God Smiles Too

Sometimes we can grow old,

and lose sight,

that when God sees His child happy,

He smiles too…

Xiu

Good News, No News

Probably only readers that have visited Israel really understand yesterday's "Inside Joke". So to clear this up, I copied a map of the latest conflict and marked how it fits into the context of 'My People".

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For now..

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The bad news is that the Hamas are shooting missiles at Maayan.

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The good news is that they are really bad shots.

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The good news is that Maayan will be home for a few days.

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The bad news is that it is because her classes have been cancelled because of the war with Hamas.

Inside Joke

Abba: Maayan, they're saying on the news that some Grad missles hit Beer Sheva about an hour ago!

Maayan: Yeah, I know. I was walking to a friend when they hit.

Abba: Did you see it?

Maayan: No, but I heard them.

Abba: Was it close?

Maayan: No. Somewhere in the neighborhood.

Abba: In the neighborhood? That isn't very smart.

Maayan: What?

Abba: You know, somebody could get hurt.

Maayan: Oh yeah, I know. They should shoot them at open places where it's safe.

Abba: I'm going to make a compaint.

Maayan: Good idea.

Abba: Well, are you okay?

Maayan: I was shook up a bit at first, but I'm okay now.

Abba: You know, it's all for the best.

Maayan: Thank God.

My People 2008

My People owes its existence to a girl I knew in high school. She, my brother Barry and I all rode the same Tri Met bus home from school. She was a very serious girl. I enjoyed stirring her up. I guess I was pretty obnoxious. Maybe it was that she was so naïve (or so pretentious) and I couldn't resist trying to burst the bubble she was blowing.

Barry once asked me if I ever wondered why we hooked up with her. I don't; we didn't have much of a choice being on the same bus and all. What I do wonder about is why out of all the people I knew back then, she is one of the few I still know 30 years later.

Just about this time last year I finally joined the internet community and discovered that girl from the back of the bus on her blog, Recollected Life. After close to a decade since I'd last heard from her, it was a pleasant surprise. She turned me on to blogging.

The name of my blog was almost obvious. Ami means "my people" in Hebrew, and I write about myself and the people in my life. In most cases they are people I know personally. My family, my friends, my army buddies … my people. Blogging at My People added more to that list, like Xiu at January Winds and Olivia who blogs Inspired By Grace.

So a year has passed (almost). Where did I go with My People?

I think I wrote more about Maayan that anyone else. She's at an interesting time in life, a lot of important choices. She's on my mind a lot and that's why she's featured so much in my blog. Some of my more pointed observations were 'Maayan: before and after' and 'Taking the Reins'.

How much I write about any one person doesn't reflect on my relationship with him/her. Directly or indirectly, that girl at the back of the bus shows up a lot at My People, but in fact she's played only a small part in my life. On the other hand, my wife Yael who has to contend with me every day, hardly appears at all.

'Footprints in the Snow' and 'Kissing the Mirror' were about the women in my past, and 'The Language of Romeo' about the woman I'm with.
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Maybe the 'Hands' project wasn't great, but hopefully it was original. I'm thinking about an 'eyes' project in 2009.

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I live in an interesting place, and hopefully My People has shed a different light on Israel that that presented by the media. Not the war zone you see in the news or Sacred ground – just a beautiful little corner of the world. In the course of my continuing education I have 66 required days in the field. It occurred to me that this would be an excellent source for a new blog. We'll see.

I probably wrote more about my faith than any other subject. I hope none of my readers took this to mean that I am an authority on religion. I'm not. I am still searching and struggling with God. I think 'Kissing the Mirror' and 'It's Just Grass' say most about where I am spiritually.

If it seems that I have an axe to grind with the Catholic religion in general and the Anglican Church in particular, I do and I don't. Nothing from my Protestant past and my Jewish present would endear me to the Catholic faith, but I don't have any personal accounts to settle. While getting my degree I researched the Anglican mission in Israel (then Palestine), so I am simply more familiar with that particular subspecies of Christianity.

Probably the most moving piece I blogged wasn't mine at all. I translated into English Karnit Goldwasser's eulogy to her husband Ehud in 'Time Stopped'.

I don't know what makes a blog successful. I get a lot of hits, but most are people mining pictures. The most popular posts are 'I am a Chameleon' (photo of the blue panther chameleon), 'Snake in the Synagogue' (the Talmud page), 1492 (painting of Queen Isabelle of Spain), 'On Blogging' (Xiu's naval piercing) and 'Being a Boot' (the picture of muddy boots). I don't know if you need to be a good writer to succeed in blogging; apparently people are more interested in muddy boots.

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It's been 30 years since I rode Tri Met home from school with Barry and that serious girl, but I still have that impulse to deflate what is puffed up, to poke people with reality. Maayan refers to it with the Hebrew expression "to sting". And some of my posts are sharp, but they only hurt when they touch the truth.

My People is about the people in my life. They are from all races and religions, from every corner of the world. Most of them I know personally and many of them I'm related to. Some are friends, some not, but in one way or another they are all a part of me. Even that girl that from high school.

So in the end, My People is no more than a personal journal that is open to the public. My People is about me.

About 'The Last Summer'

Maayan e-mailed me, wondering if I was a bit blue when I posted "The Last Summer" below (my translation into English). Allow me to explain....

