Scotland, UK

Last week, my wife and I went for a short holiday in Scotland. She was in England the previous week for her studies, and I was scheduled to be in Boston the following week, so stopping for a few days in Scotland fitted in well with our plans.

We stayed in Edinburgh, arriving at our guesthouse there with an hour to spare before shabbat. We picked this guesthouse for its proximity to the synagogue and it turned out to be a lovely place to stay at. The Jewish community in Edinburgh is very small but they have an educated, well-meaning rabbi who does wonders with the his small flock. We had our shabbat meals at his place and the conversation around the table (there were other guests from the US) helped pass this LONG shabbat (ended after 10:30pm!).

We did wander around the centre of the city on shabbat, but actually we saw very little of Edinburgh during our stay. We picked up our rental car on Sunday morning and for three days ventured out of the city into the lovely countryside. All in all, we drove about 1,000 kilometres, through some of the most beautiful scenery we ever saw (bar New Zealand). Here below are the routes we took:

On the first day (yellow) we drove west, all the way to Oban, a small village on the Atlantic Ocean. Our first stop was Stirling Castle, one of the largest and most well-preserved castles in Scotland (there are hundreds if not thousands of castles in this country). Here is the view from one of the ramparts:

Oban itself is a quaint little village, full with tourists this time of year. We arrived quite late in the day so did not take the ferry out to any of the islands. The walk along the seafront was very nice, especially as it just stopped raining and the sun was coming out.

On the way back east towards Edinburgh we saw the most perfect rainbow I have ever seen in my life. It was huge, so big in fact that I couldn't take a picture of it in one frame.

On the second day (red), we started by climbing the hills in Holyrood Park in Edinburgh. These hillsl dominate the city skyline (and helped us navigate back to our hotel on several occasions). The highest point is called Arthur's Seat; legend has it King Arthur was here, but apparently the name is a corruption of some other name. The hill does not look very steep, but the latter part of the climb is quite difficult (if short). It's worth the efforts though, as the 360-degree views of Edinburgh from the top are simply gorgeous, including a view of the old city with Edinburgh Castle perched on top of the hill.

Driving out of Edinburgh we went north this time, all the way past the city of Perth and to a town called Pitlochry. There is a huge dam there with special pools that were built for salmon to make their way past the dam on their journey upstream, the so-called "salmon ladder". The town hosts the Scottish Plant Hunters Garden, a charming green reservoir with winding paths through some truly exotic plants.

In the evening we searched for a vegetarian restaurant and found an Indian one not far from our hotel - Anna Purna. We went in and I asked the owner whether it was strictly vegetarian. He said "yes". Then I asked whether also the oils used were vegetarin. He looked at me and asked "are you Jewish?". Turns out this specific restaurant has been checked by the local rabbi, "who is also a regular customer" as the owner proudly said with a beaming smile.

On the third day (blue) we drove east to the coast and then down south through what is called the Border Abbeys region. This area of Scotland, just north of the border with England, has - you guessed it - lots of abbeys. We first drove along the coast, stopping in several small towns along the way. In one of them (the name escapes me) I went into a public toilet and was hugely impressed with how clean and well-kept it was. On the way out, I noticed this toilet has indeed been awarded with 5 stars in the "Loo of the Year Awards 2004". Impressive.

We stopped to see Melrose Abbey, a truly remarkable building founded in the 7th century by Cistercian monks.

All in all, it was way too short for us to really experience Scotland. But two things made this trip a very pleasurable one. First, the weather was on our side; it rained only for a few hours during our entire stay, and on the third day we could actually walk around without a second layer of clothing! Second, we saw not one Israeli tourist during out entire stay on Scottish soil! Many Spanish, some Chinese, but no Israelis...

Truths about Human Nature

Here are 10 truths about human nature:

• Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)
• Humans are naturally polygamous
• Most women benefit from polygyny, while most men benefit from monogamy
• Most suicide bombers are Muslim
• Having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce
• Beautiful people have more daughter
• Bill Gates and Paul McCartney have something in common with criminals
• The midlife crisis is a myth
• It's natural for politicians to risk everything for an affair (but only if they're male)
• Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist

Some sound bizarre? Some sound politically incorrect? Check out the explanations in an article published in Psychology Today.

Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi

I had heard about this book from several friends and seen it at airport book stores many times. Yet for some reason I kept postponing the decision to read it. I wasn't comfortable with the hype around it and felt it might be another "Oprah Book Club" book (not that I have anything against Oprah). Post factum, I need not have worried.

Azar Nafisi taught English literature in several universities in Iran, before giving up on the Islamic Republic of Iran and moving to live in the US. During the last couple of years before leaving, in the mid-90s, and after having had to resign from her teaching posts, a group of seven of her former students used to gather in her apartment every Thursday to read and discuss literature. This book group forms the basis for Nafisi's memoir, in which she gives her personal views of life under the Islamic regime that took over her homeland in 1979.

Nafisi's passion for literature - an almost physical one at times - is not to be doubted. She divides the book into four sections, each named after a book or an author: Lolita, Gatsby, James and Austen. In each section, she attempts to use the book/author as background for the wider narrative of her students' lives (and hers). As I have only read Lolita and a couple of Austen's books, I could not relate to every nuance and how the cited paragraphs related to the story being told. What fascinated me most were the "little" everyday stories about life in Tehran. Seemingly small and private episodes, when read together, shed a light on what life is like under the ever-watching eyes of the Ayatollahs.

An issue that runs throughout the book, one which obviously occupied (and occupies) the minds of many women in Iran, is the veil and robe. Nafisi succeeds in explaining to the reader what it means for a woman to "disappear" into the mandated clothing imposed by the regime and how liberating it feels to take off these clothes once indoors. She uses this issue to demonstrate how ridiculous religion can become when manipulated by the state and how pathetic some of the more fanatic proponents of these decrees can be when confronted with logical arguments. Through Nafisi's stories we learn how easy it is to be thrown in jail and executed; how the slightest comment or even body language against the regime leads to swift and painful punishment; how the government brain-washed hundreds of thousands of children to go to certain death during the Iraq-Iran war; and how impossible it was for universities to carry out their roles under the ever-changing rules imposed on them by the regime.

One aberration from the non-fictional narrative of Nafisi's book is the "magician", a male friend that Nafisi turns to in times of need, to get advice and direction. She never reveals the identity of this "magician" (the other characters are also not revealed, for obvious reasons, but at least they get a pseudonym) but he is clearly a great influence on her. Throughout the book I was intrigued by this character and was hoping to learn morea about him as I continued reading, But at the very end of the book, Nafisi writes: "I ask myself, Was he ever real? Did I invent him? Did he invent me?". I found this to be an unsettling and annoying ending. If the "magician" was indeed fiction, then how much of the "true stories" Nafisi tells us are indeed factual? I do not doubt that much of what she has written happened in real life, but this flirt with fiction in the book's epilogue was, in my view, unnecessary.

Peres - Finally

Shimon Peres was voted today as the 9th President of Israel. Finally.

This perennially unelectable politician and statesman, who managed to be Prime Minister twice without being elected to the post, has finally won a vote. I am very happy for him (and for Israel), although I would have preferred to see him as Prime Minister right now. In the arid wilderness that is the Israeli political scene nowadays, he could have filled the void we all suffer from.

Never mind. At least he gets the respectable finale he deserves to a most remarkable life and career.

A Renegade Israeli

Since Thursday, the Israeli media has been enraptured with an interview given by Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Knesset and former head of the Israeli Agency, to the daily Haaretz (Hebrew, English). The interview was part of a promotional campaign for Burg's new book: "Defeating Hitler", in which Burg exposes some highly unorthodox views about Israel, Zionism, the legacy of the Holocaust and the future of the Jewish people.

