Poland

The tour with the people from Poland was a huge success. Much better than I could have hoped for or imagined. First, 10 people came, all musicians who came to perform in Israel. I expected a small group of people, and then was surprised to see all this big group coming. In addition to them, there were my two Israeli friends who came, so I had to speak to 12 people. I think it's the biggest group (of adults) I've ever given a Jerusalem tour to. In the past I gave some tours to young Jewish boys and girls who were on a Zionist tour of Israel, but it was different, because it was structured and I wasn't free to do everything I wanted. This time it was adults, and non-Jews, and a tour of my own design, not something that was dictated to me by some organization.
I was afraid that my voice will not hold up to the mission, but we had a warm, gorgeous day, and I found myself speaking without any problem, and feeling warm. It was good, after the week of cold that I had experienced.
I started by asking for how many of them it was the first visit to Israel. Four people raised their hands, and the rest said that the previous times they visited, they only visited the Old City. We were going to tour the newer parts of the city, so it was great. I then told them: Welcome to Jerusalem, the place on which the hearts, eyes and minds of the whole world are focused, the city that lives in the heart of every human being, the city in which Kind Saul, King David and King Solomon lived and walked. The area we will walk on is the same area in which they walked before us, so we will walk in their footsteps. In addition, the ancient stones that you see everywhere have been in Jerusalem forever, and have witnessed a lot of the glorious history of this city and of this nation". I looked at my two secular Israeli friends, to see how they react, and was surprised that they were totally in this. They were not cynical and didn't try to shift the focus to other things. When we started walking, the leader of the Polish group, Aleksandra, came to me and told me that they are so happy that I'm their guide, and another member of the group told me that my words come straight from my heart, and therefore it goes straight to their hearts. It was a great start. We then discussed who are the Jewish People, what was our beginning, with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, etc. Luckily, one of their group was named Jakob, so he was our "Jacob" whenever we discussed our roots. I reminded them of the fight Jacob had with the angel and the ensuing change of his name to "Israel". We visited some shop, and I showed them the Mezuzah on the doorpost, and then discussed also the Tefillin. We talked about the Menorah (the one with 7 candles and the one with 9 candles of Hanukkah). We saw the difference between Arab and Jewish neighborhoods - and we discussed the Torah commandment to plant trees in Israel, which we follow, and therefore our neighborhoods have many trees and are very green. We talked about Oskar Schindler who is buried on Mt. Zion, not far from King David's grave. We talked about the face of Jerusalem - all the buildings are white and many are covered with the "Jerusalem stone", which gives the city its unique appearance. We talked about the amazing, incredible history of the Jewish People, the miraculous return after 2000 years, the miraculous survival for 2000 years in diaspora, without a common land or a common language. We talked about the fact that nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the nations and can never happen, that it is unique to the People of Israel and that you can see G-d's hand in this. We talked about our National Anthem, HaTikvah, which I played for them on a recorder. They then gave us a show - they sang one of their songs for us when we were in Yemin Moshe, to the delight of passers-by. We talked about Moses Montefiori and his contribution to the rebuilding of Israel. We also talked about the German Templars who wanted to revive the land and live in it, but had to leave when the British took power. We talked about the miracle of the land, that was in desolation for 2000 of years, and started blooming and giving its fruit to the People of Israel when they began to return. It was very moving and emotional and I felt very very high after that. It was hard to "land" back down. I felt that I wish I had more chances to do that. The two Israeli friends were cooperative. Some times one of them felt compelled to give their own take on things, but they didn't contradict what I said. Both of them later told me very warm words on how the tour was conducted. Such days make my life worth living. Days like today, however, are less so. I'm at home, working alone, feeling intense longing for home. Looking to the future and not knowing what it harbors in its wings. Looking back and wishing I had done things differently, wishing I could change the past, wishing I had known back then what I know now, wishing I had used my opportunities properly. I wish Hashem had built the world in such a way that each of us could go back and change the past (as long as we do not hurt others in the process). It would have been so wonderful. The world could be close to Eutopia then. Perhaps we could get 3 chances of going back, and we could do it when we're old enough to know which episode we want to change. I know which episode in my life I would go back to and change. After making such a change, we could get two more trips back, to other times in our lives, if we want, so that there are no regrets and no looking back, only looking forward.
Once in my life I had this wish come true. I was in a horrible, horrible situation, and I prayed with all my heart that this was not really my reality, that this was just a dream. Everything was so real, I couldn't imagine it was a dream, but after praying so hard, I woke up and found out it was, in fact, just a dream. I felt so relieved, and I truly felt as if I was given a chance to relive my life and choose differently. Now I want to have the same again - to wake up and find this was just a dream, and that I can still choose differently and build a different life for myself, the way I've always wanted it to be. Hashem, may this be just a dream, then? May I have what I want in my 'real' life? If I pray hard enough, will I wake up again? And then I think about all the meaningful things I do, all the things I've done - and I know this life was not in vain, I did do some things that makes this life worth living.
Tomorrow a non-Jewish friend of mine from abroad will come to spend some of the Shabbat with me. She's already had a full Shabbat with me once, in my old apartment, and it was beautiful, she so enjoyed it, so she asked to come again. She will be my first guest in this new apartment. In the old apartment I hosted quite a lot and enjoyed it very much. Here I haven't yet, because I don't feel like home here so much. We'll see how it goes. Perhaps starting to host here will change my feeling about the place. I have no complaints about it, it just doesn't feel like home and the neighborhood doesn't feel like mine - it's American and Haredi. I miss Rechavia, where you can find people like me as well.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the winter and may the final redemption come soon, so each of us will be in our proper place, with the people we belong with and not among strangers.
Shabbat shalom,
Revital

