Public Transport Troubles

The light rail in Jerusalem is up and running, and has quickly become the symbol of modernity in this ancient city.

For me, on my ten minute joy ride on the tram each day to base, has become a microcosm of the schisms which exists in my home town.

Full article:

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/political-israel/

Purim Shibang!

Jerusalem was ignited with celebrations last week for Purim: the festival where the Jews of ancient Persia were almost annihilated, and despite the day being saved by Esther (a woman), the male author of the scroll is recognised as the hero. Also, although God does not make an appearance in the narrative, we still attribute the overall victory to Him. The Patriarchy wins again!

As a result of the whole shemozzle we dress up in costumes, give presents to the poor, eat, and get inebriated.

For the full article click here.

Tal Law

Since arriving back to Jerusalem from my visit to Australia, the rollercoaster ride that is my life resumed with added fervour. Most of the chaos is due to the High Court's decision not to renew 'Tal Law'.


For the full article please click here.

Bad Words

I guess the people have voted and you have to give the people what they want.

So I am still in the Defence Force serving one of my countries. My Hebrew speaking skills, and my be-a-barsterd-bureaucrat skills are improving immensely.

My only problem is still the slang, I can translate things in my head, but they make no sense in the context of things, so I just sit there and allow the floods gates of potty-talk take shape in my imagination.

NB: If your parents believe in censorship of bad-naughty words, or you have a weak heart, keep reading (I don’t give a shit).

So the other day this comrade of mine is telling us all about his weekend and how amazing it was, then he says “Achalti ochel BEN zonah” which literally means “I ate food son of a whore”.

SO I’m thinking, okay, so he ate the food of a son of a whore, but is happy about it, so maybe the son of a whore’s mother came out to give him the food and gave him a ‘plus 1’ for more tips.

Or maybe he ate the food of a son of a whore, who in the womb contracted one of her many STIs and then her son passed in on to my friend and now the disease is taking over his mind leaving him with that stupid smile stapled to his face. Syphilis can do that!

So I ask: “Why would you eat the food from a son of a whore”, people laugh.

Me: “no, seriously”…

FYI – eating the food of the son of a whore means it was a good thing. The term can also be used for video games: “That video game, son of a whore!”

Favourite tunes “that song was son of a whore”.

But not people “That guy is a son of a whore” is still an insult, but if he serves you food, or plays a song, it’s good!

By now I am a really confused son of whore!

Next this female comrade asks a fellow soldier to help her clean the office, he don’t take no orders from no woman. So she tells him, that she doesn’t care and can also “lizrok zayin al ha’Kol” – which to the literal reader means “I can also throw dick on everything”.

So I just get visually raped time and time again picturing this young girl throwing penises on everything she sees.

Where does she get these penises? Who is now walking around without their penis? Who is going to clean up these penis casualties and tell their parents that they fought bravely and died with dignity?

I later find out after another embarrassing question that it means to “throw your dick away” mean to “not give a damn”. With loose Socratic reasoning, it makes sense!

I also learnt a euphemism for homosexuals; it roughly translates to “a guy who runs backwards with his eyes closed in a field of corn.”

So colourful this holy tongue!

I am no longer worried about learning the language of the Hebrew Man, now it’s all about learning the language of the Hebrew Teen.

P.s. You can still vote on this post.

Your Voice Counts! Etc.

So I know I have been silent in the lead up to my year anniversary as an official Israeli citizen which falls on the 9^th January.

I know, I know, a great hush has fallen over the internet world!

Not really, you still have shitheads blogging about technical incongruities in Sci Fi films, and idiot parents slapping their kids and posting the reaction on YouTube.

This is where you come in!

Don’t slap your kids!

I am thinking of metamorphosing my blog into a Tweet account, this would mean that instead of reading so much,  or as I like to think of it as: ‘Essence of Blog’/ This means all the insight, laughts, and updates – only more condensed.

If you think this is a good idea, vote “I want to go to there” at the bottom of this blog and I will take you to there.

If you prefer the blog click “Pure wit”

If you are like everyone in my generation and either don’t want to commit or want samples product click “Interesting”

The decision will take place in a week. Maybe more.

Then again maybe less.

The power is YOURS!

The Power of Youth

My experience this week with the army got me thinking more broadly about the model which now shapes the Israel Defence Force. I don’t have much hard evidence of my opinions, only a little firsthand experience.

The position I thought I had, mentioned in previous post, within the education core has somehow fallen through the tracks of communication within the army’s chain of command. My name had be lost off the placement officers’ lists and I was one “yes sir” away from being placed working daily shifts from 8am-5pm in a warehouse on a base 3 hours from my house.

This wasn’t a blow to my ego, a friend of mine which a Masters in Mathematics and an undergraduate in computer engineering had been placed there as well. I knew that it wasn’t a reflection of what the army though about me - that the task of doing stock take on toilet paper rolls and paint tins was all I could amount to within the army.

This didn’t cross my mind.

Refusing to take the position, I was seated in front of a commanders office and told to wait. A sentence which ended up being for 5 days, from 8-5pm.

Throughout the week I took it upon myself to shorten those hours, so that by the last day I was only there from 11 till 1:30pm with a solid two hour lunch break in the middle.

I used my time to read my book, speak to friends on Skype and I would give myself top secret missions each day; to find the cable TV, the cafeteria with the best food, and to find the army base café.

Outside of army time I also managed to fill my evenings with activities to excite the mind and ignite the soul. African Dance is my new hobby, the class is simply electric, and the next day muscles I didn’t even know I had ache.

I also went to a cool gig in a hippy commune in down town Jerusalem, a band of 6 phenomenal musicians were playing Ladino tunes from Bulgaria, Libya, Greece and Turkey.

Finally on day 5 of the waiting I received my transfer documents to a base a short bus ride from my house. On Sunday I start the process again.

It wasn’t the waiting which upset me to the core. It was the defeatist attitude of the office workers there. This base I was waiting on is the size of a small city, run by people 19.5 years old (by my estimate average), and every person I spoke to just answered “that’s the way the army is, you can’t change it”.

