5 November 2004 (21 Kheshvan 5765)
The majority of teachers may ask their students questions about what they have already taught in class in order to check their understanding. For the past few years I have been experimenting with a different method for this purpose in my courses that are not concerned with the practical study of foreign languages. It is to ask each one of my students to ask me in writing any question related to the content of each lesson. This is because what little experience I had with yeshiva study in Jerusalem has convinced me that asking a good question is more demanding and stimulating than making a good answer, forcing us to understand the material we learn better and helping us internalize it better.
This method has two variants; you can ask your students to ask you questions either orally or in writing. Although each has its pros and cons, it seems to me that the second has more advantages than the first. First, it takes less time as all the students can prepare questions simultaneously. Second, phrasing a question in writing requires more intellectual effort. Third, writing back my answers to each student gives them a feeling that they are receiving a personal attention, thus helps make the atmosphere in class cozier as a whole.
Teaching in Japan is generally more difficult than in Israel because the majority of Japanese students do not react orally in class for various reasons. So asking them to ask me questions in writing was a good way to have some kind of interaction with them. Fortunately, this experiment imported from Israel was accepted quite favorably among my students in Japan, at least according to the feedback I received from them.
Now I am importing this method tested in Japan back to Israel. This must have been something new even to my students at Bar-Ilan University. They seemed rather confused in the beginning, but it did not take them long to start finding good questions. They also help me see the materials I am dealing with from new angles. Average Japanese students may have more knowledge than their Israeli counterparts, but the latter seem to fare much better in asking questions. I find it both my pleasure and duty to return to my students here the best parts of what I have received in Japanese and Israeli/Jewish educational systems.
12 November 2004 (28 Kheshvan 5765)
Although I am connected to the Internet all the time when I am at home, I have to seclude myself from the outside world from time to time and have a dialog with myself in silence. This helps me sharpen my senses to filter noise from truly important information and knowledge. The best place for such a self-dialog is a bus or a train on my way to and from my work place.
Unfortunately, however, this precious opportunity of self-contemplation is often severely curtailed by incessant telephone conversations by other passengers. Being among the minority of people who have no cellular phone, I find it difficult to understand why so many people in Israel have to initiate calls during a one-hour ride on the bus or train, oblivious of those around themselves, who are forced to hear their stupid conversations all the way. I always carry earplugs with me to protect myself from this noise, but they do not help me much because these people speak so loudly. The content of their telephone conversations also makes even me feel ashamed as they talk about personal matters I would hesitate to speak in public. These talks are always stupid. I have never heard any telephone conversation on a bus in Israel that has any intelectual content.
I have recently come to a conclusion that a cellular phone is a kind of pacifier for those who have to make phone calls even during a short ride on a bus or a train. They are mental toddlers who need to make sure that they get enough attention from their family and friends by constantly sucking their cellular phones, that is, filling the air with meaningless words. A truly mature person would not need to (over)use such a paficier this way to have trust in his or her family and friends.
19 November 2004 (6 Kislev 5765)
When I was still in Japan, I used to teach 13 courses a week. Although I generally enjoyed teaching, it was rather frustrating that teaching so many courses, most of which had little or nothing to do with my major, did not leave me much time and energy for my own study. Since I teach only four courses a week, I am supposed to have more free time. But this is not the case in reality for good reasons. Although I teach for the first time in my life those subjects that are really related to my major, I spend hours (of course with pleasure) preparing each course. I also have to prepare papers and oral presentations for my academic pleasure and advancement. In short, I am even busier now.
I have been running for many years for my health and pleasure. I used to run in the evening, but for the past several years I have been running in early morning. For the above mentioned reason, however, I find myself inundated now with so many things to do that I often have to stay up late, hence cannot get up early enough for my daily running. I used to run about four times a week, including stretching and isometrics as preparation for and supplementation of running respectively, but these days I have been unable to run more than once or twice a week. I already feel the change in my body.
In a sense I may still be in a good situation as my body is still sensitive enough to notice its change. If such a change occurs even to a person like myself who has been exercising for many years but is forced to reduce the frequency of exercises, it will not be difficult to imagine the physical (un)fitness of those who have never exercised regularly in life. Many of them may never have had enough physical fitness, so may not even be aware of their problem itself. I see more people like this in Israel than in Japan. I myself seem to have to make more conscious efforts to maintain my physical fitness as it seems more difficult to do so in Israel than in Japan, not only because I am busier now but also because Israeli foods are less healthy (but more delicious, at least for me) than Japanese foods.
26 November 2004 (13 Kislev 5765)
This week I could finally unpack the parcels of all the music CDs I had sent from Japan at the end of July. It was a quite refreshing experience to listen again to my favorite music, especially two "Bachs", i.e., Johann Sebastian Bach and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, after almost four months of abstinence from it. The first CD I played in this "Altneuland" was Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, which is not only one of my most favorite works of all times and the first CD I purchased but also symbolizes my previous life here as it is closely connected, for some strange reason, with a certain experience that has left such a strong impression upon me and my life. I also found an unexpected but sad use of these CDs, i.e., as countermeasures against my new neighbors who seem to like and listen to a certain kind of contemporary music with cheap ornamentation (I would not specify it so as not to offend its lovers).
Just like my life itself, my musical taste has also changed and become minimalist. Now I prefer music with minimal unnecessary ornamentations. Music with heavy makeup (especially with drumbeats that are often used to camouflage lack of musical content) can also be a torture for me as various noises like those of barking dogs.
Of course, this was not always the case. Like almost everyone of my generation, I started to listen systematically to music of any kind through the Beatles when I was a junior high school student. Then when I was in high school, I was exposed to the so-called adult contemporary rock (i.e., with less ornamentations than the music of the Beatles) through the English radio station of the American Forces in Japan, to which I listened all the time to improve my listening comprehension in English.
It was only when I came to Israel that I started to listen to classical music systematically. A friend of mine here, who was a great maven of classical music told me then that I would pass the stage of enthusiasm with a certain composer of the Romantic period I like very much, and this was exactly what happened. A concert I went to with a person who became later a very close friend of mine totally enchanted me and kindled my interest in Baroque music with the so-called period instruments. As a perfectionist who has to know everything he can lay his hands on I devoured books and CDs by composers of this period.
At that stage I did not imagine that I would encounter another kind of music that could appeal to me more. It is ironical that I found Hasidic music, including Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, and klezmer music davka in Japan. All this started with a few CDs I had purchased as souveniors for myself before leaving Israel in the summer of 1993. I first listened to these CDs to quench my longing for happy years in Israel, but I also found beauty in their simplicity and authenticity. Naturally I looked everywhere in cyberspace for every piece of information about these kinds of music and eventually found myself surrounded with a rather large collection of CDs.
Jewish folk music of Eastern Europe is to my soul what Baroque (instrumental) music is to my brain. But both of them give me enormous musical pleasure (and protection against neighbors with a different musical taste).