Back in the early 90's, Temporary Sanity were some kids that jammed together, but hitherto had played only for friends and at high school parties. On a lark they recorded 'The Last Summer'. It was a bittersweet ode to passing youth; that last summer after graduation when one after the other they get drafted until they have all disappeared like autumn leaves.

Little did we know back then that we were living the last summer of temporary sanity before Oslo, suicide bombers and Lebanon. The lyrics written in innocence took on new ominous meaning. Some, too many, empty seats at high school reunions were silent testimony to the insanity of the times.

But I posted it simply because I ran across it on Utube and its still a beautiful song.

Don't worry, Maayan, I'm not blue, and at least for now temporarily sane.

Getting into the (Hannuka) holiday spirit

"The Last Summer" - Temporary Sanity

It's my last summer with you here,
With the first rains I'll disappear,
My tears will run down the slope,
Like a falling leaf, a far away hope.

I'm a winter person in a land by the sea,
But when this winter comes, I'll cease to be.
Melting slow, layer by layers,
Between will and won't and last prayers.

Remember you promised not to cry,
Cuz' the sky is big and the tears get dry,
Close your eyes when the first rain falls,
And think of me ……

I want to climb mountains because they're there,
And travel to lands over the sea,
To find if there's a life instead,
And if they go on living after they're dead.

It's my last summer with you here,
With the first rains I'll disappear.
Melting slow, layer by layers,
Between will and won't and last prayers.

Remember you promised not to cry,
Cuz' the sky is big and the tears get dry,
Close your eyes when the first rain falls,
And think of me ……

2 years

2 years since

you're gone. Absent,

not accounted for.

2 years now,

where are you?

We're still here

2 years later

Happiness Isn't Fun

This Shabbat's Torah reading, "Ve-yishlach" - the account of how Jacob returns to Canaan and confronts his brother Esau, reminded me of an op-ed by Jonathan Rosenblum I read years ago, Happiness Ain't Fun. Below is an excerpt:

"Each of us is born incomplete. That lack of completion creates a gnawing within. Our natural tendency is to identify that which is missing with something outside of ourselves - material possessions or some physical pleasure - and to make its attainment our goal. Yet attaining the sought-after object rarely does more than stifle the gnawing for a period of time. "

"A moment's reflection would show us why our efforts to quell our inner turmoil are doomed to failure. Our problem is an internal vacuum, but we seek to cure it with things that must of necessity remain external. No physical object can be amalgamated into our being or fill our internal void. But instead of recognizing this, we convince ourselves that we erred only in our choice of objects: We needed a Rolls, not a Cadillac, or two Cadillacs, not just one."

"By focusing on that which is outside of us rather than what is wrong with us, we lose all sense of who we are, what makes us unique, what special tasks we have been created for. Like a teenager whose life revolves around the telephone and the mirror, we lose all sense of ourselves, except as we exist in the eyes of others."

"The soul, which is not of this world, cannot be satisfied with the goods of this world. Only curing our own imperfections can ultimately quiet the ache in our souls, for only such changes as we make in ourselves can be more than momentary sedatives."

"Every material object is, in a sense, borrowed. It cannot become intrinsic to us, part of our essence, and sooner or later it will no longer belong to us. But what we make of ourselves when we conquer our anger or resist the impulse to speak ill of someone else or train ourselves to reach into our pockets for every passing beggar cannot be taken away from us."

" 'Who is a rich man?' ask our Sages. And they answer, 'He who is satisfied with his portion.' They do not say that such a person is also a rich man, but that he is the only rich man. No matter how much a person possesses, he is a poor man as long as he is driven by a hunger for more."

"Upon meeting his brother Jacob for the first time in decades, Esau tells him, 'I have a great deal.'*, implying a desire for yet more. 'Keep it for yourself', Jacob replied, 'I have everything.'** "

* Hebrew: "Yesh li rav" - I have much. (Genesis 33:9)

** Hebrew: "Yesh li kol" - "I have it all. (Genesis 33:11)

Stigmata

On the way home from America, one of the films featured on our United Airlines flight was Henry Poole is Here. Henry is diagnosed as terminally ill. He quits his job and moves back to the quiet neighborhood where he grew up. He wants to close a circle, to end his days peacefully. He rebuffs his friendly neighbors. Really, what's the point?
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A nosey neighbor lady is poking around in Henry's back yard and discovers a water stain in the image of Jesus' face on the back of his house. Henry takes a look. He sees a bad paint job. Nevertheless, word gets out and Henry's back yard turns into a local Mecca. The dumb can speak, the blind can see; and Henry couldn't care less.
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"Hope won't save you", he tells his wellmeaning neighbors. They can't believe it, incredulous that Henry is blind to the miracle staring him in the face.


I have been told that my blogs about movies are spoilers, so I won't go on. Henry Poole is Here is about the eternal three: faith, hope and love; its a thought provoking story with a twist. Just the thing for a Henry Poole like me.


Every now and then you hear about these strange little 'miracles'. Like statues of the Madonna or people bleeding spontaneously from parts of the body where Christ was wounded. (These people are usually Catholics - non Catholics generally go to a doctor when they spontaneously bleed.)

Its called "stigmata". Most people dismiss it as so much bunk, most people not being Catholic. I for one (neither Catholic nor 'most people') buy it. But the question isn't, "Is it true?"; the real one is, "Is it the truth?" After all, that's the conclusion they (the Catholics) would have you come to.


