2 May 2008 (27 Nisan 5768)
I returned to Israel this week from a three-weeks' trip in several places in Japan, including Tokyo, where my sister and her husband live and work, Yurihonjo, where I was born and brought up and my parents live, Kobe, where I celebrated the Passover in the local Jewish community, Kyoto, where I gave an academic talk on Jewish studies and Modern Hebrew, and Beppu and Yufuin, two spas I visited in March 2002 and was dreaming of revisiting since then. The trip was a refreshing, revealing and reinforcing one at the same time.
I have never enjoyed my stay in Japan so much as this time. I reappreciated those (kosher) traditional Japanese foods I am familiar with since my childhood. The nature of the country, especially that of my birthplace and Yufuin, was astonishingly beautiful, and streets were clean with few litters unlike in Israel. During my three-weeks' stay I saw now people screaming, honking and cutting in line there. The only problem I had was with incessant repetitive announcements from loudspeakers in public places and means of transportation; I was even more surprised to find that nobody seemed to be bothered by this noise but pay attention to it at all. Bookstores in Tokyo were sheer intellectual pleasure for someone like me who lives in a city with no bookstore that is serious and big enough. This was also a precious opportunity to meet some of my ex-students of Modern Hebrew and some old members of the Jewish Community of Kobe, which I consider as my Jewish alma mater. I was quite moved to hear one of them say to me, "Welcome back" when I met him at the communal seder in the local synagogue.
Paradoxically, this pleasure seems to stem from a strong feeling I had while in Japan - I realized that I do not belong there any more but to Israel. So I could enjoy what Japan has to offer to tourists. I had this feeling most strongly when I davened with familiar faces in my shul Chorev in Jerusalem upon my return here. Israel may not be a paradise and it does have a number of problems, but during and after this trip in Japan I could reappreciate what I have here both in private life and at work and am truly grateful for it.
I feel that this trip has also reinforced my connection with Yiddishkeit. I never wore a yarmulke outside Israel except inside a shul, but this time I did so proudly elsewhere, too (and felt a curious look at me by passers-by). The pinnacle was when I gave a talk with a yarmulke at a Christian university in Kyoto. I have to confess that I always had problems with prayers, but I never felt so much connected to them, especially in the morning, as this time. Davening on the plane with a tales ('prayer shawl') and tfiln ('phylacteries') in spite of a curious look by non-Jewish passengers was such an intensive emotional experience that I almost cried.
9 May 2008 (4 Iyar 5768)
I have been running regularly since I was 18 years old. There were times when I ran one or even two hours every evening and participated in competitions, but for the past decade or so I have been running for about half an hour preceded by stretching and isometrics on the early mornings of weekdays (Sunday through Thursday). This week I decided to variegate the way I send one of the first hours after getting up in the morning by resuming two physical exercises - cycling and swimming - mainly under the influence of my dear friend who is engaged in triathlon among others and starting two new ones - roller skating and dancing - on my own initiative.
Having been an individualist since childhood (and having paid a heavy price to remain so), I never developed a liking for group sports, such as baseball and soccer. Cycling was my most favorite physical exercise all through my childhood through the year, until I stopped it when I entered a university and started living alone as there was no place to keep my bicycle. It was then that I started running as a possible substitute for cycling as both are aerobic exercises that mainly use legs. I grew up near the sea, so I spent most days of a short summer in my birthplace in the north of Japan swimming (or perhaps to be more precise, bathing) in the sea. Having heard that my above mentioned friend not also runs but also ride a bike and swims regularly and enjoys all the three activities, I soon felt that my suppressed desire for resuming these two activities I stopped many years ago was awakened and could not suppress it any longer. Fortunately or unfortunately, I am a kind of person who can never rest until he gets it done once he sets his mind on something that kindles his interest. So I lost no time in buying a new road bike, becoming a member of a swimming pool near my apartment in Jerusalem and started cycling and swimming. I have never imagined until this week that cycling and swimming can be such fun. So I am truly grateful to her for inspiring me, though she does not seem to intend to, (and for a number of other positive influences upon me).
I have never skated on rollers, but I did skate on the ice, and ice skating used to be my favorite winter sport until I left my parents' place to start my university studies. Since then I have been dreaming of resuming it back in Japan and here in Israel, but Israel, at least Jerusalem, is far from being ideal, to say the least, for this intoxicating exercise. This Sabbath I walked around near my apartment and happened to see two boys skating on rollers (or to be more precise, on the so-called rollerblades) at a public roller skating rink near the park where I always run. I was totally enchanted by what I saw. I asked them where to buy these skates and on the following day I was already with my new rollerblades. In my first trial at the same rink this week it took me a little less than an hour to remember the necessary movement of my legs and some other parts of my body, but afterward I could skate more or less smoothly, if not as I used to on the ice in my childhood. Roller skating gives me another kind of pleasure than running, cycling and swimming.
Since I started to get involved deeply in Jewish, especially Ashkenazic, culture, it has been one of my dreams to systematically learn Ashkenazic folk dance. On the very day I asked a good old haredi friend of mine to recommend me someone who would be able to teach it I happened to find that there would be a workshop on this dance in Jerusalem guided by someone whom I know and admire as a musicologist and musician specializing in authentic klezmer music. This Monday I participated in the first of the eight planned sessions of this one-time workshop. The teacher has also turned out to be one of the few experts who are familiar with authentic Ashkenazic folk dance. There were about 30 participants; most of them were women in their thirties, forties, fifties and even sixties, and there were only four men, including myself. I enormously enjoyed the first session that lasted three hours. The fact that my dear and inspiring friend agreed to join me in this workshop also added to my pleasure. I am looking forward to the following weekly sessions.
Human bodies, or human beings in general in this respect, are so fascinating; I find it hard to become a misanthrope in spite of all our problems and follies. I am too busy discovering and learning more and more about ourselves and our own bodies (and psyches) to find time for doing the same about plants, animals or extraterrestrials.
16 May 2008 (11 Iyar 5768)
After returning from a trip in Japan I have been getting bothered more and more by the culture of littering here. Of course, I am not saying that no one litters on the street there, but the quantity of garbage discarded by passers-by there pales in comparison with that in Israel. Jerusalem looks beautiful from afar, but its streets are dirty with garbage. What surprises me more is the fact that some residents in the building where I rent an apartment do not stop littering at its entrance and staircases. I have absolutely no clue about what occurs to them when they make the place of their own residence unhesitatingly and shamelessly.
I have been asking myself how I can explain this culture of littering by certain people in this country. I have been suspecting that there are at least two possible factors that probably reinforce each other. This week I had a chance with a friend of mine who has been fighting against this culture since she immigrated here several years ago from an American city with a keep awareness of ecology among its citizens. When I asked her what she thought of my two explanations, she completely agreed with me. Since I cannot prove them scientifically beyond any doubt and they may not be politically correct, I will not write them here. But the more I observe this culture of littering, the more convinced I am of my own explanations that seem to be valid in many cases, if not in all the cases.
I also notice a correlation between the culture of littering by citizens and the level of human development of their country. My impression is that in many developing countries people do not hesitate to discard garbage in public. This is more than making the streets filthy. It also testifies their lack of public awareness and unwillingness or at least indifference to the wellfare and development of their own city and country. There is no wonder that a country where the majority of citizens think and behave this way cannot develop. Inversely, it may be possible to help develop a country by educating its citizens to stop littering in public.