5 September 2008 (5 Elul 5768)
I am still immersed in the echoes of the Yidish-Vokh ('Yiddish Week'), in which I participated from August 20 to 27, finding it rather difficult to normalcy back in Jerusalem, though a lot of work to do and a lot of books to read are waiting for me. One of the things that drew my special attention there and are still echoing in my mind is an interesting phenomenon I witnessed there - that several young Jewish-American couples who participated in this annual event are raising their children in Yiddish against all odds.
All of them are highly educated, and some of them specialize in disciplines related directly to Yiddish language, literature or culture. All or most of them have acquired Yiddish as a foreign language later in their life through conscious effort and not as their mother tongue effortlessly. I still cannot help being surprised at certain things about their brave linguistic decision. First of all, I admire them greatly for having acquired Yiddish so well that they feel comfortable enough to use it with their respective spouses and pass it on to their children. At the moment I have only three theoretically possible candidates as the main language to be used at home: Japanese, Hebrew and English, depending on the linguistic knowledge of a spouse I still do not have. I may be able to add Yiddish and Esperanto to this list, but only after spending a lot of time and effort polishing my style and increasing my vocabulary in daily-life contexts.
Second, I am surprised (and happy for them) that they could find their respective spouses with the same linguistic ideology. It is not that only one of the couple speaks Yiddish, and the other English, but that both of them speak Yiddish to their children and to themselves. The pool of educated non-haredi young people with a good command of Yiddish must be very small, so finding someone from this small pool who is also compatible in other areas such as character, interests, external appearance and degree of Yiddishkeit seems like a miracle, as finding a spouse at all is as difficult as the splitting of the Red Sea in the first place. But such a miraculous encounter seems to have happened more than once as can be seen from the existence of these educated Yiddish-speaking couples. Actually, I am struck even with awe every time I witness such encounters of others or I myself meet new people who strike a chord in my heart.
12 September 2008 (12 Elul 5768)
It may not be easy to find two linguistic cultures that are so different from each other as Japanese and Israeli linguistic cultures. I have learned to navigate in both of them without making any serious sociogrammatical mistakes, though I do not seem to have any sense of full belonging to either of them. However, I still encounter those social contexts in which average members of the two linguistic cultures exhibit such different verbal and nonverbal behaviors that I cannot help being taken aback anew. One of these contexts that surprised me recently is what people in each linguistic culture do when they find themselves willy-nilly with strangers in public places, including hospitals, stations, airports, etc.
This week I had a revealing experience when I went to a hospital in my neighborhood in Jerusalem. Everyone who came to have a blood test there, including myself, was required to take a piece of paper with a number and wait his or her turn. About twenty people were waiting their turn at any given time while I was waiting there for an hour. Since there was no plate displaying the number of the person being examined, they asked each other what their numbers were and which number was treated at that moment. Almost everyone who was new on line found his or her place by speaking to someone else. In some cases this developed into conversations among some of them, though they were total strangers. Such spontaneous oral communication is one of the things I really like in Israel, though those who were born here may never have doubted that this is not universal. In this way, though in other public places, I first got acquainted with some people who later became my friends.
Then I asked myself what would happen if there were no such display at a hospital in Japan, though this is a real hypothetical question as I cannot imagine such a hospital there. There would be a total confusion. I seriously doubt the possibility that people waiting on line would start asking each other to find their respective turn.
This has made me find a unified explanation for all the noise in public places in Japan, including mechanical repetitive announcements from loudspeakers everywhere. Many people there simply do not want, for whatever reason, to start a conversation with strangers! In order to save them this trouble, every possible answer to every imaginable question is formulated in advance and is repeated mechanically in every possible way, whether in speech or in writing. Seemingly, this is a very efficient system, but the problem is that we cannot foresee all the imaginable questions in advance. Besides, why do we have to waste our precious resources for things that can be answered easily by speaking spontaneously to someone around us? After all, this is a very vulnerable system.
It goes without saying that I do continue to care about Japan, which is after all where I was born and brought up; I cannot deny the fact that I owe it what I am. I have to confess, however, that I am happy that I live now in Israel, and that even as a full-fledged member of the society. Actually, the manner of communication in the place where I spent my childhood in Japan was far more similar to what I see in Israel than to what is seen in Japan now, be it in a big city or in the country. Unfortunately, Japan has lost something fundamentally human in exchange for seeming "efficiency", at least in its linguistic culture.