I started thinking to myself, when did the army which was founded by a Youth Movement mentality start to extinguish the power of youth?

There was a time in this country’s history where the youth volunteered to serve, and did not consider it revolutionary, simply a “conservation of the fruits of the revolution of their parents’ generation.”¹

The amount of social loafing and disenchantment in the very fabric of the army amongst the youth who represent the army is sad. I don’t think this is coming from a place of doubt in the morality of the army or a disagreement with its actions. I think it grows out of the soil of disempowerment of youth from the ‘contracted soldiers’ who are hired by the army after their compulsory service.

For an 18 year old, 3 years (the required service for men) or even 2 years (the service for women), is an eternity! Even for me as a 24 year old 3 years seems like 12 lifetimes away. What you could do, see and experience in that time!

Perhaps, and I hope, it is just in the category of the army I am experiencing. That is, the paper pushing departments. I’d like to think that the soldiers who are given leadership training and responsibility feel a sense of achievement, self-importance and most of all the knowledge that things can change, because the youth are still the foundations of this army.

1. Adler 1963, p12. In Roots of Civic Identity: International Perspectives of Community Service and Activism in Youth. Edited by M. Yates, J. Youniss. 1999. Pg 209-11.

A Very Basic Training

Before I started my compulsory service in the Israeli Defence Force I got a facebook message from a friend saying “be safe, and moral”.

Two things ran through my mind in reading this statement.

Firstly, that my friend thinks that the army is like a sausage factory, where things go in alive, whole, free thinking, and come out as phallic objects filled with filth, snout and entrails.

Secondly, that my friend has enough respect to think of me as moral prior to enlisting, but not enough faith in me to avoid influence of the ‘rape, pillage, and burn’ mentality they supposedly teach there.

It’s possible that she confused the Israeli Army with a band of drunken Vikings. It is also possible that I am blowing her well-wishes out of proportion.

This is not a political blog so I am not going to go into what I do and do not think about the army. Instead I want to share my experience.

I recently finished basic training ‘02’, the second most basic training of the army. The training is for soldiers who will not be anywhere near combat during their service.

We learnt a bit of self-defence, how to shoot, learnt a little history, first aid, how to put on gas masks in the event of chemical warfare from our friendly neighbours, and how to wait.

Waiting is a skill I think I mastered in the month basic training.

The number crunch of the month:

50 sit ups

70 push ups

45 bullets shot

5 km of running

15km of walking

5.7 hours of sleep/night

12 showers

350 shekels earnt

And 212 hours of standing

At the end of the service, you are offered three jobs; fixing the wheels on tanks, fixing radios used in the war with Vietnam, or driving a truck. What great opportunities for my comrades, some of which have two physics degrees, some wuth aeronautical engineering degrees, many spoke more than 3 languages fluently including Arabic, some had officer training in the Russian army. 

Your humble narrator was offered a job in the Education Core creating lessons aimed to strengthen the Jewish and Zionist identity of people in the army on the condition that he sign on another 6 months.

A short sob-story about being alone in the world and a sick dog got me out of signing more time. I am happy to be starting a job I am most probably passionate about and isn’t going to melt my mind anymore that basic training has.

As a reflection on the whole experience we say in the army “היה טוב, אבל טוב שהיה” “it was good, but it’s good that it was”. I made some great friends and the experience cleared up a lot of the concerns I had concerning the army.

The Army

I struggle through my final push up and complete my punishment, but I'm still laughing. My commander opened the floor for us to share headlines we had read in the paper that day, Wanting to lighten the mood from articles about iran's nuclear program advancing and rockets hitting the south of Israel from Gaza, I tell the group about Macey Gray regretting her trip here. The commander askes me to explain who she is so i enter into my best rendition of here one hit. ''I try to say goodbye and I choke, try to walk away but I stumble...'' the soldiers and the commander laugh and I get punished. No singing in the army.

So far the army has not been worth the anguish I was feeling before I drafted. It's oddly a lot like summer camps. The commanders are like the camp councilors and I'm once again a participant.

The people in my unit are aged between 23 and 30 and for all of us Hebrew is our second or third language. It's hillarious at times, because when we get an order to run somewhere, most of us either dont listen or dont understand, so we end up running off like a herd of confused wilderbeast.

We get less than 6 hours of sleep every night, but our productivity in the 18 hours we're awake is nowhere near what we could be achieving. In the 14 hours at the shooting range, only a quarter of our group got to shoot 6 bullets.

There is an internal logic in the army that changes every couple of seconds with each of the commanders, making it incredibley hard to be a good soldier even if I wanted to be. I get told to eat from one commander, then get asked by another why I'm eating by another. This gets intensley frustrating.

I'm enjoying the comradery between the group, we jel over our united hatred for the officers.

The food Isn't so bad, even for vegetarians.

We're sleeping in tents on a base left by the British so the piping is a bit old and so there is always a pungent smell of human waste.

There are probably two main goals for this training. The first in to intergate us into Israeli society. And the second is to turn us into obedient soldiers, you cant scratch your ass without permission. They give you too little time to run somewhere to teach you ask for more time. The is probably the most difficult thing to cope with in my unit seeing as we're all used to being o independent.

Personally, I'm not hating it here. Some things are fun. I'm learning Amharit from the ethiopeans and learning to swear with zeal from the russians.

Let's Talk About Sects

Orthodox Shabbat services in Jerusalem have become all too dry for my liking. The endless mechanic recitation of psalms and piyutim makes me feel like a devout Christian ordered to say a thousand Hail Marys until he is absolved.

I live in Jerusalem so the variety of places of worship are by no means limited. So recently I’ve taken myself shule-shopping, it is fitting as this week we read the section of the Torah where God commands Abram to leave his comfort zone.

I don’t have a top 10 list as yet, but I have experience based reactions.