My mother in law's father died once. In fact, he was so dead that they had him all wrapped up in a shroud for burial. (People weren't buried in coffins back then, over there in Bombay.) Fortunately, he came back to life before they got around to burying him. Once his wife calmed down, he told this story:

After he died, he was taken down a hallway to a place and "there was a trial". He was asked if he had any requests. He replied that his youngest daughter Rosy was to be married soon and that he wished he could have lived to see her married. At this point he found himself back among the living, wrapped up in the shroud.

In the monthes that followed until Rosy's wedding the old man told his story to a number of people. He wasn't sick any more. Rosy got married and about a week afterwards he was sitting outside on a balcony or a porch and his wife left him for a moment. She heard him say, "What, you've come already?" By the time she came back to see who he was talking to, he was already gone.


What does it mean?

Not much, really, unless you happen to be a member of the family. At the time it meant a lot to my mother in law, her brothers and sisters. It was a bit of comfort in their time of loss, but there are no spiritual truths here.
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Stigmata is a Catholic thing. It happens to Catholics, it strenthens Catholics, it gives them a little hope. I'm sure the bizzare, gory stories are true, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with the truth. God, for reasons only He knows, sometimes does things a little out of the ordinary. Not to prove this religion or that; it's His way of encouraging people. A little miracle here and there gives people hope.
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No, Henry, hope won't save you. Not always. But you can take this to the bank; if you don't have any hope at all, you're already finished.

Letter from America: Paradise

San Francisco, California

Sunday, November 30, 2008

A week or so before I set out for America, we read the story of creation from the Torah scroll in our synagogue. It goes like this: God creates a paradise, and lets a man and a woman live there. He gives them free will, a choice. This freedom is the man and woman's undoing as they end up choosing to eat fruit of a tree forbidden them and are sent out from Eden.

The United States of America was founded by 13 colonies on the Atlantic coast and over the space of less than a century expanded westward to the Pacific Ocean. On a bay at frontier's end is San Francisco.

The city is a monument to the achievement of the human will over the elements. She is built on a peninsula connected to the mainland by the Golden Gate Bridge suspended on enormous cables and further south by more bridges that run for miles over the bay. San Francisco was the perfect place to build a deep water harbor, but her steep hills would have normally precluded it as a site to found a city. Undeterred, the city fathers overcame the obstacles in their way. The famous trolleys made it possible to climb hills too steep for horse and carriage and homes were built almost one on top of the other. At the mercy of frequent earthquakes, they have built skyscrapers designed to stand even the most violent quakes. But more striking than the city's victory over the physical elements is the diversity of the population; Asian, African, Hispanic and European descendants make up the indigenous population.

My friend Mary lives in a quiet suburb on the bay just south of the city. Mary is one of my favorite Americans. I've known her since seventh grade and we've kept in touch over the years. My daughter Maayan and I visited her on the last leg of our journey in America. She took us to see her sister Barbara who lives in the city.

Barbara lives with an obese cat she rescued from the animal shelter in a building called 'The Thick House'. It's like a kibbutz for artists. Each of the residents is in some way an artist; poets, painters, sculptors. They display their creations in the hallways and stairwells of the building that is in itself a work of art.

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Barbara wasn't always an artist. Thirty years ago she was my boss in the men's department at JC Pennys where I worked while I was in college. After 20 years in the retail business, she chose to recreate herself in the middle of life and learn a new craft. Artists usually use their art to express themselves, but Barbara is different. She is a graphic artist that works for the city's public library. She has the gift of reaching into the mind of another person and creating images that can be understood by others. She is like a translator using a visual language.

Mary's family is a metaphor for what I think is most beautiful about America. Mary is the almost youngest of seven brothers and sisters. Each and every one is dramatically unlike the other, each a different hue of opinion, occupation, lifestyle, and personality. Yet as a family they are a rainbow, close and harmonious, accepting and appreciative of one another.

What is America? It is the ongoing fusion of the entire gamut of the human race into one nation. This truth, self-evident, that all men were created equal was a stone big enough to bridge the gulf that divides people and peoples, and to built on it a new civilization founded on tolerance.

America is a paradise. A paradise created by human beings out of the only thing man took with him when he was sent out of the Garden of Eden – freedom. Freedom to be what and whom they will regardless of race or religion or age or gender. Freedom may be America's undoing, but without it Americans wouldn't be who they are.

Americans have a choice.

Letter from America: Black Friday

Friday November 28
Seattle, Washington

We Israelis don't lack for anything we need, but we don't always have everything we want.

Israelis in America get sick. It's an eye disease. We see all the newest brands and latest models. America is shiny and glittery, and on sale. We Israelis see this and get big eyes.

They call the day after Thanksgiving 'Black Friday'. It isn't because the day is dark or evil. It got its name because retailers open the holiday shopping season with sales and since most Americans have the day off the stores are swamped by shoppers and it puts them 'in the black'.

Black Friday can be deadly for Israelis that happen to be in America. In this climate, their immune system is weak anyway, and the glitter of gadgets is too bright and the prices too appealing to resist. Israelis can't help but shop and spend.

But with all the plenty glaring on the surface, it's easy to miss a different reality underneath. Americans tell me about the high prices they have to pay to own their own homes. They go into debt to pay for their children's education and while medical care is state of the art, its price has become exorbitant and beyond the reach of many. I was shocked to discover that American businesses aren't required to provide their employees with pensions.