You can read the interview, or better the book itself (I ordered it yesterday), and form your own opinions. Here are some of my thoughts about things Burg said in the interview:

Zionism is dead. Burg is of course right here. Zionism is dead in more than one sense of the word. It was a movement that achieved its purpose in 1948 and after the establishment of the Jewish state, it is no longer relevant. But perhaps more important, for most Israelis the "zionist drive" has been replaced by more mundane goals: self-achievement, prosperity and the right to decide to live abroad without being labelled a deserter. The repeated pestering by the interviewer trying to get Burg to "admit" he's no longer a zionist was somewhat pathetic.

Anti-semitism as the raison d'être. I couldn't agree more. Nobody argues that Israel is the answer to 2,000 years of persecution culminating in the Holocaust and that it is the only answer to a safe haven to Jews. But 60 years on, it's time for this country to define itself in positive terms - what it wants to achieve, where it wants to be, what future it can give its citizens - rather than in negative terms ("the whole world hates us and that's the only reason we need to exist").

Force is not a solution. Burg is right, and the mirror he talks about projects back an ugly picture. Israeli discourse is violent. Driving here is a nerve-racking experience. Orderly queuing is a rarity. Domestic violence and abuse of women is on the rise. A lot of this is attributable to the fact that Israel lives on its sword. Were it inevitable, I wouldn't argue. But the continued occupation of millions of Palestinians, for example, is not entirely inevitable. The toll of this occupation on Israeli society is obvious.

Israel as a fascist debacle. I think Burg went a little too far here, but I'm happy he put it so bluntly. Better to err by exaggerating than to wake up too late because of complacency. The dialogue on the street - from taxi drivers to vendors in the market to your average Israeli "arse" - is a proto-fascist dialogue.

Israeli elite has parted with this place. So true. So sad.

Lack of spirit, "living in order to live". Here Burg touches on the single most pressing problem of Israel, in my view. The country was founded on the belief it can turn its back on Jewish history. Religion and all those "disapora Jews" were a burden that Ben Gurion and his followers (mainly in the Mapai party) were eager to get rid of. They dreamt of the "new Jew" that is Israeli first and Jewish second. They believed that religious Jews were a thing of the past and were willing to grant them concessions only because they thought they would vanish in a couple of generations. And what are we left with, half a century later? A country struggling to define itself; a country whose youth find it hard to articulate the reason why they live here; a country where the elite sends its children abroad to stay; a country that has broken its ties with its history and its legacy but has failed to create an alternative national narrative that is not negatively-phrased. "Living in order to live" and "everybody hates us" will not take us far. This so-called "vision" is actually more likely to be the end of us. Rootless people can be uprooted easily.

Doctrine of nonviolence. Here I think Burg is being extremely naive. We are years, if not decades, away from being able to adopt such a doctrine. Whilst I agree we should not define ourselves based on the fact we are still under existential threat (and we are), I disagree that the solution is to ignore this threat and imagine we live next door to Switzerland. Unfortunately, we don't. Some of our neighbours are violent thugs that want to wipe us off the face of the earth, and the only way for us to survive (and not let the new Hitlers win) is to wipe them off the face of the earth first. I admit I sound here like the violent Israeli Burg is complaining about, but there is a difference. I refuse to let this fight against our enemies define me. I am defined by my history, my religion, my values and the future I hope to achieve for my children; I am not defined by Ahmadinajad.

There are many other points in Burg's interview I can relate to (or speak against) but in general I think he hit on some of the most poignant problems facing Israel today. Like many whose views I heard over the weekend, I too felt that the style of the interview and the way Burg expressed himself were somewhat harsh and out of line. I also dislike Burg on the personal level; his conduct when he was a politician was at times disgraceful. But perhaps it is exacly this outrageous style that might help jolt people out of their "live in order to live" modus vivendi and get them to think hard about what kind of Israel they want their children to live in. I sincerely wish people would concentrate less on the man and his style and more on the points he's making. I am looking forward to reading this book.

Mad Cow Disease

A story appearing in the British press today seems to indicate that "mad cow disease" struck some Brits decades before the big outbreak in Britain a few years ago.

According to secret government documents released yesterday, Israeli intelligence "might" have assisted Palestinian terrorists in planning the hijacking of the Air France plane bound from Tel Aviv to Paris, back in 1976, and hold the hostages in Entebbe. The legendary liberation of the hostages by Israeli commandos was supposed to either help the PLO in its struggle against other Palestinian factions or deter future terror attacks, depending on whose version you believe.