The first, is ‘Raz’ minyan, in the heart of nest of the hairy hippy organic cotton wearing suburb of Nachlaot you will find a small room with a mauve vibe turned into a shule. The minyan is for those who like to sing and is only recommended if you are in the mood. I have a friend who used to take a book and get through a good chunk of it during the service. The community is dedicated, there is a gender separation, and the Rabbi who leads the service sometimes creates the tune to the prayers as he goes along.

A favourite of mine is the infamous Shira Chadasha of who the Melbourne minyan of the same name is based.

Here you can feel an educated orthodox community who have struggled with Halakha and have found a way to make room for a solid female role in the service. They try to have a 10 and 10 minyan (men and women). They have great after-service treats and the singing is very spiritual.

At Shira Chdasha the community really is the choir, which actually means you have to be careful where you sit. I sat in front of an enthusiastic youth once and have been hard of hearing in my left ear ever since.

Lately I have been getting an itch in this service caused either by the length or the nagging question of “why did they stop there with halakhic leniencies when they could be doing so much more to incorporate both genders?”

Baqa Shivyoni (Egalitarian), is a new favourite of mine, it is similar to Shira Chadasha but the congregation is built of more Israelis. Also, where Shira Chadasha stopped pushing the halakhic boundaries, Baqa Shivyoni continued but they have still kept the prayers the same, and the Berlin mekhitza still remains.

The one I went to last Shabbat was by far the most exhilarating. It was Renewal Minyan called Nava Tehila and was a real step out for even the most liberal of Jews. This minyan only happens once a month, before the new moon makes its debut and it the product of Woodstock survivors and hippy rabbi’s .

The Rabbanit (female Rabbi) walks amongst the concentric circles or seats relating each upcoming prayer to love and peace with a loose link to the week’s Torah portion. The inner most circle is filled with guitarists, two people packing African drums, a harpist, a clarinet player for that traditional shtetl feel and a woman jamming on a Chinese Erhu.

The congregants have glazed grins pained on their faces and sway to the songs with their eyes closed and hands in the air, one woman displaying her arm pit fuzz.

Civilian T's to that Olive Green

I’ve liberated myself from the constraints of my luscious locks and am ready to trade in my civilian T’s for that olive green.

That olive green. The colour that inspires, and allows that blue and white to stay bright.

When I was in Australia I said, “Wherever I walk, I walk toward Israel”. When I got to Israel, I said “Wherever I stand, I sand in Israel”. Now, in my final hours of freedom I say “From tomorrow, wherever I stand, I stand for Israel”.

After my service I’ll say: “Shit, I gotta get a job.”

Friends who wished they had one last chance to run their fingers through my hair, or have one last beer with me ask me how I feel about it all. I thought I’d share it with you.

Firstly, joining the army, for me, is neither the realisation of political or religious agenda. It is a part of the reality in which I live. If a country is under threat, they need a defence force.

No idea why Australia has one.[1]

This is not to say that I want to go to the front line and monitor borders, or have to decide if someone should live or die. I would be happy to be behind a desk and not have any contact with weapons at all. There is no doubt that there a need for those kind of soldier, but those who know me, know that I’m not that kind of guy.

There are some things I am nervous about, and other things that I’m excited about.

Communal showers for example.

I’m no exhibitionist. I’d prefer to wash myself without being bathed by someone else’s gaze.

One thing that excites me is the chance to meet people from all walks of life who I would not have spoken to because of the city they come from or any number of reasons.

As much as Israel has abandoned the kur khitukh (‘melting pot’) model and has embraced integration over assimilation, there are certainly still elements of ‘becoming one of the flock’ when you pass under the shepherd hook of the I.D.F. It is an integral experience in being an Israeli.

No doubt it will be an eventful period of my life.

Stay tuned for stories.

Sgt. Jorje

"I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier. I've got ham, but I'm not a hamster"

Ethpanya! Aiy yai yai!

The best thing I ate

I know it’s been a while since I’ve made a post. I have been travelling the land of Spain the past two weeks, and then real life hit me in the face like a fat sweaty Middle Eastern man catapulted from three meters in front of me.

I’ve been a bit of a deer in headlights – excited by being back in Israel but confused about metaphoric trucks careering toward me.

Spain was beautiful. A dazzling European city. Clean with grand buildings and picturesque landscapes. You can taste where Picasso, Dali, Goudy and other artists received their inspiration.

While there, my main goal was to try and fit in. Not be an average tourist, but an Aussie/Israeli expat who had been in Spain for a while.

The first was the language. Of which I had none to start with. Well, I knew how to say “I am hungry, I want tacos”, but that’s about it.

I got their late at night with my “I am hungry” phrase and “where is” which I had learnt on the plane and used to find my way to the hostel. I wrote the word “right” on my right hand, and “left” on my left hand. My mastery of the body language got me there in the end; You see a nice old man shake both hands vigorously straight and say some things in Spanish, you learn that he is mostly saying “go straight”.

The next day I discovered that because of a King they once had, the Spanish still today speak with a lisp. I later found out that the lisp doesn’t appear on each ‘s’ sound. They can say “Espanya”, it’s not “Ethpanya”.

Once I got that down I learn to ask where the toilets where properly, without being blurred with a mouthful of ‘th’ sounds.

Then to complete my Spanish transformation I had to master a couple more things:

1.       Afternoon naps. Everything closes there for two to four hours in the afternoon. – Easy

2.       I had to start drinking beer or wine at 10am – manageable.

3.       And I had to eat a lot of a little.

Tapas and Pinchos are the dishes available in Spain, 98% of which are something with thin slices of ham they scraped off the legs they have displayed on their counters.

Tapas are small side dishes costing between EU2 for something simple like garlic bread, to EU6 for something elaborate. Pinchos are fancy little finger food, which in the north are customarily washed down with cider, and in the south, sangria.

Basically mouthfuls of deliciousness.

Being Jewish I found the eating thing to be the easiest way to fit in – in theory. Being vegetarian complicated things. “What do you mean no ham?!? What do you eat?”

In short I managed. I didn’t go hungry at all.