I listened to Americans and it struck me how poor little Israel has managed to provide low interest mortgages to young families and immigrants, tuition is maintained at a reasonable level (2,500 dollars by law, regardless of the level of the institution one attends.) and all enjoy the benefits of our national health system for a fraction of what it costs Americans.

So I didn't get up early on Black Friday to fight my way through the crowds to the great sales. I'm not dazzled by American trinkets. When it comes to the things that are really important, it seems to me that we Israelis are better off than our American cousins.


We Israelis don't have everything we want; but as for the things we need, we have it all.

Letter From America: Thanksgiving

November 27
Portland, Oregon

I have been trying to find America's heartbeat. In the past it was easy because it was strong and steady. This week I tried to find a pulse.

The patient has seen better days. I grew up in an America where you worked hard and in time you were rewarded with the fruit of your labors. You joined the labor force, purchased a small home, worked some more and when you could afford to do so, built or bought something larger. You could expect to end your days secure and in comfort.

I haven't lived here for 27 years. In the meantime America has contracted a disease. The Subprime Financial Crisis is only the latest rash, but it's not the sickness. A lot of Americans got impatient. They wanted to taste the good life now and pay for it later, if ever. They didn't have to work hard. They could borrow the the things they wanted and the banks were dumb enough to let them do it.

Later is now. Of course, not everybody got sick, but this last year the ones that had been gorging themselves started heaving and puked. So these days Americans are trying to clean up the mess. They tell me about unemployment and reduced hours. Some of them, a lot of them are my age. There's not a lot of time left to work hard again.

But coming from a part of the world where health is the exception and not the rule, I see a country that is battling a cold but is still very strong. America enjoys the blessings of generations that did it the old fashioned way. Americans have a lot and they're grateful for it.

I haven't been in America for Thanksgiving for 27 years. I've been here a few times for Christmas and there's always been talk about how America has become commercialized and how holidays have lost their meaning.

America is sick and I don't think I have met one American this visit home that doesn't feel it on his/her own skin. So it is all the more inspiring how inspite of, or perhaps because of what ails America, Americans are truely thankful for the good land God has given them.

I took America's pulse this week.

Americans have a good heart. That's why I give America a clean bill of health.

Letter from America: The 'Loggers'

Wilsonville, OR

November 23, 2008

The United States of America was founded on the principles of democracy, but it took centuries of at times bitter struggle to come up with the recipe for tolerance and coexistance that you find here today. A variety of different ethnic groups, religious beliefs and political opinions that polarize other nations blend together in harmony, giving America its unique flavor.

But in the arena of sports pockets of still exist. This is where you find the high schools of small towns and farming communities battling each other in the minor leagues.

Last night Scio, Oregon’s (Pop. 600) varsity football team (the ‘Loggers’) squared off with Knappa (also called the ‘Loggers’) in a semi-final – the prize being a shot at the state championship. Scio doesn’t have the resources to develop a pass and receive strategy, so this year it played a running game with big farm boys plowing through their opponents’ defenses. Yard by painful yard, particularly for the poor slobs in the farm boys’ path, Scio’s Loggers plodded up to the top of the heap.

The two pretenders squared off at Wilsonville (neutral territory). Knappa played a more sophisticated game, passing over Scio’s defense and employing their own farm boys to block Scio’s. By the end of the first half , with Knappa leading 29-8, it was clear who would take the day. Scio didn’t lose heart and fought on, no longer out of hopes for victory but for more personal reasons. My brother Barry leaned over, “A lot of these kids are seniors. They know that this will be the last time they play the game. Ever.”

With four minutes left in the game, both teams caught a new wind. Knappa charged fast and furious, while Scio threw in all their reserves to hold them back. Barry’s a member of the school board. He remarked that most injuries happen when teenage athletes get whipped up and start taking chances.

“Why is Knappa pushing so hard?” I asked. It was obvious by now that they would win.
Barry replied in his fake foreign accent. “This is America. When we win, we’re in their face.”
“And what happens when “they” are in the Americans’ face?", I wondered.
“We nuke ‘em.”

America has employed and deployed young men and women around the world with the same competitive spirit that I saw on that field in Wilsonville last night. As Scio’s varsity team can tell you, size and strength don’t always spell victory, but it does mean that the other guys had better watch out.

Letter from America: The People's Choice

Portland, Oregon

November 22

Passing through America in November 2008 you can't avoid the election of Barak Obama at the beginning of the month. It has blasted a crater too big. You can't get around it.

Be they Democrats or Republicans, lean right or left; whether to their minds it is the breaking light of a new day dawning or the first sprinkles of fallout before a four year political winter, Americans are collecting their thoughts about what happened here. It's sitting there in the back of their minds, on the tips of their tongues, struggling to get out.

Maybe it's because I live far away, but I think that by electing Obama Americans cashed a note signed when slaves were emancipated 150 years ago. Obam took the last step in the march Martin Luther King Jr. started in Montgomery, Alabama. For me, this election wasn't about the next four years, but about the last 50 and the 50 to come. But alot of Americans aren't like me. They don't care about history. They live here, and they're worried about now.

Some Americans, apparently most, think that Obama is a savior that will extract them from the mud of a foriegn war and shore up a failing economy. Others say he's an antichrist (?) that has seduced the nation.

But from where I come from, detached and distant, I see this: nobody knows yet what the next four years will bring. The Bush administration isn't a hard act to follow; maybe all will be well. Maybe not. All I know is that it's too early to tell.

