4 July 2008 (1 Tamuz 5768)
(no update due to a busy schedule)
11 July 2008 (8 Tamuz 5768)
When I resumed swimming and cycling, which used to be two of my favorite pastimes in my boyhood, a few months ago, I thought it would be enough to swim and ride a bike once a week respectively. But because of their positive influence on my body and soul, I have increased their frequently gradually; now I find myself swimming and riding a bike (as well as running as before) about four times a week respectively. I thought this increase in physical actively would quench my thirst. But this resumption of two childhood pastimes I had to suspend for a few practical reasons seems to have roused thirst for learning two things I long wanted to but had to suppress - cooking and playing some musical instrument.
In the time and place in which I was born and raised the kitchen was considered to be a place reserved exclusively for women. Since I was a small child I like to cook. I remember that lessons in cooking at school were among the most enjoyable and unforgettable ones for me. It took me quite a long time, even into the early twenties, to get rid of the above preconception. The fact that the best cooks are actually men have also helped me in this transition. What I really like about cooking is not the process of cooking itself but arranging foods esthetically and on appropriate dishes, serving them to people who are dear to me and seeing their satisfied faces. I thought of learning to cook systematically a number of times when I was still in Japan, but because they might use certain kinds of foods I neither eat nor can even touch, I had to give up the idea. I have started to look for a place in Jerusalem where I can learn how to cook, especially in a natural and minimalist way.
My parents grew up in extreme poverty and had to give up their studies quite early in their lives, so they, especially my father, always encouranged me in my studies and supported me both morally and financially. I owe much of what I am academically to them. Although I have no explanation for my love for languages as there is no one among my family members and relatives who are polyglots, I do owe my mathematical thinking, which helps me a lot as a linguist, to him. There is, however, one area in which I wished they had sent me for private lessons as they did with my sister - playing musical instruments. Again in the time and place in which I was born and raised it was considered feminine to learn how to play musical instruments. I remember that only my female classmates learned how to play the piano privately; if my male classmated had discovered that I was learning to play it, I might have been bullied. Fortunately or unfortunately, I had no chance in my childhood to learn any musical instrument systematically except for the recorder, which was obligatory in elementary and junior high schools in Japan, at least back then. The instrument I have been dreaming of learning to play since I was exposed to klezmer music is the clarinet. But considering the noise it is liable to make to my neighbors, thus causing them suffering and strifes between us, I will have to postpone this dream until I own some castle. ;-) In this respect the recorder can been a better choice. I also like recorder works in the late Baroque period, especially those by Telemann and Handel. How wonderful it would be, though it does not seem realizable, to find a spouse with whom I can play these works together - I the recorder and she the harpsichord. Just as dancing by yourself gives you ten times as much pleasure as watching someone else dance, so does playing some musical instrument give you far greater pleasure to listening to someone else. In the meanwhile I make a compromise with myself by playing my own "instrument" called voice - I like to sing Sabbath songs (in traditional Ashkenazic pronunciation) at Sabbath tables.
18 July 2008 (15 Tamuz 5768)
Although I am already 45 years old, it is only a few years ago that I finally felt ready to get married and started to look for a spouse seriously. I am grateful to my friends and ex-teachers for thinking of me and introducing me women they know directly or indirectly. This way I have been introduced at least 20, but I have met only two of them in three dimensions so far. It is said in the Jewish culture that finding an appropriate spouse is as difficult as the splitting of the Red Sea. Unfortunately, I have not been successful so far in disproving this popular Jewish saying. I may have been too picky, but there are four things I would like to see in a prospective spouse.
Before elaborating upon these preconditions, I would like to stress in advance that love is not one of them, as I am more and more convinced that love should come after marriage as you see your wife's positive character traits and respect her as a person. Then whom I can respect and then love later? Someone who has or does the following things for four types of health, which will surely help me and her to make the best use of our life together as a means of attaining the goal of our life - training of our soul in a physical body. These four types of health are physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.
Since I believe that we can train our soul only through our physical being and our body is something we borrow temporarily in our present reincarnation, I think it out utmost responsibility to use it as carefully as possible and keep it physically fit as possible. Physical health is also the main source of the other three types of health. In this respect I cannot consider anyone who spares efforts to keep herself physically fit. There are two ways to do so. One way is to keep minimalist diet, staying away from junk foods and eating regularly. It is not easy to implement such diet in Israel, as eating is not an action but a state in Jewish culture, but if you have enough self-discipline and are aware that your body is actually not yours, you will naturally be more sensitive to what and how you eat. The other way is to engage in some regular physical exercise. Sharing love for the same physical exercise(s) can also have social and emotional effects in making the relationship closer.