Segovia, Spain

I spent my days there soaking in fine art and sun, riding bikes through parks both Israel and Australia wouldn’t have the water to upkeep. Drinking enough, dancing a little, climbing mountains (hills), castles and cathedral walls. We saw everything Goudy and Jewish, and enough cathedrals to satisfy me for a long time.

It was a great feeling to arrive back in Israel and hear my fellow citizens saying how they hope Gilad Shalit will be able to return home soon too and the next day he did. What an experience, not a dry eye in sight, such a joyous day. 

Not an Ordinary Day

He sits at a wobbly table in his usual café in the heart of Jerusalem finishing off his third cigarette. He puffs away anxiously, eager to start the next one as soon as his tired lungs will let him.

He doesn’t usually drink espresso, but today he needs a good kick.

He wriggles in his seat, can’t seem to find a comfortable resting position. His insides are squirming as he reads the paper.

On an ordinary day he would nurse a latte while eaves dropping on his neighbours; a woman is pregnant, a couple breaking up, the state of the government. Today all the talk at the tables around him is the same.

A boy, who more than one thousand eight hundred and twenty five days ago, was taken from his home soil in an act of warfare or terrorism, and now, after all this time, his return looks within arm’s reach.

Five years. The man thinks about what has happened to him in five years. How the street he looks out on has changed. How the street language has changed. How people have changed.

For so long this boy has neither seen his family or his people. Does he realise there has been a worldwide campaign to bring him out? Does he care? Or does he just want to be with his parents who have sat in torment and torture in a purgatory where they can neither mourn the death of their son, nor hope for his return? That is, until now.

At long last, his nation’s protests, petitions and prayers will be answered.

The man read’s on, and his excitement is confused by the following paragraph explaining the price of the exchange. One thousand and twenty seven convicted criminals, each with at least one life sentence for acts of violence and terror. Hands dyed red with the blood of the innocent. They will be returned to their homes, some just minutes from the café.

Will this trade throw this city into an all too familiar wave of chaos where Molotov cocktails are the least of his worries?

The article says these prisoners are not only to be released, but to be given a pardon signed by the president. He doesn’t envy the president.

He lights another cigarette, a luxury the stolen boy has not had for so many years.

So many questions swirl in his mind. He sways with the ebb and flow of his moral compass.

This is not an equal exchange by any means, but we cannot leave a live man behind enemy lines. But doesn’t this encourage the militia to do this again? How many more lives will be lost from this trade off? In what state will we be getting him back? Is this just a political move for a government who is losing public support?

He concludes that the trade is irrational, but none the less it is what must be done.

He realises now that he is a part of a country that sees more value in the life of a stranger than he has for his own. He still shuffles in his seat, but now more so from anticipation than concern.

Today is not an ordinary day.

The Binding of Isaac

And God tempted Abraham and said unto him, Take Isaac, thine only son, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon the mountain which I will show thee. – Gen. 22:1-2

On second day Rosh HaShannah we listen and read bits of the story of ‘The Binding of Issac’ during those quick breaths in between the schmoozing.

No one can have a neutral response to this story.

You admire Abraham’s faith, or berate his madness. You may have a reaction of anger toward both characters; Isaac for his absolute lack of agency, and Abraham for his inability to stand up for his child as he did for the evil-doers of Sodom and Gomorra. You may think of child abuse. And your heart will most certainly weep a little for Sarah.

Lately I have been struggling with this event in the biblical narrative which really is the foundation upon which the three major religions are build: In Judaism it is the final test of Abraham which secures his inheritance and relationship with God, in Christianity it has been interpreted as a prelude to the sacrifice of Jesus, and in the Muslim narrative Isaac is replaced by Ishmael.

The text is difficult, dramatic, painful and heart wrenching and leaves me questioning: “Did Abraham replace ‘morality’ for ‘obedience’?”

First I want to analyse the text a little.

The bible is structured upon a technique called ‘gapping’ which means that it couldn’t fit everything into the text so we need to be careful readers and pick up patterns to fill in holes we might find in the text.

One of the first instances this happens in our story is when the God calls to Abraham and commands him to sacrifice Isaac. God could have just said “Oy! Go and kill Isaac” but instead there is this build up and narrowing down of who exactly God wants sacrificed.

There is an almost implied dialogue – word’s in brackets are my interpretation of what’s missing:

God: Take now your son
[Abraham: Who?]
God: “Your only son”
[Abraham: Ishmael?]
God: “The one you love”
[Abraham: Which one exactly?]
God: “Isaac.”
[Abraham: Oh…]

Very similar sentence structure to “Go, from your house, from your birthplace, from the land of your father to the land that I will show you” – the original 'God-Promise' to Abraham that begins this journey. Only here, there is no promise of a reward.

The elongated command to sacrifice Isaac is there to emphasise the love-bond between the two. To explain to the reader that this isn’t someone Abraham wants to kill. With each specification of who to take, the tension increases.

It’s like when a mother gets a call from the police saying; there’s been an accident, someone in your family has been killed, someone you love, your one and only son. It’s a dramatic technique.

Abraham tries to avoid the command, but God doesn’t let him get away easily.

Emmanuel Kant in his book ‘The Conflict of the Faculties’ says:

 “but if God should really speak to man, Man can still never know that it was God speaking, it is quite impossible to man to apprehend the infinite by his senses, distinguish is from sensible being and recognise it as such. But in some cases Man can be sure the voice he hears is not God’s; for if the voice commands him to do something contrary to the moral law, then no matter how majestic the apparition may be, and no matter how it may seem to surpass the whole nature, he must consider it an illusion.”
In Kant’s opinion Abraham failed the test completely, he should have apprehended the voice he heard, saying; “if you want me to butcher my son, you must not in fact be God at all”.

Kierkegaard tries to validate what Kant is denying in his Fear and Trembling, he shares the thought with Kant that the sacrifice is immoral, but he also believes that God’s will transcends the moral order. It is a teleological suspension of the ethical goes on in the story.

