itself is never enough to pass the first obstacle of learning the writing system of a new language, especially if it uses non-Latin characters.
Although I like and enjoy teaching, nothing motivates me less than having to cope with students with no or enough motivation. It is true that the large number of students can be an impetus to many teachers, including myself, but I prefer having a smaller number of students with enough motivation from the very beginning than having a larger number of students many of whom are not motivated enough and soon drop out. I have been taking the lenient approach of Hillel in accepting new students, but if I am to continue teaching this course, I should probably consider taking the stringent approach of Shammai by making sure that no student without enough prior motivation will stray into the classroom.