December

Sunday night, after a busy and fruitful day, I suddenly felt a shivering of cold, which was surprising. I went to bed within a few minutes, trembling from cold, covered myself with four blankets, but the shivering continued and grew worse. I turned on the heating next to my head, but I was still shivering. I spent the next few days in bed, under the covers, with the heating a bottle full of hot water in bed under the covers, dragging myself out just for the bare necessities such as going to the toilet or the kitchen to get myself something to eat. It's been tough. At first I thought to myself that at least I can rest in bed and have my mind free to go wherever I want, but it was not like that. My condition got worse and worse. When you feel so bad, your mind is nothing but free. It is tied down to your pain and discomfort and it cannot soar to higher places. It felt like my mind was working full-gas on neutral - a lot of mental energy expended on absolutely nothing. I don't even know what I was thinking about - nothing! Your mind is empty and just full of your suffering. You cannot even pray normally. It is not good to be sick and we should be very grateful for every day we get to spend in good health in this world. I wonder why this thing happened to me in this timing (every year it happens once or twice, but this time it was not fun at all) and I think - perhaps I wasn't grateful for being well. I've been around bed-ridden people quite a lot recently and I didn't stop even once to appreciate the fact that unlike their situation now, at least I'm free to walk, to come and go, to do what I want, to have the dignity to go to the bathroom by myself without waiting for a hospital nurse to take me, change me or clean me. When I'm writing this and thinking about these people at the hospital, I feel like crying. The loss of dignity is probably one of the hardest blows they experience. They need to go to the bathroom, but the staff is busy with dozens of other patients who need them, and when their turn finally comes, they sometimes can't do what they need to do in the bathroom, perhaps due to shame, stress, embarrassment, and the staff gets frustrated because they worked hard on this - they took them down from the bed, wheeled them over to the bathroom, helped them get ready - and all of this in vain, which means they'll have to do it again for them very soon and they are so so busy anyway. And the patients feel like little children who are being scolded and are dependent on other people's "permission" to do something so basic as to go to the toilet. Of course, they can always do it in their diaper, but for adults this is even more humiliating. I think that only now that I've been forced to be in bed for a few days, that I actually given it a thought and feel so grateful and appreciative that Baruch HaShem I'm not in this situation now, and I pray that I will never ever be. And that everyone should be healthy ASAP. I so appreciate the fact that a healthy body gives you so many advantages and saves you so many troubles. We should never ever take it for granted.
One more insight that is even more important - is that being in a pain-free body allows our mind to be free and this is something to be forever grateful for. I'm still in bed, still under the covers, but now at least I think I got to the point where I can 'enjoy' it. My brain is not on fire anymore, I don't feel cold anymore, I feel stronger and I feel I have more rest and peacefulness, I no longer suffer much. It's even pleasant, to lie in this warm bed (which finally feels warm after feeling cold for so many days), to listen on YouTube to the songs that I like, and feel like in a certain sense I have a weekend-like rest on a regular week-day. And the biggest plus - is the fact that I can write here, which I haven't done in a long long time.

The bed around me looks like an office, with two computers (I worked during that time, including some skype meetings...), cables, my phone, the hot bottle of water, and I'm ashamed to say - even plates of food... I just couldn't stay out of bed for more than a few seconds each time to be able to eat on a table like a normal person. I had to eat here. It's not pretty, but it doesn't bother me so much now. It will look clean and neat tomorrow, when this is all over and just before Shabbat. My neighbors next door wanted to pumper me with chicken broth, but I had everything I needed here, I only needed some quiet and time to heal.