They start off early the next morning, Rabbinic tradition interprets that this is a sign of Abraham’s eagerness to fulfil the word of God, but it seems to me that he either only received the vision in his sleep or he delayed starting his trip. Why didn’t he leave straight away?

It gives me chills when I read how the father and son then walk together, the son looks up to his father of the age of hundred and says “my father” to which Abraham responds “yes my son”. The possessive pronominal suffixes “my” solidify the deeply emotional connection between the two.

There are two people with them who are identified by the Midrash as Ishmael and Eliezer; two of the 3 potential heirs to Abraham’s wealth – Isaac being the third. (I don’t include Lot, he’s a douche).

The reason I bring up the ‘heir’ thing is that without an heir to inherit Abraham’s wealth, the promises God made to him cannot be fulfilled.

Abraham stops after 3 days of walking and tells the two unnamed men to wait as they go up the mountain to pray to God. But Abraham says “we will go up, and we will return” (וְנָשׁוּבָה).

Questions:

-          Does this imply that Abraham knows it’s a test?

-          Is he lying to prevent Isaac from freaking out?

-          Or is it both? i.e. is it something he hopes will come true, that they will return together?

Maybe he has faith in the promise from God that he will be a great nation, and he know he can only become a great nation if he has a living son who can procreate. Because if your parents don’t have kids, you won’t have kids.

The wood that is meant to burn his body to ashes as a sacrifice is laid upon Isaac. It’s like making someone dig their own grave.

Side note: It is not absolutely clear how old Isaac is, but he would have to be old enough to be able to carry enough wood to burn his body. Which could also mean that Isaac is 5 years old; a 5 year old can only carry  a small amount of wood but also needs less wood because their bodies are smaller. Morbid mathematics.

“The two walked together” or “walked as one”. The Midrash says Isaac is 37 years old. He knows what’s going on, but he walked with Abraham as though he is on board with the cause.

You would think that, but then Abraham actually needs to tie Isaac up. You don’t need to tie up someone who is willing to be sacrificed. At the same time, Abraham couldn’t tie up his strong son without consent. MAybe Isaac is on board, but is worried he’ll have involuntary flinching and then he’ll get a small cut that will render the sacrifice invalid.

The Book of Jubilees suggests that the reason for the test is that the angels of God could see Abraham loved both God and his son, but want to see who Abraham loved more.

When the countermand comes for Abraham to stop there is a similar dialogue as when Abraham was commanded that the Midrash unravels:

The Rabbinic tradition explains that an angel went down and told Abraham for stop but Abraham responded "The Almighty Himself commanded me to offer my son to Him—only He can countermand the order: I will not hearken to any messenger!"

You would think that if someone was really that apprehensive toward carrying out a task that he would take any opportunity to avoid the task. But not our Abraham, he is caught up in this blind trance and wants to carry through with it.

You can see this because when the ram appears he just goes and kills it!

Firstly, rams belong to people, they don’t grow wild.

Even in Israel today if you find a ram and decide to slit its throat, a shepherd will shoot you.

And secondly, God doesn't commant Abrahab to kill the ram, but he has the kill look in his eyes and needs to carry out the action.

There is a Midrash that says the sheep’s name was Isaac. A direct substitute for Isaac. There is also a Midrash says that Abraham looked identical to his son, only when Abraham’s hair turned grey could people differentiate between them. So the ram becomes a substitute for Isaac, who is a substitute for Abraham.

Verses 15 through 18 are classified by academics as a the earliest interpretation of the Akeida [Binding] which were actually inserted into the text. God speaks to Abraham “A second time” and we get the original promises again from Genesis 12 only here it is a consequence of the obedience of Abraham, previously it was baseless “Go from your land and I will make you a great nation etc.” [paraphrase].

Yay Abraham! You’ve destroyed the relationship with your son, but you get showered in material possessions! A fair trade.

In verse 19 “and Abraham returned to the young men” – Where is Isaac? Abraham descends the mountain alone. There is no dialogue between Abraham and the rest of his family after this event.

The lists of names that come after this break the tension and move the story along. 

Abraham’s brother Nachor has 12 children, a parallel birth of a nation to that of Jacob later on. Nachor has 8 children with his primary wife, and 4 by secondary wife – Jacob too has 8 children by primary wives (Rachel and Leah) and 4 by his secondary wives (Bilha and Zilpa). Abraham’s grand niece, the daughter of Bethuel is Rebeka, Isaac’s future wife and second cousin.

This Akeida is a climax in the Genesis story after that event the story mellows out a bit.

I still have the question “Does Abraham replace morality with obedience?”

Yeshayahu Leibowitz’ in his The Meaning of Halakhah (1953) says:

“Ethics, when regarded as unconditionally asserting its own validity, is an aesthetic category par excellence… The Torah does not recognise moral imperatives stemming from the knowledge of natural reality of from awareness of man’s duty to his fellow man. All it recognises are Mitzvot, divine imperatives… Halakhah [the is, Jewish law and practice] as a religious institution cannot admit the category of the ethical.”

Which is a similar view of Kierkegaard mentioned above, that God’s will is above ethics.

I’m not so satisfied with that, Abraham argued his guts out for the sinner in Sodom and Gomorrah but said nothing to God regarding the life of his son.

Regarding the Ancient Near East and sacrifice we learn that sacrifice doesn’t necessarily involve killing. In Leviticus when they discuss the method of ‘burnt offering’ they don’t mention the killing at all.

The Haftorah for this Torah portion is that of Hannah begging God for a son which she promises to give back to him in service. This is equally as sad but is an example of a sacrifice that doesn’t involve killing at all?

Also in the Temple there were grain and fruit libations which were sacrifices that did not involve killing. (Sorry fruitarians)

And we've all heard our parents say "do you know what I've had to sacrifice to give you this?" - lets just hope its a "what" and no a "who".

So maybe Isaac was sacrificed on that mountain top, but wasn’t killed. Or maybe he was only in the form of a ram. What’s clear to me is that the father-son relationship was what was given up. Abraham chose God over his son. They didn’t walk together as one down the mountain as they did on the way up.

