Judging A Town By Its Library

 MAR.18.2013 

 I have always loved libraries, as a child I walked to the local library, a 30 minute walk, twice a week to check out books. In those days in Israel we didn’t own books but got them from the library. In my private collection I only had my most precious books, about 30, those that my brother bought for me; among them were all the children books by Erich Kastner. 

Although thanks to that library in Haifa I could read all the books that I ever wanted , it wasn’t a  real library, there was no place to sit or to hang out. Rather it looked more like a storage place for books. Only when I was 24 year old and my husband and I were graduate students  at the University of Toronto did I get to see, for the first time, a real public library.

The main public library in Toronto is a beautiful building that has every possible book. There I spent many hours listening to recordings of Shakespeare’s  plays so that I could understand the plays that I had to read for my seminar. To this day before I go to see a Shakespeare play I study it in the same way.

Later when we arrived to Iowa City IA(where my husband Tzvi got his first job as an assistant professor at the university), the public library was the first sign that we  arrived to a small yet civilized place. The public library in Iowa City is prominently situated in the center of town. When we lived there the library was a happy place full with children and their parents, teenagers on their own, retirees with time on their hands to read the papers and people who just came to check out books.

 When we moved away from Iowa City to, what seemed like, a similar small town in Texas, I should have read the signs that this place was quite different from Iowa City when I visited the substandard library. Indeed, to compensate for the void in the library and supplement my daughters’ general education, I had to spend  days in used books stores looking for good books for them to read.

Several years ago, Tzvi had to undergo a medical treatment in the Mayo Clinic. Together We walked through, what seemed like, endless corridors to get to the public library in Rochester MI. When we finally found it, the well-lit library was literally one ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy period. 

Whenever I visit a new town, I check out , forgive the pun, its public library; by doing so you could learn a lot about the place and its priorities. Moreover, I believe that judging a town by its library is actually an efficient way to evaluate  its merit. If the library is friendly, generous, well- stocked, well- maintained and well-lit you could be pretty sure that you have made a good decision and have landed in  a good  town.

The Fall From Grace of Age 30 And Josef K

  MAR.22.2013 

Josef K, the protagonist of Franz Kafka's The Trial was 30-year-old when he was arrested.  My professor, who taught us the novel as part of the course “the Existentialist Novel” in the mid-1970s, told us that Kafka probably chose this age because 30 symbolized stability and respectability. “People in their 30s” he argued “have already reached the pinnacle of their career.”  We, his students, all in our early 20s, accepted this is as a fact, for us, thirty was almost old age.

Ever since that day I have watched age 30 gradually falling from grace. It started with my own private biography. When my husband turned 30 his position in life was very far from being stable. He has just finished his PhD and was on his way to get his first teaching job. Three years later when I turned 30, I already had 2 very young girls, but my career has not even started.  In comparison to K.’s position (before his arrest of course) our family was very far behind.

Please keep reading in The Times Of Israel
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-fall-from-grace-of-age-30-and-josef-k/

The Price Of An Haggadaless Seder

 MAR.24.2013 

Today as I spend the day  preparing for the Passover Seder I remember the many Seders which I attended as a child, a guest and a host.

My mother had 3 brothers and two of them lived in a kibbutz; when her own mother, my grandmother, was ill she asked her children to keep on getting together for the two main Jewish holidays: Passover and Rosh Hashana.  So my parents, brother and I spent those holidays in one kibbutz and the other brothers in a second kibbutz. In the kibbutz  holidays are celebrated in a communal dinner of about 400 people. Although I loved my uncle and aunt, I always disliked those occasions in which the Passover Haggada was replaced with the kibbutz's own spring Haggada and the food never tasted right.

One year, I got the measles and my family had to stay home, this was the happiest Seder of my childhood: my mother made our favorite food, we read some portions from the regular Haggada, and best of all, it was just the four of us –my parents, my brother and I.