Leaders are servants of God. It is through them that He blesses some countries and punishes others. The democratic process has led people to believe that they are in some way masters of their own destiny, but despite of or even because of the fact that they elect their leaders, it is really only the means that God uses to reward nations, for better or for worse.

He just lets them choose their poison.

Letter from America

They say that every immigrant to Israel (Hebrew: "oleh") from North America is at first euphoric. The surge of moving to an exotic country, new surroundings, and being pumped with Zionist ideology is intoxicating. Eventually the emotional high wears off and the oleh comes to his senses and sobers up with one hell of a headache. The exotic has become foreign, the new has become routine and ideology diluted by reality is weak soup. (This doesn't happen to immigrants from Russia or other places where Jews are poor and persecuted.) I don't know who "they" are, but in view of the high percentage of American olim ("oleh" – plural) that eventually return and from personal experience, I tend to believe "them".

I got my Aliyah (Hebrew: immigration to Israel) hangover relatively late. I was in uniform only a year after my feet touched holy ground, and it's against Israeli Army regulations to get homesick. It took about 3 years before it hit me – I'm here. For good.

By then I had been released and was living on a kibbutz and when I wasn't scheming how to get myself and my family back to 'God's country' (Better know as the great state of Oregon), I was working in the kibbutz's cotton and wheat fields. Modern agriculture isn't really work anymore; nowadays it amounts to sitting on your butt in an air conditioned tractor cab listening to the radio while you keep the wheels in the furrow.

Pining as I was for my homeland, I would tune in The Voice of America and when that wasn't sending, second best was the BBC. One of my favorite programs was Alistair Cooke's "Letter from America".

(Now for those of my generation that don't tune into the BBC, let me remind you that Alistair Cooke was the British guy that hosted "Masterpiece Theater" 30 years ago on the Public Broadcasting Service, which I watched regularly in my youth; not because I was such a cultured teenager, but rather because I was a normal one that thought that the PBS was the only channel on television where there was the off chance of seeing naked women.)


Every Sunday Cooke would comment on the current events, American culture (or lack of it.), the days personalities or simple personal reflections with dry humor and a sophisticated not-American accent. What I loved about "Letter from America" were the bits of America and Americans that most Americans were either too oblivious or too American to admit.

I think Alistair Cooke's authenticity was due to the fact that he was never really quite an American. He lived there almost all of his adult life, received citizenship and genuinely loved her, but in the end he was the eternal outsider. He never was really a player and from his position on the sidelines could see things that were lost on those in the heat of the game.


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I have observed in the past (see "I am a Chameleon") about myself that I have this quality of blending in, but not really belonging. I am different even if I seem to fit in. I'm an outsider. And so, perhaps this blog offers the reader a novel point of view of Israel, maybe one that is as, if not more accurate than if I were a native son. Maybe I should call this blog "Letter from Israel".

It took time and not a little strain on my marriage to pass the crisis of immigrating and integrating in Israel, but in the end I made it and I'm not sorry. I love it here and I love the people in spite of it all. But I will always be me and part of that is being an American.

The funny thing is that by now, after 27 years of my adult life living in Israel exceeding the 21 years that preceded them, I'm an outsider in American circles as well. I don't think quite like them. I see things they don't see even if they're there.

So in the next two weeks while I visit home (America will always be as much home for me as Israel.), My People will be a letter from America. Hopefully my family and friends will be kind enough to let me post from there even though they probably will end up scratching their heads when they see how they and their America looks through my eyes.


I'll try to be gentle.

The Lowest Place on Earth

The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth and it's getting lower. A man made ecological disaster has and is taking place here in living memory. For centuries the Jordan River flowed from the Sea of Galilee and emptied into the Dead Sea, but now with Israel and Jordan pumping water out before it reaches the sea, it is drying up. Today the sea is actually two, separated at the waist by dry land that was still under water when I visited it for the first time the winter of 79-80.

Underground salt deposits along the shores melt when washed by fresh water until the soil covering them caves in. The ground under trees, cars, even people collapses without warning and they disappear into deep craters.

My 9th graders last year are now 10th graders. Last week we spent 3 days in the desert. We set up base camp between the Dead Sea and the Judean Desert and every morning we set out for one of the wadis that wind into the barren hills.

The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth, so no matter which way you go its uphill from there. Of course there are rewards. Desert springs aren't as big or impressive as the ones I visited in Croatia last month, but at the end of a long trail on a hot day, they are refreshing. Maybe it’s the contrast between water and the wilderness.

These 3 to 6 day outings in nature every year are a standard part of Israeli education, but the concept is foreign to Americans. Why do we send our children out of school to trek the desert and sleep in tents when they could be in a classroom?

In three years these kids will be soldiers and it wouldn't hurt them to start getting used to life without creature comforts. But we aren't Spartans and its not our job to supply the Israeli Army with hardened warriors. The reason we take them out into the wild goes deeper. What is education?

I think that Americans see education as a means of shaping the individual. You take a child and give him the tools to function one day as an adult.

In Israel we are creating a society. Sure children need to learn the fundamentals like reading and writing and mathematics. But by the end of grade school they have hopefully reached a basic level of knowledge and from there each takes a different path and majors in the subjects that interest them. And while they no doubt are learning things that are valuable, lets not kid ourselves – in ten years chances are that they will be employed in fields totally unrelated to the subjects they study now.