The best way to keep mental health, in my opinion, is to have a sense of humor. Jokes are not only for fun. It is a mental buffer to cope with difficulties in life, taking them less emotionally and more objectively. A sense of humor may be something we are born with, and it may not be so easy to develop it later in one's life, but I think one can at least learn to appreciate it. I have also noticed that those who have admirable sense of humor happen to have undergone difficult times in their life. Having a difficult life does not automatically lead to a sophisticated sense of humor, but if you want to turn it to a series of positive learning experiences and learn lessons from them, you will naturally learn to see them with a sense of humor. It also makes other people around you happier.
I find emotional health in those who emit emotional warmth. They are generally people who are happy with what (little) they have and are instinctively inclined to share their joy of life with others around them by inviting them to their home or simply by saying or doing small nice things. It is often the case that they do not have to say or do anything at all for this; their mere presence radiates warmth around them. Emotional warmth is our default state; even those who seem emotionally cold are instinctively attracted, often unconsciously to those who are emotionally warm.
There may be various ways to attain spiritual health. But as far as I am concerned, the best way I have found for this purpose is Yiddishkeit. In this respect I am happy and proud to be an official part of this spiritual tradition. It has already proven itself for the last three thousand years. I feel that I have a direct channel to tap into this rich spiritual source of energy and health. Even physical commandments are meant for spiritual growth, though I cannot always truly appreciate their spiritual significance. For the harmony of a family life I can only think of someone with a close connection to Yiddishkeit as a possible "collaborator".
As long as these four conditions are met, the rest is totally marginal for me.
25 July 2008 (22 Tamuz 5768)
I started drinking alcohol against my will at the age of 18 as part of the rite of passage every university student in Japan experiences. Drinking, like smoking, is perhaps an acquired taste in that you must be forced or force yourself to drink for a certain period of time until you come to appreciate and like it (and sometimes become dependent on it). It took me two years of forced drinking until I started to really like beer, which was and still is the most popular alcoholic beverage in parties in Japan. It took me another several years to find how much I can drink without getting drunk. Since drunkenness depends not only on the quantity of alcohol but also on other factors such as the state of mind and body, I have been continuing until this very day to miscalculate the quantity of alcohol and get intoxicated. But even when I am drunk, I am sober enough to remember embarrassing behaviors I repeat under such a condition, and once I become totally sober, I am tormented by a pang of conscience. At least in the last several years the following three seem to be the most common of all the embarrasing behaviors I repeat under the influence of alcohol.
First of all, and most embarrassingly, I start to criticize directly and unsparingly those behaviors that seem universally unacceptably in every society and culture, such as hypocrisy and malicious gossips. This way I dared to criticize not only my colleagues but even my ex-teachers. The worst type of this behavior is by email. Although I am slow in and bad at academic papers, I can be surprisingly eloquent in writing such criticisms when I am drunk. Fortunately, however, I have come to be able to control myself in order not to allow myself to open email, which can be a lethal weapon. Especially after I have decided to concentrate on the positive side of everything, I seldom criticize others except when I become really angry.
Second, and far more commonly these days, I go to another extreme, i.e., I make exaggerated compliments to those I do respect. This embarrasses me not less when I become sober again and am reminded of it. Actually, exaggerated compliments and unsparing criticisms have one thing in common: they are characterized by hyperbole, which is incidentally a common Jewish verbal characteristic. When I am drunk, I am liable to overdo compliments not only to those I know personally but also to totally strangers, including taxi drivers and passers-by in whom I find some reason for praise, but excluding young women so that I may be not be arrested for sexual harassment.
Third, especially after I came to Israel this time, I start to give shiatsu massage to anyone who happens to be within my arm's reach. Naturally, not everyone feels comfortable receiving such a treatment in every situation. Recently I was so embarrassed to find myself doing this at the synagogue where I regularly daven. It seems to be that this behavior derives from my frustration that I have nowhere to go here in Israel to receive shiatsu massage, as I used to at least once a week when I still lived in Kobe. I tried several shiatsu masseurs in Jerusalem, but all of them without exception only added to my frustration as none of them knew what they were doing.