Another point, Kierkegaard sees Abraham as being “double-minded” torn between obedience and faith. When Isaac asks his father “Where is the ram?” Abraham responds “God will provide it.” Abraham cannot bring himself to speak of what God commanded him to do because his faith in God tells him that God will not let him go through with it. His obedience keeps him walking up the hill in “fear and trembling with a dagger in his hand.

Kierkegaard goes on to say that: 

“One may stay ethical, and have a satisfying life. Or one may go farther and embrace in fear and trembling and in dread and awe the faith in ones own choices, facing the terrifying possibilities of being deceived and of deceiving oneself."

Its starts with the “I choose” and continues with the “I shall now act”.

Levinas in Existence and Ethics sees friction between the religious fervour of Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith” and morality, he views it as a subversion to ethical foundations and suggests that you need external justification and cannot just rely on the internal isolated passion.

Nietzsche says:

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege for owning yourself.”

Each time Abraham does something separating himself from the tribe, he leaves his environment. He leaves his homeland to become a nation and then he leaves his encampment for the Land of Moriah to sacrifice Isaac. Maybe the real reward Abraham sought after is owning himself.

Let me know your thoughts.

Middle Eastern Predicitons

Arab Spring

This is my 42^nd blog post.

42 – The meaning of life.

Significant in a time in my life where I have chosen to abandon exploring the ‘why’:

-Why are we here?

-Why do I care?

-Why do I need to keep my elbows off the table when I eat?  

And focus more on the ‘what’;  

-What should I do today?

-What should I have for the lunch?

-WTF?

etc.

Distractions. It’s all about the distractions.

One perfect distraction is the upcoming UN delegation and subsequent impending doom on the State I now call home!  

I decided to do a bit of field work and find out what the people of this tiny land actually think is going to go down on that momentous day.

It seems that at most 2 million Palestinian refugees residing in Syria will march toward the Israeli border, partly because they want to reclaim the land of their ancestors, and partly because the Syrian government with mow them down with machine guns.

At least we might see a bit of colourless fireworks near the security fence along the 1967 armistice line.

Most people in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv will wake up as usual, go to their favourite, or most convenient, café and order their usual.

I think there’ll be unrest which could turn violent.

There might be a little fire. There may not. It could go either way. I think it’ll stop/pause some of the internal protests regarding social justice. Sorry for being vague, it’s the nature of my generation. 

I am of Israel

The Journey Outline

These past couple of days I took myself up north and did a bit of a trek. The main, I guess, catalyst for the trip was the line in Baz Luhrmann’s Sunscreen Song: “Do something every day that scares you”.

I don’t have a camping phobia per se. I’m just crap at it.

So I caught me a bus up to Tzfat, holy city which I would have loved to stay in and absorbed all its mystical energies, but I had walking to do. I headed down the hill out of the city to a place called Ein Chovesh which was the start of my trail.

By this stage the sun was well over head and its heat was unrelenting, but I pressed on until I came across a domed hut coated in moss overlooking the valley I planned to toddle through. A perfect place to cook myself a hearty lunch; vegetable curry with rice. This meal made no dent whatsoever in the 20kg I had packed in my backpack.

Oh the backpack, how I learned to hate it, forever imprinted in my shoulders.

I continued down in through Nachal Amud (Amud River), a once gushing stream, now  a rocky unsteady path. I had to scale boulders, and descending down hills covered with pebbles, there were cliff ledges and thorned bushes which loved to get under my skin.

I’ll admit I slipped and fell many times. Birds definitely blushed when they heard the profanities which rolled of my tongue each time I scrapped my knees, knocked my shins, or stubbed my toes.

The first night I found an abandoned overgrown clay oven, which looked like a great place to rest my travel-weary limbs and get shelter from the elements. Little did I think that other things also sought shelter from the elements. I spent half the night checking that the scorpions in the cracks next to my head weren’t advancing and that the mice weren’t digging too much at the mud which held the bricks over my head.

After dark I decided to light myself a small fire in my grotto, a feeble attempt at warding away the wasps nesting on some wild flowers sprouting through the cracks. I ended up smoking myself out of the hut. I at my dinner in the dark outside.

When I came back in I buried the dwindling fire under dirt I scooped up from the ground. The smell of burning garbage and faeces explained that it wasn’t just any old dirt. The dense smoke was replaced by an insufferable stench. My dinner was soiled.

I went to sleep after a cup of overly sugared tea at the responsible hour of 8pm only to be woken up by the sound of squeaking mice and hay being chewed. Wild horses had come to feed outside and then on top my already unstable shelter.

Although I was in my bed for 12 hours, I probably only got about 3 hours sleep.

The next day couldn’t have come faster. I only wish the end of my water didn’t come so quickly.

I managed to get to the motorway with half a litre left, the sun was already starting to bash my head in.

I checked the map (surprised I know how to read one?) and headed the 3km with my 20kg to the nearest gas station. Filled up, recovered, and walked the 3km back to start my day’s trek. Back into the river bed I went.

I met some fellow hikers on the way who commented straight away on how large my pack was. “What!? I had to take a jacket! And my mum would have killed me if she found out I didn’t take 8 days worth of food!”

I completed the rest of the 7 kilometres signing aloud and talking to myself excessively, passing banana plantations and some nice cliffs shaped by wind erosion – so many different layers of sediment! I set up camp on a camping ground next to a goat farm in Ein Nun near a town called Migdal.

Surprisingly less to worry about when you’re sleeping under the stars. Just cats scrounging around for garbage.

From there I took a bus up to Rosh Pina where I met up with a friend and after a much needed shower we heading to the river stream near the Lebanon border where we hiked, played cards, camped and donated blood to needy mosquitoes.  From there we hiked to Kiryat Shemona and bussed back to Rosh Pina where I headed off to spend Shabbat in a small town near Nazareth called Hoshe’a (Hosea) which was just lovely.