School is a fabricated society we have created with rules and values and objectives in a sheltered environment. We still have enough control to mold and shape the members, and by the time they leave and become citizens we hope they will have learned to work together toward common goals, to respect each other, to contribute and for each to take responsibility for more than his/her little corner. So a camp in the middle of the nowhere where the essentials of survival – food and shelter - depend on group effort is the ultimate lesson.

Almost two years ago the ground collapsed from underneath these kids in a way unusual even in Israel. For some of them, perhaps all of them, starting each day means setting out and climbing an uphill path from the lowest place on earth. They are learning that they reach those good places at the end of the trail when they pull together.

And what amazes me and inspires me is how even after having hit bottom they still have fun, have a bright take on life and push on. How they can just be a bunch of kids.

Union Boulevard

(I posted 'Union Boulevard' last April to mark the 40th year since Marin Luther King's assasination. With America coming down to the finish line in a landmark election year where for the first time an African American is running for the nation's highest office, I am reposting. Regardless of who proves to be the better man, for the first time in America all men are equal.)

After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, Moses' life was drawing to an end. He had one last request:

"Let me cross over and see the good land that is over the Jordan."

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He is allowed only to see the promised land from afar, but not to enter in himself. He gathered the children of Israel for one last time and told them,

"I will die in this land, I will not cross over the Jordan; but you will cross over and you will inherit the good land." (Deut. 4:22)
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The echo of Moses can be heard in the words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, the great civil rights leader, in his sermon where America's blacks are likened to the children of Israel in the wilderness. He assured his people that one day they too would share the good land as equals;

"I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land."

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The next day he was murdered.

For black Americans Martin Luther King was Moses and the wilderness seemed endless. They took to the streets all over America. In Portland they marched down the nearest business district, ironically named "Union Blvd." After a week of rioting Union Blvd. looked like a tornado's path, with many of the businesses (mostly owned by whites) burned out ruins. When the smoke cleared it turned out that the wilderness had grown, for the workers and clerks (mostly black) that had been employed there on Union Blvd. found that their workplaces were gone.

Recovery was slow in coming. You could drive down Union Blvd. when I was a boy and see a wilderness of crime, poverty and hopelessness. Whites began to understand that it was time to include blacks and share the fruits of democracy. African-Americans realized that they wouldn't reach the good land by burning the wilderness; they had to cultivate and nurture it to make it blossom.

Martin Luther King saw a day when little white children and the sons of former slaves would hand in hand cross over to the good land. He saw a day when a man would be judged "not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character", a day when Americans would pull together instead of tearing each other apart.

I have seen the good land. Union Blvd. has been renamed Martin Luther King Blvd. (Called the MLK locally.) On one of my visits to Portland not long ago I walked down the MLK. I passed by businesses like "The African Art Gallery" and "African Bride Fashions", most likely owned by African-Americans, and the Oregon Convention Center, owned by everybody equally.

Last Friday it was 40 years since that day in Memphis that Martin Luther King's life was cut short. Today what was unthinkable the day of his death is a reality we almost take for granted. An African-American is a viable candidate to be the President of the United States of America. After 40 years in the wilderness, a new generation is entering the good land.

Of course all is not perfect, yet as one who remembers the wilderness 30 years ago, I know the good land when I see it. The good land is where there is hope. The good land is where things can get better.

Isn't it ironic that here in the good land that Moses spoke of, we are still wandering in a wilderness. Israelis against Arabs, Moslems against Jews, Jews against Jews. Driven asunder into camps we have yet to harvest the bounty of the land. We crossed the Jordan, but the good land eludes us.

I have seen the good land. Perhaps I will never dwell there myself, but I hope my children do.

I can see the good land. I don't know if I will ever cross over, but I know this: the only way is together. The way to the good land goes through Union Blvd.

Knowing the Difference

There's a woman my age here that decided to go to college. To be honest, until she told me about her decision, I had always just assumed that she had at least a B.A. in something, and I didn't rule out an M.A. as well, because she's this know-it-all type of person and comes off as being very authoritative.

A week or so after she started school, she showed me the final draft of an assignment, her first assignment, that she had completed. And not just to me; to everybody. She was like a first grader that had finally learned the ABCs, showing off and very proud of herself.

I had done the go-back-to-school thing ten years before and formal education doesn't make much of an impression on me. I read her assignment and pointed out a few things that she needed to work on. After all, she had asked me what I think. She was very insulted. After chewing me out with more than a few harsh words, she stomped off and pouted.

While her behavior was sophomoric, I was the one in the wrong. Even I know that children need encouragement more than correction. The first grader with her ABCs doesn't need to know that the 'i' and 'j' need to be dotted and that she's got the 'e' backwards. When she's finally made that breakthrough, she needs to be praised. Sooner or later she will make the corrections that need to be made. The middle aged lady/coed deserved the same consideration we naturally give to seven year olds, but I guess the fact that she isn't cute and missing her two front teeth threw me off. And I should have remembered that grown ups can sometimes behave childishly and when they do someone has to be the adult.

Sometime after this I overheard her talking about when she started school, and she mentioned that first assignment that I had 'corrected'. She voiced almost word for word the remarks that I had made before. And I'm sure that in time she will find that while higher education may require an enormous effort for old and rusty minds, objectively it's no big deal. But that is among those things that people need to learn for themselves, whether in the first grade or freshman year at age 50.

And I am learning that there are things that are true, and there are things that people need to hear, and wisdom is knowing the difference between the two.

