What reflection have I been doing today. Unlike any year before . The antireligious voices I’ve been hearing all around have multiplied, and become more enthusiastic, more violent, in part as a result of ignorance of religion and primarily as a result of the increasing awareness of the cost of religion in our area. And me – somehow I still love God with all my heart, whether God exists or not.
THE DAY OF ATONEMENT IN TEL AVIV
It is Yom Kippur
and the only voice on the street
is our neighbor, crazed from Auschwitz, shouting
“without a cause, without a reason, without a purpose,”
Over and over. Then “All, all, all, all.”
From the synagogue nearby
There is no sound.
Next door my neighbor is preparing lunch
I hear each dish as it is placed on the table,
Each item removed from the refrigerator,
Each chair moved towards the food.
There are no other sounds except the crows
cawing their usual complaints,
So each human sin is clear, each washing machine,
Each peak at foreign news programs.
Where would we be without the believers,
Those who scurry back and forth from prayer,
Paler and paler as the day goes on,
Those for whom we try to keep a semblance
Of the silence of faith?
Last night in the streets
The children were running wild on their bicycles
As if there was no other day to show their skills
To their parents, their friends.
But it was more subdued than usual
With less bravado than the years before
As if the last war had finally broken
All pretense of freedom from identity.
.
Yom Kippur may begin tomorrow evening but the sense of it has started. I don’t know what exactly initiates this atmosphere but our friends who are devout atheists served a traditional Jewish dinner tonight, and their plans for the morning were extensive, but also the bicycle riding all afternoon. i’m not into it right now – but my Arab partner who zooms with me every week pointed out we’ll have to put off our meeting on thursday morning.
Erev erev yom kippur – oct 3, 2022 Read Post »
A Friend from Poland asked me to answer a question about pessimism concerning the future, and I replied immediately:
During the years of terrorist attacks on the streets of Tel Aviv, when my son was struggling with his newly opened café, there was a sign on the door: “Here there are bombs every other day” – we had one yesterday.” I would go there often, and meet whoever was brave enough to join me. One day I watched a bomb squad dismember a suspicious object next to where I had been sitting before they moved me away. Another day I was reading the paper there and discovered that a woman in my dance class had been blown up the night before while waiting for a bus. It was clear that nothing could every return to a semblance of peace.
One day I was sitting at a sidewalk table with my mother-in-law, Sarah, who was very old and in a wheelchair. “I can’t remember a moment when it was so bad in tell Aviv,” she sighed, and then, suddenly, she remembered, “Oh wait , it was when we were expecting Rommel to invade any minute.”
This was a chapter in the history of Tel Aviv I had never heard of before, and Sarah wasn’t interested in expanding on the subject, so I later asked my sister-in-law, Muma, who was old enough to remember World War II. “Yes, those were the days when my father, her husband, and my uncle were building a bridge in Raqqa, Syria for the British to escape when the Nazis invaded. Mother was alone with the children, and she would wear rocks in her pockets so that when it happened she could walk with us into the sea and drown.”
Sarah, who had gone from Palestine to Germany and returned home with a doctorate in psychology in 1934, knew about bad times. But the only time I ever heard her mention the past was that day in the café.
Sometimes now when I think of the terrible things going on in the world I remember that chaos around Sarah and me, as we sipped our coffee, the way we have survived terrible times, and the way we learn to live past them and enjoyed wonderful times since then
the futur -oct 2, 2022 Read Post »
Just the thought that we could make nice with Nasralla is pretty amazing. A few weeks ago I was warned to unlock the air raid shelter because he was going to bombard us. Now we’re settling the gas issue and we’ll all be rich.
nasralla – oct 1, 2022 Read Post »
Okay, I forgive you. In some cases, I even understand that your actions were partly my fault. And I should have known you’d screw up if I gave you that much freedom over my plans.
It’s also my own choice if I get offended by your insults. They’re your problem, not mine.
But I must first ask you for forgiveness. Let’s go together into Yom Kippur with as much purity as a human can muster. Our sins may be as scarlet, but we can try to get out as many stains as possible.
You’re now asking yourself if I believe in God and His book of life. It doesn’t matter to me. The entire concept of Yom Kippur is good for my soul and good for everyone I can connect with, and I highly recommend taking it seriously. I may have begun this entry ironically, but really, it is essential for living in society. “The desert breeds monotheists,” R.J. Kaufman used to say, but I wonder if it isn’t the opposite as well. Living in society is easier with a being that sees through us.
but i’m not fasting.
Forgiveness – sept 30, 2022 Read Post »
All night Ezi was waiting for the apple store to open to get his phone fixed, and he left first thing in the morning. But within an hour he was home, calling me at the office, because there was no electricity at the mall and the stores couldn’t open. Byt the time I finished with my work, the stores had opened by the entrance to the garage with us in line. I sent Ezi out anrad waited in the ever-changing line. (people don’t wait in line here – they maneuver). when i finally got to the apple store, it was still closed and Ezi was 15 in line. I took off and had half an hour before he finished – grabbed two pants and a shirt – and then raced home with Ezi –
to bed. i ran out of steam.
ramat aviv mall -sept 29, 2022 Read Post »