Jewish people call any place outside Israel “a diaspora” and there they celebrate the holidays twice. One year, when we lived in the States we arranged with another family with small children to celebrate the two Seders together. We were supposed to celebrate the first Seder  at our place and the second night at their's. Unfortunately on that first night my kitchen drain got plugged.  I was very uncomfortable as I told  my friend that we had to do the first Seder at their home. My friend, a  good woman, was not very happy, she did not like her plans changed. I felt very guilty, and it was a strained evening in which we read the Haggada in in a foreign language and heard familiar Hebrew songs sung with unfamiliar melodies. When we came home that night my two year old daughter said “we didn’t have any Seder:  the songs and the language were all wrong”. I spent the next hour reading and singing to her, in Hebrew parts of the Haggada. After that night we only celebrated the first Seder at home in Hebrew.

Our Seders became much happier when we returned to Israel and could celebrate with my parents and my brother and family.  Our children became expert at finding the Afikoman(the mazzo that the head of the household hides for the children to find, and rewards them with gifts) which my husband hid.

As the girls grew older my husband decided that the Haggada was no longer relevant. He claimed that it was a  ridiculous text and he felt silly reading it. He was  right of course, by itself the text doesn’t make much sense. It doesn’t tell the story of the Exodus, rather it  is a collection of songs, interpretations, different customs and anecdotes. In order to appreciate it you have to learn a lot and even then it is quite obscure. So from that time on we  prepared all the symbolic food for the Seder meal, we sang the songs and  followed the customs but we never read the Haggada anymore.

Yet being post- modern has its price, it seems that in spite of the preparations and the anticipation an Haggadaless Seder   makes the evening somewhat disappointing.

My partner asked me the other day “how about reintroducing some of the highlights of the Haggada to our Seder?”  I hope my husband who is looking down from above forgives my transgression, but I seriously consider doing it.

Keywords:

Afikoman Haggada Hebrew kibbutz Pesach reading Seder

From Tucson AZ To The Ramon Crater Israel-- A Tale Of Unfulfilled Potential

27.2013 

One of the happiest winters we had was in the late eighties when we spent a sabbatical semester in Tucson Arizona. We drove from snowy Iowa City, where we lived, to Arizona at Christmas time. What I noticed first were the different colors of Santa Catalina Mountains and the smell of citrus bloom in the air. Whoever lives in a cold climate can identify with my conclusion, that we arrived to paradise.

A year later we returned to Israel and my husband got a job at Ben Gurion University in the southern city Beersheba. Beersheba is not a beautiful place, but an hour away in 3 directions there are some of Israel’s most beautiful spots: the Dead Sea to the east , the Mediterranean sea to the west, and the *Ramon Crater to  the south.

One late afternoon we drove to the Ramon Crater and were struck by its beauty. We were overwhelmed by the different colors inside the crater and loved the gazelles running on its rim. We both remembered beautiful Tucson and our happy time there and at that moment decided that we would buy a house by the crater in the small town of Mitzpe Ramon (Ramon Observation Point).

 The opportunity came some weeks later and within two months we were already at our new home in Mitzpe Ramon, that was 23 years ago. We only stayed one year in Beersheba and then went back to the States, but that house has remained our home in Israel and whenever we went there on vacations we spent our time in Mitzpe Ramon mostly doing what we loved doing in Tucson: hiking and being outside.

The sleepy town of Mitzpe Ramon has a strange mixture of people: there are the pioneers who created that settelment in the 1950s when they built the road to Eilat. Then in the 60s new immigrants were brought there from North Africa, in an attempt to populate the Negev. In the 70s a group of Americans who call themselves Hebre’ic Blacks came to live in Mitzpe Ramon, and later on the hippies, the artists, and the nature lovers came to town in an attempt to escape city life.

Two years ago the most expensive resort hotel in Israel was built on the rim of the crater. Guests in that hotel spend more than 1000$ a night to sit on their balconies and watch this natural wonder. However, so far, even this development has not changed the town which has remained sleepy as ever.

 If you ask around, many people here in Mitzpe Ramon would say that they do not want their town to change; this is exactly what they were looking for when they left the big city for the quietness of the desert mountains. Yet, other people may complain about a very high unemployment rate and the lack of opportunities for the residents.