I went on this hike to iron out the kinks in my head about the purpose of it all. I needed a chance to think about what exactly I’m doing here, and why it feels more important for me to be in Israel than to be with my friends, my family, those remarkable beaches, the super funky bars in and around Oxford St, and the cafes which actually prefer you to order a specific and complicated cup of coffee where the waitresses should be walking up and down catwalks instead of crooked stairs from the kitchen to the tables. Also why I feel a responsibility to this country when so many other places around the world could use a helping hand. What is the attraction, the magnetism I feel to this people, to the soil.

I didn’t really work out all the answers, and the ones I did work out are difficult to explain. I think put plainly, I feel as Yeats did to his motherland, I just simply feel that I am of Israel.

Northward Bound

For a while now I have been going through a bit of an existentialist saga. Some friends tell me it’s because I expect too much of myself, others say, I don’t do enough.

This feeling of meaninglessness didn’t germinate from a point of depression or from a broken heart. Clichés like that bore my entire generation.

Instead, I think, this feeling of being enveloped by pointlessness sprouted when I was caught up in the routine of work.

I was working then eating, then sleeping just so I would awake for work, to eat, to sleep. Working on sleep eating, and eating sleep at work. I don’t eat sheep, but I need sleep.

As you can see, my world began to unravel at the seams like the psyche of Dr. Suess on acid (or rather, more acid.)

So I turned to the books and to movies. Watched a junk-load of Charlie Kaufman films which were overly unhinged – just the way I like it.

Then to a theological master, Rav Soloveichik’s. I figured his essay Lonely Man of Faith would give me some direction toward the path to meaning.

As eloquent a writer he is, extended metaphors are only good for the first 20 pages. He stretches the Adam and Eve stories (plural, Gen. Ch. 2 & 3) to a point where my stomach convulsed and I vomited out my nose – figuratively.

The essay also ended with a question, which frustrated me though it did help me arrive at a couple of conclusions.

Firstly, that I am not a man of faith. Just a simple Yid. I find it difficult to believe in the Character we call God in the bible. I think it is a juvenile way of conceptualising an ultimate, infinite being and can be almost directly compared with Michel Foucault’s ‘Panopticon’ – a prison design in which the prisoners’ cells encircle a watchtower which they cannot see into. The inmates’ behaviour drastically improves as they never know whether or not they were being watched.

The second and third aren’t developed enough to be published in this ramble.

What is worth mentioning is that on my last day of work the random playlist which shuffles between genres like a prostitute and sexually transmitted infections –  every once in a while you get the same song on again, but mostly it’s just a mixed bag, started playing The Sunscreen Song by Baz Luhrmann.

Listening to that song while mopping whipped cream off the floor, I found myself riding a wave of emotion. I felt both happy and sad and eventually – satisfied.

It was then I decided to listen to the song repeatedly until the message got through my head, and I acted upon at least 70% of his advice. Some are easier than others.

Some examples:

“Dance”  - done, too easy  

“Don’t read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly” – Easy

“Sing” – Always

“Understand that friends come and go” – getting there

“Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults” – Okay

“Do one thing every day that scares you”…

This is one I’m going to start working on tomorrow. That’s not me procrastinating, I’m actually going to.

Tomorrow I’ve decided to hike from Tzfat to Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu.

I can’t say I’ve done it yet, but my bag is packed.

For those who know me, I’m not the manliest of men, and I’m not so good at camping. That’s why I’ve decided not to take a tent…

The hike will go for 4 days, 3 nights and I hope to cover around 80km (ish) – totally doable.

Let you know how it goes. But either way, it'll give me a moment of beauty.

Funemployed 2

I’ve been using my Funemployed time relatively well. I spend the first days of relative freedom (because we can only be ‘relatively free’) in Tel Aviv catching up with friends and drinking pretentious coffee in pretentious cafes. I don’t claim I was an island of pretentiouslessness in those cafes. Sometimes I enjoy sitting with friends who can distinguish between the tightness of the bubbles in their foamed milk and judge whether in fact their beverage a latte of a cappuccino.

Then returning to Jerusalem I found myself dancing at the beer festival with friends who’d followed me from Tel Aviv.

The Jerusalem beer festival attracted more a ‘younger’ crowd than the wine festival. We all know that: Young + Beer = hooligans. I enjoyed trying some cool beers from around the globe we live on.

This past Shabbat we spent hosting people. I made stuffed vegetables.

The meals were great because my new Chicago born roommate and I were the only native English speakers. Despite the supposed language barrier, I found myself completely involved in the discussion. Almost as much as I would have been, had it been in English.

I admit that after I stuffed myself beyond the point of breathing, my eyes began to droop and my bed was looking enticing, my participation in the conversation died down a little. But that’s to be expected.

Shabbats are really social here, and are also a great way to keep track on how my community building is going.

My social groups now vary, and the participants have grown. I’m settling in well.

FUNEMPLOYED

So I’m finally free of that soul crushing ice cream shop!

Being overly dramatic is fun.

I’ve written a list of things I want to do with my newly acquired free time. I wouldn’t call it a ‘bucket list’ by any means, because a lot involve personal hygiene; shave, cut toe nails, wash sheets, mop room. But there are others which involve adventure!

Today I’m going to Tel Aviv, hangin’ out on the beach and chillin’ with friends. Tough life I not lead.

I’m planning a camping trip up north, going to go hiking for a bit. I don’t really know how that’s going to pan out, seeing as the last time I tried to set up a tent I needed the help of teenage girls. Really strong teenage girls…

Might just have to pack some teenage girls.

I’ve gotten back into reading, both English and Hebrew, my next blog post might be a book review. Wild!

And, I’ve been hosting meals!

 

We have a new roommate, an American girl I know from Ulpan. The house is still a Hebrew speaking zone, just not when my Israeli roommate is out.

So in honour of her joining the party we hosted Friday night, and Saturday Shabbat meals.