In Bruges

The prophets probably didn't know about the afterlife, and even if they did they certainly didn't tell anyone. There's no mention of heaven or hell in the Old Testament. Salvation, judgment, redemption were collective and in this life.
Here and now.

By the time Jesus came along the idea of "there and then" had evolved. He wasn't challenged when He spoke of life after death. (Except for the Sadducees who were old farts that nobody cared about anyway.)

Talmudic Judaism and the early Church developed the idea of the next world; the resurrection, Judgment Day, heaven, hell. Of course this presented a new problem. If there is a day of judgment then, and people are living and dying now, then where are the souls in the meantime? Lets say that Joe died in the year 1000 AD and Judgment Day is only in the year 2000 AD. (Theoretically of course, because who could have imagined that God would tarry so long.) What happens to Joe for a thousand years?

The Jews, or at least the more mystically inclined, decided that Joe is here. After he died he got a second chance and a third and so on. He got reincarnated to make a "tikkun", to fix things he'd screwed up in his former life. His soul would "roll over" (the term for reincarnation in Hebrew) again and again until he got it right. The soul, so they said, is definitely here and now.

The Christians, more specifically the Catholic ones, invented something new. When Joe died his soul went to a place called Purgatory where he worked off any unsettled accounts with God until Judgment Day. According to the Catholics, after the body dies the soul is there and then.

It is this nagging question about the time and place between the debts we accrue in life and payday that is at the heart of the film "In Bruges". Two Irish gangsters are sent to Bruges, Belgium after botching a hit in London. They are told to wait there for instructions, but at least to Ken, the older of the two, its clear that there will be a reckoning.

Bruges is a well preserved Medieval European town, "something out of a fairytale" one of the thugs calls it. Ken is more aware than his mate of their predicament and in no hurry, but young Ray chafes in exile. He is tortured by guilt and oblivious to the charm of Bruges. He wants to move on, not knowing that here and now is all he has left.

Bruges, a place in between, after life but before judgment.

The great sage Maimonadies understood something that eluded others, both Jewish and Catholic. Time and place are created. God doesn't exist in time or place, and when we leave this life our souls are no longer bound by either. We don't have time to kill until "then"; we don't roll back over and over again "here".

"In Bruges" is a black comedy with an irony that makes sense in a daft mad Irish state of mind. The setting and hints like the painting "The Last Judgment" by Hieronymous Bosch (Note how grotesque characters like in the painting appear throughout the film.) point to something deeper. If there is such a thing as purgatory, its here and now. Ray wallows in guilt, but does nothing about it. Ken finds a way to redeem himself.

Bruges – a fairytale land or a tortured conscience in exile. Bruges, untouched by time, is where we are, where we will be. Heaven and hell don't begin when this life ends. For the soul there is no boundary between "here and now" and "there and then".

So maybe the Old Testament prophets were right after all. The next life starts now.

Ray: "Prison...death...didn't matter. Because at least in prison and at least in death, you know, I wouldn't be in ****in' Bruges. But then, like a flash, it came to me. And I realized, **** man, maybe that's what hell is: the entire rest of eternity spent in ****in' Bruges. And I really really hoped I wouldn't die. I really really hoped I wouldn't die."

From "In Bruges"

ONCE: Falling Slowly

Funny Words

to Xiu

I went to college late in life. They call it "Adult Learning" in the States nowadays. They called it strange back then, over here. We're catching up with our American cousins like everything else and there are more people my age advancing their educations at advanced ages.

I was different than my fellow students not only because I was older than most of them, but also in that I didn't have any particular reason for being there. I studied things that had no connection whatsoever to how I made my living and with no intention of using it in the future. Like a seamstress buying a welder.

Now I see that the "reason" was how I saw myself. I didn't feel as good as those guys that had done the smart thing and finished college before setting out in life. They never rubbed my nose in it and I suspected that I was every bit as intelligent as they are, but nevertheless that's how I felt.

Now days they have funny words for the reasons I had for going back to school – "self validation" and "peer recognition", but there are old fashioned words for it too. Vanity. Ego. I would knock myself out cramming my brain with stuff I didn't care about in order to impress profs that didn't care about me. After exams they'd post our scores on a board outside the administration office, and like everyone else I would search for the numbers beside my ID number to get the verdict. It was never enough for me to have done well – if it wasn't the best I walked away disappointed. Even then I knew how pathetic it was, how vain, but I couldn't help myself. And the worst part was that I didn't dare tell anyone because everyone hates the smart kid.

Donald Miller talks about the ol' lifeboat dilemma in his book "Looking For God Knows What". Imagine this lifeboat and there's a young mother and her baby, an aged WWII war hero, an escaped convict, a scientist who can find a cure for cancer – and you. Only 5 people can stay in the lifeboat, six is too many and the boat will go down with all aboard. Who do you kick out?

Nobody wants to chuck out the baby, and by default that means the mother is safe. If you keep the scientist there's the bonus of saving millions of cancer patients. It's not right to kick out the war hero (Even though some people do because he's old and besides those hero types jump out to save the others anyway.) That leaves you and the convict. Some people want to keep the convict in the boat because they want to give him a chance to redeem himself (a very noble notion). But that's what it comes down to; most of us are trying to prove that we're more worthy than the criminal and deep down we know that we're not because deep down we all know that we're all sinners.