Unfulfilled potential (just like unfulfilled talent) often causes disappointment-- a feeling of opportunities missed: "Mitzpe Ramon could have been just like Sedona  AZ,  if only. . . "  Indeed Mitzpe Ramon is a classic case of an unfulfilled potential: it is a small, unsophisticated town by one of the most spectacular natural formations on earth.

But, from selfish reasons, I still prefer this state of unfulfilled potential. In the late 1970s I visited  another magical place-- Stanley Park in Vancouver BC. It had wild, not yet explored, beach areas. Going back there with my family in the mid-1990s I saw that in 15 short years the park has been  transformed. It has become a cultured park, still beautiful, but for me it has lost its magic.

Whenever I tell people about my house in Mizpe Ramon they say that I am very lucky to have a home in such a beautiful place, but usually they add that it is a pity that nothing has been done here. I don’t delude myself that Mitzpe Ramon will always stay the same, and when it does I may even be happy for the local people who will benefit from more opportunities. But in the meantime I enjoy being in this quiet unfulfilled place to where commercialism and progress have not yet arrived.

  

*The Ramon Crater is a geological feature of Israel's Negev desert. Located at the peak of Mount Negev, some 85 km south of the city of Beersheba, the landform is not actually an impact crater from a meteor, but rather is the world's largest makhtesh. The crater is 40 km long, 2–10 km wide and 500 meters deep, and is shaped like an elongated heart.Today the crater and surrounding area forms Israel's largest national park, the Ramon Nature Reserve. Wikipedia:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhtesh_Ramon)

How To Get Rid Of A Middle-Aged Casanova

A Helpful Advice From A Red Room Author

MAR.29.2013 

The end of this story was that I started writing a blog, but what had happened before that was somewhat unexpected.

I got married when I was 20 and lost my husband to cancer when I was 52. Shortly before he died my husband Tzvi told me that he hoped that afterwards I could find love again.So several months after his death, I decided that I was ready to go on with my life and started on-line dating. Although Israel is a small country and in theory the six degrees of separation could work perfectly, on-line dating felt awkward and risky. Also the last time when I was out on a date I was 19 and then I dated boys. Now, to my great surprise, the people whom I met were, like me, older.  But soon afterwards I met, in real life, a colleague and we stated dating. I felt relieved not to go on blind dates anymore, and he looked like a suitable partner. We came from a similar background, and the fact that we were colleagues made me feel safe.

 Here I must emphasize that in spite of my advanced age, I do not have much life experience. Thus I must have missed all the cues that would have been clear to any other woman. It transpired that my respectable colleague, PhD and all, was seeing, at the same time, several other women. That came as a complete surprise, coming from a happy and monogamous marriage, nothing prepared me for such eventuality.

 Since all my life I have  turned to books for guidance, I did the same here and found the answer in the book The Casanova Complex: Compulsive Lovers and Their Women by Peter Trachtenberg. The author,  a recovering Casanova by his own account wrote this important book when he was only in his late 30s. His book was an eye opener;  I read it over and over (with a highlighter in hand) until the text was pink and I was ready to let go of my own Casanova. But I still wasn’t sure what to do next, should I share  the important knowledge that I got from the book with my colleague in the hope that he would see the light and be saved?

I decided to ask Peter Trachtenberg for advice; I found his email address in Red Room, a site for authors  In order to write to him I had to join Red Room, which I did. I remember writing to him that I didn’t know much about men but I did know about books, and that was the reason why I turned to his. Trachtenberg wrote me back a kind reply, his answer was clear: he objected to the idea of sharing his book with Casanova and told me, in no uncertain terms, to disengage; I followed his advice.

 I will always be grateful to Peter Trachtenberg for his insightful book and sound advice. I am also thankful that looking for him, was the first step in going back to writing, and this time in English 

  

P.S I just saw that  Peter Trachtenberg has a new book out Another Insane Devotion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/books/review/another-insane-devotion-by-peter-

Feeling The Teacher's Angst

 APR.01.2013 

The minute I leave my last class before the weekend, I experience pure joy. This is a state of sweet freedom when my heart is filled with carefree energy. I call this sensation, which lasts for several hours, my weekly mini vacation.  I have to say that I do like my job and I especially like my students, but lately when I teach on Sundays, the first work day  of the week, my Sunday blues starts on Saturday afternoon.