Coming in the wake of other disturbing news out of Britain this week - about the boycott of Israel by this or that organisation - one wonders what we will hear next from our esteemed ex-colonialists. Perhaps Israel helped the Argentinians capture the Falklands in order to divert attention from the invasion of Lebanon in 1982? Or maybe Israel planned the death of Princess Diana just because she was more beautiful than Sarah, the wife of the then prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu?

The possibilities are indeed endless.

Jewish Hospitality

On Sunday I'm off to a two-week trip to Asia, which means I'll be spending the holiday of Shavuot (Tue-Wed next week) in Singapore. I was planning on ordering meals at the local synagogue, as I did with my family last time we were there. But then it turned out I didn't need to.

I had mentioned the fact that I was going to be in Singapore for the holiday to a friend from Tokyo (whilst letting him know I'll be there for the following shabbat). And lo and behold: a day later I get an email from someone I do not know, inviting me to have the holiday meals with his family in Singapore. Apparently, my Tokyo friend wrote to him about me and the guy promptly emailed back with the invitation.

This is possibly quite a unique phenomenon. I know of no other community or group of people, certainly not as large and far-reaching as the Jews, where you can land anywhere in the world and if there's a Jewish community there, chances are you will not be left out in the cold. This is of course not true of every Jewish community and certainly not true of every person belonging to such a community, but during my four years in Japan I have seen this happen countless times. We ourselves hosted many people in our house for shabbat dinner or shabbat lunch, visitors - complete strangers - who just turned up at the synagogue on Friday evening.

Chabad have obviously made such hospitality a profession (I myself check if there's a Chabad house in places I travel to for the first time), but the "personal touch" of Jewish families who invite strangers to their home is still very much alive and kicking. Despite my intrinsic cynicism, I find it rather heart-warming. There, I've said it.

Sefirat HaOmer and the Promised Land

We are in the middle of sefirat ha-omer, the daily counting of the 49 days between pessach and shavuot. This mitzvah appears in this week's parasha and the midrash says that we should not consider the omer as a "light mitzvah" because Avraham received the promise about inheriting the land of Israel based on this mitzvah. This requires an explanation; what is so special about the sacrifice of the omer that by fulfilling it Avraham received the Promised Land?

Another midrash may offer us an explanation. R. Yanai says that a man buys a piece of meat in the market and then goes through great pains to make that piece of meat get to his plate as food. On the other hand, while that same man is asleep in bed, God makes the winds blow, the clouds form and the plants and fruit grow. And the only compensation God receives for all this is the omer sacrifice, which is brought to the cohen. So according to this midrash, we "pay God back" for everything he does for us by fulfilling the mitzvah of the omer.

The Maharal explains this midrash as follows: God governs the world using both open, visible miracles and secret, unexposed miracles. When we are worthy enough to experience a visible miracle - such as the parting of the Red Sea or the halting of the sun in Joshua's days - our faith in God is absolute. After all, it is difficult not to believe when you witness God's deeds first hand. However, it is much harder to have faith by observing nature, which is in effect God's way of governing the world using hidden miracles, miracles which we do not perceive as being miraculous. As the Ramban teaches us, the essence of faith is tested in the belief in this "hidden hand". The omer sacrifice epitomises the presence of God in nature, such as it is described in the above midrash (clouds, winds, plants, trees). But is man able to pay attention to all these miracles while "sleeping in bed" and thank God for them?

This is where the omer comes in. It is an offering based on the product of nature and by fulfilling this mitzvah man becomes aware of the hidden miracles God performs through nature and his indebtedness to God. He thanks God by offering this sacrifice to the cohen and this thanking is the "payment" we offer God for what he does for us.