Miller says that this lifeboat mentality is the root of all the rottenness and sickness in society. We are all competing for a place in the lifeboat, scared to death that our peers will find out what we already know – that we don't deserve a seat with mothers and scientists and heroes. We need self validation and recognition like lifesavers to save ourselves. Vanity is fear.

The funny thing is that it turns out that there's room for everyone in God's lifeboat. – even for the ones that don't deserve it. And if you realize that, there's no need to compete, no reason to validate or be recognized. You can go to college, and even excel, if you want – or not. It doesn't matter because you have a reserved seat in the lifeboat.

I kept my marks a secret all through college. Outstanding students, or rather ordinary students with outstanding GPAs, get diplomas with some funny Latin words added on. "Summa cum something". They get called up first at the graduation ceremony, and since my last name came first alphabetically, I was the first in my class called up to receive my diploma. My cover was blown. My friends were aghast. I felt a little sheepish.

I don't know Latin. I bet those funny words on my diploma mean something like "really vain" or "huge ego". I hope I got more from college than a piece of paper with funny Latin words on it. I hope I learned something.

Because now I'm at a crossroads, and it looks like I'm going to do it again, if unwillingly. I hope that if I do it again I will do it different. Maybe if I put my mind to it I will even be able to fail once or twice.

A Cross between Oregon and Israel

Until last week, I had only ventured beyond Israel's borders to visit my family in Oregon. Last week we took a trip to Croatia.

Croatia is like a cross between Israel and Oregon. Mountains plunge into the Adriatic Sea on rocky cliffs under evergreen forests like Oregon's highway 101 on the coast, but the olive groves and whitewashed houses with red tile roofs stacked around small fishing harbors are Mediterranean.

Inland the deciduous trees were in autumn colors, but the paths and streams underneath were still sunless and damp like Oregon's rainforests. My photos of the countryside could have been taken from an album of the farm country where I was raised.

But unlike secularized Oregon, Croatia is more like Israel. Religion is everywhere. Croatians are devout Roman Catholics and certainly not ashamed of it. They adorn their streets and women with crucifixes; no village is without its church and it seems like every corner, whether uninhabited islands in the sea or isolated mountaintop, is the site of an ancient monastery.

The Croatians we encountered were rather reserved, like Oregonians. In fact, in general, they were kind of grouchy. Of course, we did meet some nice ones, but most of them work in the tourist industry, and as Yael pointed out, it's their business to be friendly. But if Croatians aren't gregarious, we were impressed by their order and honesty (Not qualities Israelis are known for.)

Croatians and Israelis have one thing in common: they are not strangers to war. We met a man in Dubrovnik that immediately took to us once he discovered we are Israelis. It turns out that he is the descendant of Jews that were forced to convert to Christianity in Spain. Somehow his ancestors had made their way to Dalmatia. We asked him about his family. He smiled and said that, like us, he had two girls and a son. Then his eyes saddened and he added that the boy had been killed in the bombardment of the city during the civil war in former Yugoslavia during the 90's.

Croatians like tourists. The nice thing about tourists is that they always go back where they came from and they always leave behind money. Apparently, Croatians have issues with people that aren't tourists and aren't Croatian. During the Holocaust, even the Nazis were shocked by the brutality which their Croatian collaborators carried out the elimination of Jews, Gypsies and Serbs. (Although they no doubt agreed with the objective.) A Jew had better odds of survival in Nazi Germany than in Croatia.

While Israel receives a lot of attention for its treatment of Palestinians, the western world seems to have overlooked what has and is going on in its backyard. In the 1990's ethnic Serbs in Croatia were 'persuaded' to become tourists. On the road to Plitzvice National Park you pass by one abandoned farmstead after another, each one mute evidence of ethnic cleansing. The irony of it is that Croatians are too xenophobic to let the Serbian owners return home, but too stuck on law and order to let squatters take their property. Being as clannish as Jews and as straight-laced as Oregonians can be a weird combination. (In contrast, while much of the criticism of Israel for discrimination is justified, the fact remains that Arabs make up 20% of her citizens, an active and vocal minority in Israel society.)

Until now, we had never gone abroad as a family except to visit my family in Oregon. I rented a camper and we traveled from place to place in Dalmatia, never knowing where we would end up at the end of the day. Being observant, we brought and prepared our own food in a country famous for its cuisine. The idea wasn't to just to get away and relax. We had fun, but the idea was to present ourselves with a challenge far from home in order to bring us closer together as a family. With Maayan being an adult and Netanel only two years away from his army service, this was perhaps the last opportunity to do that.

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My family is like Croatia in a way. We are a cross between Israel and Oregon, a little bit of both. Oregonians are known to be an easy going and orderly people, but I have more than once noted that they are capable of saying and doing the meanest things in the nicest way. Israelis are outgoing and they mean well, but they are often abrasive and rough around the edges.

We have a little of Israel and Oregon in us, but that can mean any number of things. Its up to us to decide what we want to take from each.

I know its wrong to make generalizations about entire nations, but its only natural. I met a woman at Plitzvice that is from Wisconsin but has lived in Croatia for a few years. I remarked that the Croatians seem very honest, but they aren't very friendly, and that Israelis are outgoing, but they aren't always straight.

"Don't you prefer the first over the last; you know, being honest more than being nice?" she asked me.

I thought about it.
"Actually, I prefer both."

Crazy Croatia

(Note: in Hebrew, "zona" = prostitute)