My YouTube is playing songs by John Lennon now, nostalgic songs, and pictures of John and Yoko run in the background. When I grew up, and up until recently, I've always had this image that Yoko was not a good person. I don't know why. It's just a passive image that was formed in my mind and I'm sure that not only in mine, but I don't know the reason for it. It's an image of a tough, ruthless woman who knows what she wants and is willing to step over everyone on her path in order to get it. Is there even one ounce of truth in this? I don't know. I recently watched a movie about John and Yoko. I didn't get answers to this question - but what I did see is that she was her own character, she was her own individual self, she was special in her own way and truthful to her unique self, independent in her mind and thoughts, and in her ways, and this deserves my appreciation. She wasn't like everybody else. She was truly different. Crazily so, sometimes, but it does not detract from the charm of her true individuality. I think each and everyone of us should strive to be our own unique selves rather than fit ourselves forcefully into predetermined structures that society has prepared for us. It is so hard to be around people who are fake, who are willing to sell their soul just to fit in with everyone else, who do not have the courage to be who they are - and the world is FULL with such people, especially in recent generations, I don't know why. I sometimes find myself feeling pressure to do the same, to fit in forcefully on the expense of my own soul, but most of the time I manage to put that pressure away from me. Not easy, but must be done. 

Also, the love and emotional bond between her and John seems so real and pure to me, and even though both of them seem to be dreamers and completely misled in their political outlook at the world, there is something so touching about them, about their naive idealism (at least in theory, not sure how it came into expression in practice), about their free life style, and about their pure, deep love for each other. I will forever love them for this love. I think that one of the criteria to judge true love is by its durability, and it seems that theirs is the kind of love that lasts forever. Like in the world of computers, for people who love this way, their beloved is "1" whereas the rest of the world, no matter who they are, is "0", and not just for a few years - forever. It's been almost 40 years since he was murdered by a lunatic, and even though she was married before him, she never married after him and I'm sure it is not because she didn't have suitors, for certainly she had many men who were interested in her. It's touching, and it gives her a few more points in my eyes, that her heart stays faithful to someone she will never meet again in this world. She is an old lady now (86, who can believe it?), and they have one son who is around my age, a musician himself, with no children as far as I know, but each of them have children from previous marriages. Still, it's a shame that such a colossal love story leaves no enduring continuity in this world. They will meet again in the after-life, in a few years from now. 

There is a famous Israeli song that everyone knows, called Agadah Yapanit ("Japanese Fairytale"), that talks about exactly such a story: two loving swans float on a lake, and then a hunter shoots an arrow at one of them and kills it. I think it describes their story well. Gladly, unlike the surviving swan in the song, she didn't kill herself.

Tomorrow, a group of Israel-loving Christians from Poland, musicians, are coming to Jerusalem and I'm supposed to give them a tour of the city. I hope I'll be well by then. Two Israeli friends of mine will be there too, so in case I won't be able to make it, they can do the guiding themselves, but they are non-religious, with naive lefty ideas that are far disconnected from reality, and as often happens with such people, they like to blame everything on Israel. I don't want to let the group be guided by them and they themselves told me that they won't feel comfortable guiding the group on their own. So it seems that I'm needed there. One of them joined me on such a tour in the past and it was a delight. The dynamics between us worked so well, so I'm looking forward for another fun opportunity to talk about the glory of G-d, the majesty of Jerusalem and the great miracles that HaShem has done with us. 

Once in a while HaShem sends such opportunities my way. I sometimes think it's not enough and I wish I were doing it more, but on the other hand, at times when it's too close-together, I feel that I've had enough and need a break, so He knows the exact dosage that is right for me to keep doing this with excitement and passion. I wish I could do it abroad as well, talk about the incredible history of Israel and how one can see G-d's hand in our ancient as well as modern history, but I'm just one person and I can't be everywhere at the same time, and going abroad is such a hassle - booking flights, accommodations, trying to eat Kosher, explaining to everyone why you cannot eat this or that. It's tiring. Even though the last time I did it abroad, in Norway, one of the ladies who attended one of my talks told me that when she saw me "eating this way" (that is, hardly eating anything, only a few kosher things), she understood that the commandments are what has kept us as one nation throughout our history in exile, and that she understands now that we have our own ancient covenant with G-d with no need for any new one. She said she understood at that point that the Jews do not need Jesus (she herself believe in him), because HaShem has a different, unique plan for us. She then came to Israel with her two sons for a visit. It was refreshing to my ears to hear it from someone like her. (I heard something similar from two other people many years ago after they came to a holiday dinner at my old apartment. They said almost the exact same thing and they too are Christians.) So perhaps it was worth my trip. And then I heard two years later that one of the people that I admire and respect most from the people I know in Norway, a teacher, has given a lecture about... Israel and the fulfillment of the prophecies - exactly what I had talked about at an event that he and his wife hosted for me at their home. I was so moved to hear this and again, it made me feel that this journey was not in vain and that everything you do has a ripple effect that you are not always aware of. So - it seems that at least to go tomorrow to meet the people from Poland I must, even if I'm not a 100% well. It's my chance to sanctify G-d's name among the nations this week. 

Shabbat Shalom and be grateful for your health!

R.