So now we can close the loop and understand how the omer and the promise of the Land of Israel to Avraham are connected. When the people of Israel were in the desert they lived by open and visible miracles: the manna from heaven, the fact their clothes remained in perfect condition for 40 years, the clouds that protected them, etc. But after they entered the Land of Israel all of these visible miracles stopped and the laws of nature - the "hidden miracles" - took over. Keeping the faith was much harder now, so the keeping of the mitzvah of the omer - a sacrifice brought from nature - symbolised that the people of Israel continued to believe in God even in this new situation. He who is able to thank God for the miracles of nature is the one that deserves the promise of the Land of Israel.

The idea for this week's Torah thought is from R. Zechariah Tubi.

Emor - Trying to Figure Out the Reason

ושור או שה, אותו ואת בנו לא תשחטו ביום אחד

(ויקרא כ"ב, כ"ח)

This week's parasha has many mitzvot; by the count of Sefer HaChinuch 63 of them, more than 10% of all mitzvot. And they cover many walks of halachic life: purity and impurity, incense, sacrifices, holidays and many more. Most of the mitzvot in Emor belong to the category of chukim (or, as R. Saadia Gaon called them mitzvot shimiyot), that is mitzvot that are not required by reason and that we cannot understand rationally, but rather are given through revelation. We can comprehend why the Torah would command us not to kill another human being or why we should respect the elderly. However, we cannot comprehend most of the laws of kashrut or why we needed to sprinkle the ashes of a dead red heifer in order to purify people. Regardless of our ability to understand the reasons behind a specific mitzvah we are nevertheless obliged to follow it. However, being the curious human beings we are, sages throughout history have attempted to provide reasons for the mitzvot, particulary the chukim.

One of the mitzvot in our parasha is on the face of things a most reasonable one, that we can easily comprehend the reason for:

"And whether it be cow or ewe, ye shall not kill it and its young both in one day"

(Vayikra, 22, 28)

The Rambam categorises this mitzvah in the category of rules destined to prevent cruelty to animals. He states that the love of an animal mother to its offspring is no different than that of a human mother to her children. Therefore, in order to avoid causing unnecessary grief to the animal, one is not to kill an animal and its offspring on the same day. For most people this would instinctively seem an obvious reason for this mitzvah. And yet things are not as simple as that.

The Ramban (Nachmanides) disagrees with the Rambam (Maimonides) and gives a different reason for this interdiction. He believes that there is nothing wrong with killing an animal and its offspring on the same day, as animals do not feel pain the same ways humans do. Rather, we are forbidden to do so in order to prevent us becoming too cruel. The purpose of this mitzvah is to instill in us a sense of pity and mercy, to avoid us becoming merciless butchers. The Ramban fears for our soul and for our sense of mercy, not for the animal's suffering.

But, as R. Haim David Halevy z"l (ex-chief rabbi of Tel Aviv) points out, if we examine the halachah, we find out that this mitzvah applies only if the animals are killed in a proper (i.e. kosher) shechitah; if the animal is killed otherwise, then it is permissible to kill its mother (or offspring). This fact actually makes both the Rambam and the Ramban's explanations of this mitzvah very difficult to accept. Why would we pity the animal less (Rambam) if it's killed in a non-kosher way, and how would the allowed method of killing help us achieve a sense of mercy (Ramban)? R. Halevy offers another explanation, which is based on the commentay to the Torah by R. Hirsch.

The prohibition to kill an animal and its offspring on the same day brings to the fore our sense of parenthood, which is present in both humans and animals. We kill the animal in order to either sacrifice it at the altar (in the days of the temple) or to eat it at our table. Both of these ends are to be done in holiness: sacrifices are holy and so is the meal we eat at our table ("a person's table is like an altar"). It is therefore not possible for us to "taint" this holiness by ignoring the love of the animal as a parent and not sympathising with this feeling.

But R. Halevy's explanation suffers from the same lacuna as the previous explanations. Strictly speaking, we are allowed to kill an animal at, say, 4PM before nightfall, and its offspring shortly thereafter at say, 6PM after nightfall. Technically it's not the "same day" so we avoid the prohibition, but surely if the purpose is for us to respect the love of parenthood and preseve a sense of holiness, how can a mere two hours fulfill that purpose?