For both meals we had a typically Jewish mis-catering error, whereby too many people brought too much food. So my fridge has been filled with leftovers ever since, which is great because although we don’t have an oven, we have a microwave, so leftovers can be disguised as freshly cooked meals!

In my apartment we usually eat in the kitchen, but the kitchen is basically a kitchen for ants, in needs to be at least three times bigger. So if we have more than four people over, we eat in my room. This works even better for me, ‘coz after the meals I just got up from my chair and plonked my body onto my bed and went to sleep.

When I woke up, I realised some of my guests had joined me. 

7 Stages of Grieving

I am now in the final days of my work at the ice cream store and I’m sure you, the reader, are just as excited as I am, because after next Tuesday you won’t need to hear about it anymore.

Even though I have a couple more days to go, I feel I have already been blessed with a little bit of hindsight and can already look back on the experience from a week and a half from now: I think I would describe my ebb and flow relationship with work as similar to that of the 7 Stages of Grieving.

I started work with the idea that I wanted to practice my Hebrew, make friends and learn a little bit about  the ‘minimum wage’ culture of Israeli society.

The first Stage was ‘Shock and Denial’:

I was definitely in a numbed state disbelief that I had in fact got a job in Israel, “how exciting!” I thought with wide-eyed naivety.

Then the ‘Pain and Guilt’ set in:

I was struck with insufferable pain and guilt of my decision to work there, both physical and emotional.

The physical was just the other week when the carpometacarpal join in my left hand was sprained from scooping the Dark Chocolate ice cream. My thumbs were also swollen from overuse (mainly from texting out of boredom), so I had to learn to scoop with my right hand.

 

The Third Stage is ‘Anger and Bargaining’:

I started bargaining with my boss as to how many shifts a week I had to do; he wanted 7 double shifts, I wanted two. I started saying “why me?” and muttering profanities as the ice cream behind the sneeze protecting glass.

Then the ‘Depression’ sunk in. I pictured my corpse frozen in the ice cream display and the other workers scooping my body into sugared covered cones.

When I reached the 5^th stage, “The Upward Turn”, I decided to give my notice of retirement from the gelataria business and pull myself out of that half dug grave.

‘Reconstruction and Working Through’ came next, I now can look to the future, and become a more productive member of society.

The final stage is ‘Acceptance and Hope’ – I’ve accepted the experience and decided to bottle and repress it in the back of my mind, to later seep out in forms of physical abuse to small kittens.

As they say in Israel “היה טוב, אבל טוב שהיה” “It was good, but good that it was” (rough translation).

In reality it wasn’t as bad as I thought I was while I was in it.

Outta here!

Lately the ice cream shop has been melting my mind, and not in a good way. So the other day I decided to give my notice and just work till the end of the month, and finish that chapter of my life earlier than expected.

I felt like I was going to have to break up with my boss. I wanted to find the perfect moment, be a man about, and not do it over the phone, but face to face.

I was going to let him down easy, the whole “It’s not you, It’s me” routine.

I thought up this whole story so as not to leave him suspicious that I was in fact leaving because the job was sucking my will to live. I was going to do the ‘complement sandwich’.

Eg. “this job has been a great experience, if I have to scoop one more ice cream I might just cook my face in the waffle machine, but I have really enjoyed working here.”

After two days of brooding I finally told him, ended up just blaming it on the army – “I need some time off before”.

He was completely unfazed.

I can imagine that kind of job had a high turnover of staff, but I thought we had bonded!

Before I finish there the boss is going to milk me for all the hours he can get, but it doesn’t matter coz after that life begins!

Going to go hiking in the hills, camp, eat food from a coal fire, and find an oven, couch and table which mysteriously walked out of my apartment this week. You know, just get back to walking to beat of my own drum.

Waiting for Doubtfire

We’re currently looking for a new housemate because one of my housemates is moving out to go study in Tel Aviv.

So far I’m kind of feeling that it’s like that sequence of calls from the movie Mrs. Doubtfire.

It seems that each person that calls interested in the apartment is a degree more deranged or twisted than the one before. I guess that’s the problem with the internet, equal access for all.

Damn freedom.

The first person that called was a guy, despite us specifically advertising for a girl – preferably good looking, French or South American, and single – but these weren’t a necessity.

We’ll just call this mystery man ‘Tomer’, mainly because that was his name.

He comes late to see the place so neither I nor my other housemate could wait for him, just a girl who’s subletting from us at the moment who shows his round the place. He calls my housemate later and says with the confidence of an American stunt man:

“Hi, I was looking at the room that’s available and, well, it’s a little small. Then I saw the other room (my room), and I understand he’s going to the army soon. I mean good on him and all. But why does a soldier need such a big room? I was wondering if I could rent his room?”

Ah… No…

The next person to call starts off by saying in a slow nasally voice that she’s 27 years old and 80% disabled.

We live on the 3^rd floor of the building, no lift. She says that’s fine. Last I checked legs were more that 20% of your body, so what else works?

I’m confused.

She asks “can I see the room now?”

My roommate and I aren’t home.

“Oh, so how about later today? You see I have to go tomorrow to see my son on the other side of the country. He lives with my ex-husband”

“We probably won’t be home till later”

“Oh, okay, so I might just go to the shopping centre till you’re back. Will you call me when your back?”

“It might only be late in the night”

“Also, I’m quite a social person, but I like my privacy. And also I’d appreciate it if you could tell me before you have people over. And I hope it’s okay if my son and ex-husband come over occasionally for dinner. So can I come and see the place now?”

(…)

“So are you home now, because I really need to move out of my apartment soon?”

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU SAY TO THAT!?!

It would make for some cool blog posts if she actually moved in. Or it could just turn me into a tortured poet.

What’s awkward now is that she knows where we live!

We had one girl who came to look at the place. Sauntered through the place with absolute grace. She’s doing her masters at Hebrew U in Israeli History. Really sweet. ‘Religious light’, meaning she keep kosher and Shabbat but is cool. And best of all – sane.

I hope she calls back, she seemed to like the place. We’ll see.