 I have always felt that I wasn’t meant to be a teacher, however,  reflecting on my life choices, I become more and more convinced that  teaching has always been my true vocation.

I have started teaching as a teen ager and have never stopped. When my girls were young and learnt to play an instrument in the Suzuki method, I was their home teacher. I practiced the violin and the cello with them for years. When my older daughter was two and a half  I started with another mother a Sunday school program for children and their parents so that they all enjoy some Jewish education.

Although I did well teaching in informal settings, where I usually volunteered, I was a complete failure when I tried to join the formal school system. When we returned  to Israel I started teaching high school English. I am embarrassed to admit that after only one week  I understood  that this was not a job which I could do.  I was never  good at disciplining and had to quit.

I have been teaching at a college for almost twenty years; I was lucky to find a good position and was happy that I could enjoy teaching without  worrying about discipline.

But in the last few years things have changed; different political priorities have led to budget cuts and those resulted in much larger classes. Class management, which is the polite word for disciplining has become a real challenge, especially when teaching a foreign language. I don’t want to be strict with my students, it is not their fault. Cramped 40 students in a small room they are the true victims of a changing system.  But as for me, imagining myself tomorrow standing in front of them and try to command their wondering attention,  I realize that, today more than ever, I have a good reason to feel a teacher’s  angst

Another Look At Disappointments

 APR.04.2013 

How can I  minimize my disappointments ?

Last year when I took a coaching course aimed at working with people with ADHD I heard  Richard Lavoie (in the video When the Chips are Down) say that the worst thing you could tell a child is that he/she has disappointed you. I have thought about this idea for a long time and reached a conclusion that Lavoie was wrong, there are far worse things.

A disappointment for me is that gap between what I want and what I get; more than that, it is a condition of unmet expectations, broken promises and unfulfilled wishes. Yet, this state is actually a state of mind, an attitude, and therefore it is subjective. Since life is unpredictable, there are often unwelcome surprises,  and disappointments could be inevitable.

 A woman once  told me that she never got exactly what she wanted from the people she loved. This is a description of a permanent state of disappointment; holding this attitude seems unbearable. Yet I believe that her condition is the result of a too narrow definition of what she wants. Her specific view of her wishes is  puerile --"if I don’t get exactly what I want it doesn’t mean a thing". This attitude focuses on on that gap which I mentioned earlier.

 In order to move away from feeling disappointed I need to broaden my definition of a fulfilled wish.  I should open up my, sometime locked,  imagination to include less specific prenotions of what exactly it is that will make me happy.

Yet I  (perhaps I am not the only one) am not always  ready to give up on the state of being disappointed: it feels justified, and it is often a safe hiding place from life’s next blow.

Disappointments come in all shapes, sizes and colors; some are long term and other are topical,  and of course there is the big one of being disappointed in love which I would not discuss here.

This morning as I was sitting among boxes in a packed apartment waiting for the movers to come and move my daughter to a different city, I  got a text from the mover who announced simply that he was sorry, he didn’t feel well. How do I deal with such a disappointment?

 Here a scale in which we can measure the merit of the different parameters of a specific disappointment may prove helpful. In the case of the move I can conclude that although large in size, the disappointment  is short term in value-- it is not going to affect my wellbeing in the future.  Yet I can’t deny that the delay was  highly inconvenient and annoying.  So based on this quick calculation of value and size I restore  my grown-up sense of proportion and just make alternative plans.

In just one day we all encounter numerous occasions in which we do not get what we were hoping for: it means being alive. But using the proposed disappointments' scale could help minimize their effect and regulate the emotions.

Still there is no need to exaggerate in the damage caused by telling  a child, or an adult for that matter, that he/she has disappointed you or that you are disappointed, sometimes you have a good reason to be. The rest of the time, as disappointed  people are not fun to be around, I keep reminding  myself “stiff upper lip”.