No wonder there were many commentators and rabbis that said that searching for the reason of the mitzvot is futile. We are unable to comprehend in full the reason for every mitzvah so at the end of the journey (if there is ever such an end) we must revert to the basic faith that these mitzvot were commanded by God and we need to obey them.

Betraying Spinoza, by Rebecca Goldstein

On the face of things, reading a book about Baruch Spinoza is not an easy task for a religious Jew. After all, Spinoza is one of the great rationalist philosophers who started his "career" by annoying his Jewish community in Amsterdam so much that eventually it was decided to penalise him with the Jewish version of an excommunication. Spinoza went on to change his name to Benedictus (Baruch in Hebrew and Benedictus in Latin mean "blessed"), to learn Latin (forbidden to Jews in those days) and to develop a view of the world that equated God with nature, a big "no no" in Jewish theology. In many respects, Spinoza is considered to be the first secular Jew, or in the words of this book's subtitle: the renegade Jew who gave us modernity.

Rebecca Goldstein is a (Jewish) professor of philosophy who wrote an autobiography of Spinoza. She opens the book by telling us about a childhood experience of hers: being "taught" about Spinoza by a religious teacher in her school. It was the understandably highly critical position of this teacher with regards to Spinoza that sparked her interest in the man and his work. Goldstein went on to study Spinoza in depth and teach courses about his philosophy (and that of Descartes) at university. She shares with the reader the love she has for the philosopher and her emotions at seeing her students slowly opening up to gain appreciation of his notoriously difficult writings.

Most of this book tries to reconstruct Spinoza's life based on facts: what we know about him from his works and from what others have written about him. Goldstein introduces the reader to some of Spinoza's philosophy throughout the book and some parts are indeed heavy-going (especially the discussion about his magnum opus: The Ethics). But it is towards the end of the book that her narrative turns to be really interesting. She breaks from the strictly academic approach and tries to imagine what Spinoza would have felt towards the end of his life. She uses a historical event - the opening of the main synagogue in Amsterdam - to tell us an imaginary tale about Spinoza coming back to watch the ceremony from a distance. We read about his throughts as he ruminated about the fate of this community of Portugese Jews who fled the inquisition in their country to find a new life in this relatively tolerant Protestant country. To me, the story of this community, which Goldstein explains at length and in vivid colours, was an eye-opener. It made a lot of what Spinoza wrote about clearer and put his philosophy in the right context.

The French-Korean Connection

I have written previously about how taxi drivers in France don't know their way around, and how I have not come across such clueless taxi drivers anywhere else in the world. Well, I now sadly need to report that taxi drivers in Seoul are apparently no better.

I have taken two taxis this week from a well-known hotel to a well-known destination (the headquarters of Korean Air, no less) and both drivers looked at me as if I had given them an address on the moon. Both of them frantically started making phone calls to ask for directions. One of them stopped at two taxi stations along the way to ask for directions. He had a GPS device but for some odd reason it wasn't turned on. The funny thing is that once they got to Gimpo airport it was I who showed them the way to my destination, as I had remembered it from my last visit to Seoul.

So it would seem Korea and France have at least one thing in common, aside from the fact that both Korean Air and Air France are part of Skyteam...

Boeing Boeing

Whenever I can, I try to catch a play in the West End. Problem is I dislike musicals and almost all plays in London are musicals. My preference is for comedies, especially ones with dry British humour, and occasionally the serious dramatic play. So I've seen most of the non-musical plays and a couple of times I just turned back from the TKTS booth in Leicester Square empty-handed. Last week I was fortunate enough to get last-minute tickets (albeit in the balcony) for Boeing Boeing, a comedy playing at the Comedy Theatre.

The play is set in France, where Bernard (a successful architect) has three girlfriends, all air hostesses. His life is a delicate balancing act, constantly coordinating between the timetables of the three airlines - TWA, Lufthansa and Alitalia - to make sure only one girl at a time is in his flat in Paris. An old school friend, Robert, turns up unexpectedly and is drawn into this balancing act.