19 September 2008 (19 Elul 5768)
Probably the only certain thing in life, of course except for the fact that our life in our respective physical body is destined to come to an end sometime, is that there is nothing certain in life. In a sense it is often far easier to cope with some disappointing result we have experienced than this uncertainty, especially when we are in its midst.
Those who have not set themselves any goals in life and live whimsically must be uncertain about their life in general, but paradoxically, they may suffer from uncertainty far less than those who have set themselves specific goals, since the former may have less reasons for disappointment as they have no concrete expectations.
At least according to what I have experienced so far, it is still possible to maintain high morale if uncertainty depends solely or mostly on ourselves and our own efforts and probably also on those we do not know personally. But when people we know personally are involved in our uncertainty, our agony over it intensifies beyond comparison. Then our uncertainty is not only about whether we are making any progress but also about the very question whether both of us have the same goal in mind, that is, whether we are trying to head toward the same goal at all. The most difficult thing to conquer in the world is not Mt. Everest but someone else's mind, which sometimes seems formidable and insurmountable.
26 September 2008 (26 Elul 5768)
I consider life a series of tests to progress intellectually, emotionally, and most importantly, spiritually. Some tests come to us naturally, as it were, without our own initiative, while others are brought about as a result of our initiative. Any big project fundamental to our life, whether privately or professionally, necessarily entails a constant struggle with a test consisting of a series of subtests. I can say that I have so far initiated four projects of this sort affecting (or supposed to affect) the rest of my life significantly. I have reached the goals of the first three spending 11 years for each of them, but as for the fourth, I have not even reached its threshold yet.
The first project was a PhD dissertation. When I was a graduate student in linguistics in Japan, I reached a point where I felt I would not be able to pursue my studies in my area of interest (Hebrew and Jewish linguistics) any more there for lack of everything. When I applied for a scholarship to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I thought of spending there one year or so to improve my practical knowledge of Hebrew. But quite unexpectedly, I found myself enrolled in the doctor's course at the Department of the Hebrew Language there under the supervision of the late Prof. Shelomo Morag, to whom I am eternally indebted for initiating me into new fields of Hebrew and Jewish linguistics. It was only after spending there two years that I convinced myself to accept this unexpected situation and prepare a PhD dissertation there. I like to plan everything in advance (I often say half-seriously that I even plan spontaneity in advance), though naturally not everything turns out to be as planned; this was the first time that I was led to something so gigantic without my prior planning. Although I would not say that my life prior to this was free from agonies, it was definitely the most difficult test I had experienced until then. I somehow passed this test finishing my dissertation and came out of it better prepared for driving on an academic superhighway not in terms of knowledge but in terms of perseverance at work and patience with uncertainty.
The second project was to return to Israel. After spending five years in Jerusalem from 1988 to 1993, I returned to Japan, without finishing my dissertation, to look for a full-time position at some university there. I spent there 11 years looking for one in vain, until I was offered a position at Bar-Ilan University here, to whom I am also eternally indebted. In retrospect, I am not surprised that I did not find any position there, not only because there was and is no department of Hebrew at any university but mainly because I made sociogrammatical mistakes constantly and consistently. The first few years after returning there from Israel were especially difficult for me; I simply could not readjust myself to Japanese society. It took me years afterward to come to become used to the fact that I cannot and will never become used to Japanese society. Once I realized this, I could start to enjoy what I had there, though I was frustrated that I had not been recognized socially. But I am happy that I did not find any position there, for otherwise I would not have been able to return to Israel. It is not free from shortcomings just as Japan is not free from advantages, but in general I am far more satisfied here both privately and professionally. I feel a far stronger connection to this country linguistically, socially and culturally, if not politically.
The third project, which also took me 11 years to finish two years ago, seemed to continue forever without reaching its goal. The first two pale compared to this one. It has affected my whole being in such an essential way. Even after finishing the first two projects I still could not feel a real relief though I felt satisfied. But after I finished this third project, I could feel far more reconciled with myself. Immediately afterward I started to plan another project. I am quite sure that once I have started to put the plan into practice, I will feel fully reconciled with myself, but unfortunately, I have been unable even to start it; I am still stuck in the planning phase. Unlike the first three projects this one requires a collaborator who meets a certain sets of requirements, and its implementation will last for the lifetime. I have been looking for one for the past two years in vain, though I had an illusion twice that I had found a suitable collaborator. But I hope and believe that I will also pass this test as I have passed the other three.