Needless to say, things go wrong and the three beauties turn up in Paris at the same time. From now on, this comedy is a continuous series of chaotic scenes of mayhem, with Bernard and Robert vainly trying to make sure none of the girls meet, even when all three are in the flat.

The sixth actress in this movie is Bernard's housekeeper, Bertha, who reluctantly plays along with her master's whims, but does not miss a chance to impart her sarcastic comments. The plot sounded familiar to me, but it was only after the play that I realised it was made into a movie - two versions, French and American; I watched the American version, with Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis, ages ago.

Frankly speaking, this kind of humour is not the kind that usually makes me laugh. Adding to that the fact that the balcony seats were extremely cramped and the theatre was over-heated, my expectations were not too high. However, the actors were all so brilliant that I actually ended up enjoying the play very much. Bertha in particular (Frances de la Tour) was outstanding. Her whole demeanour, a mix between "I couldn't give a damn" and "there we go again", was absolutely hilarious. Bernard's (Roger Allam) performance was also stupendous. Needless to say, the three girlfriends were absolutely gorgeous, but the German one especially pulls off a great performance with her fake German accent.

The middle-aged lady sat next to me was as hilarious to watch as the play; it was obvious the play made her want to laugh, but being English (stiff upper lip and all that) she was fighting hard not to laugh out too loud. At the end of the play she clapped furiously, stretching out her hands toward the stage as if to make sure the actors heard her clapping above everyone else's.

All in all, a rather pleasant experience, especially if you're in the mood for some whacky humour.

Chomesh - A Holiday Activity

Today, hundreds of right-wing supporters, most, if not all, belonging to the religious right, marched to Chomesh, site of a settlement in the Northern west bank evacuated in 2005 during the disengagement plan. The march was organised in protest of that disengagement, calling for a re-settlement of Chomesh as the first step in the undoing of that cursed policy (the protest is called "Chomesh First"). Many of the protesters reportedly arrived with sleeping bags, intending to stay the night in order "re-affirm our right to the Land of Israel".

Israelis greeted this piece news with the reaction it deserves: stifling a yawn. After decades of "settlement" activity, resulting in less than a quarter of a million Israelis willing to live in Palestinian territories (the vast majority of whom are anyway willing to leave and return to Israel given the right compensation), the issue of "settlement" has been settled, so to speak, in the minds of most Israelis. We look at the "ideological right" with a mixture of boredom and puzzlement: why do they keep ploughing on when the battle has been lost?

To me, all this protest comes down to this: a bunch of misguided and bored religious children, who are out of school due to the Pessach holiday, and are looking for some action instead of staying home and being told to help with the cleaning. It's just a shame that my tax money goes to finance this holiday escapade.

British Library, London

With a couple of hours to spare last week in London before my flight back home, I opened a map of the city and looked for somewhere to kill the time. Usually King's Cross is not an area of London I go to unless I have to, but I spotted the "British Library" building next to the station so I decided a library would be a good place as any (at least one is spared the aggravation of walking out empty-handed). Little did I know how much I would enjoy this unplanned visit.

When I arrived at the plaza outside the building I was bewildered to see a large group of people, perhaps a couple of hundred, standing silently in the open area facing the library and looking at the building. Some of them were wrapped in what looked like aluminium foil. At the entrance to the library was a line of uniformed men, blocking the entrance. An eerie sight indeed. Before I had a chance to figure out what was happening, everybody suddenly started moving towards the building and the doors were opened. Apparently, I had arrived in the middle of a fire drill.

After enquiring at the information desk I headed to the Sir John Ritbalt Gallery, hosting the permanent exhibition of the library. Entering a large darkened room filled with glass displays I found treasures I had no idea existed in this building. Here is a partial list of the items I remember:

• The Gutenberg Bible, first book printed using a movable print maching


• Captain Cook's journal


• A hand-written application by Lenin for membership in the library


• Letters written by Florence Nightingale, the famous nurse


• Letters written by John Maynard Keynes, the great economist


• Beautiful religious manuscripts, among them siddurim and haggadot


• Original manuscripts from Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce, William Shakespeare and many others


• Scientific notes written by Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, William Harvey and others

In a separate smaller room, there is a copy of the Magna Carta (I saw it at the British Museum many years ago but didn't realise there was more than one copy).

But the item which touched me most was the diary of Robert Scott, the British navy officer that came second in the race to the South Pole (losing to the Norwegian Amundsen). Scott and his companions died on the way back to their base, and the diary Scott kept is on display. It is open on the last page, where the last entry (in barely legible handwriting) reads: "For God's sake look after our people".

I wish I had more time to browse the library, but time flew by very quickly. I will be sure to return here to have a longer look at some of these truly extraordinary historical documents.

African African-American

A couple of weeks ago, during shabbat lunch in Tokyo, a visitor from the US mentioned an interview on The Colbert Report that, in five minutes, encapsulated the absurdity of "political correctness" in the American political scene. Colbert interviewed Debra Dickerson, an African-American who wrote a book about "The End of Blackness", to talk about the "blackness" of Barack Obama. I think the clip speaks for itself.

American Vertigo, by Bernard-Henri Levy

This is a book I've been meaning to read for a long time but it took me a while to get my hands on the original French version. I thought that a book written by a French intellectual and philosopher offering ruminations about America deserved to be read in French... A friend finally got me a copy in France last month and I took it with me on my around-the-world trip this month.

Bernard-Henry Levy (henceforth, BHL) is somewhat of a celebrity in France (perhaps the only country in the world where a philosopher can become a celebrity). In recent years, he has moved away from writing "pure" philosophical works towards a more journalistic role. In 2002 he spent almost a year, travelling to Pakistan several times to investigate the murder of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter that was beheaded by Muslim fanatics. He summarised his findings in a book (Who Killed Daniel Pearl?) in which he minces no words when describing the lawlessness of the Pakistani regime. I vividly recall one sentence from that book (and I'm quoting from memory): "of all the delinquent countries in the world, Pakistan is the most delinquent of all". This was written, mind you, at at time when Pakistan was the US's primary ally in the fight against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

BHL embarked on a year-long journey arounnd the US and wrote his observations in American Vertigo. The project was financed by the Atlantic Monthly journal, which asked BHL to follow the footsteps of Alexis De Tocqueville, the French historian who travelled to America in the early 19th century and wrote an analysis of American civic life in the monumental work Democracy in America, considered one of the classic books in political thought. The idea was for BHL to retrace Tocqueville's journey and provide observations about life in America almost 200 years later. (On a side note: why don't I get offers to travel the world for free for a year? I guess my ruminations are not, sadly, as in demand as BHL's...).

The book turned out to be very different from what I thought it would be like. Instead of a long philosophical treatise about the US, the book is a collection of short vignettes, each 2-3 pages long, about the various encounters BHL had during his journey. Having said that, the last third of the book is a heavy-going "summary" of the journey, more typical to BHL's previous writings.

The journey took place around election time in 2004. BHL covered many walks of American life: politics (he met, among others, Obama, Clinton and Kerry), Hollywood (Sharon Stone, Warren Beatty), prisons (the original aim of Tocqueville was to study the American penitentiary system), entertainment (Vegas, a brothel in Nevada), sports (Baseball Hall of Fame), religion (from born-again evangelists to Brooklyn Jews to Mormons), US history (Mount Rushmore) and much much more. Each vignette describes shortly what he experienced and then expands on the subject by putting it into context. "The big picture" is a motive that runs throughout the book, with BHL trying to frame each experience within the theory he builds for the American experience.

And the theory is as follows: America is indeed an empire, but not of the sort Rome was. Its fierce protection of individualism, coupled with a deep sense of integrity and accountability, make it a power to be reckoned with despite the predictions of its decline. It is a land of contradictions: puritanism coupled with promiscuity, religious fervour coupled with materialism of the lowest kind, isolationism coupled with a sense of global duty. As dysfunctional as America is, BHL believes it will endure. He is an "anti anti-American" and repeatedly berates his compatriots for being so automatically against anything American and for falsely predicting the failure of the American model.

As impartial as BHL tries to be, his love for America is apparent throughout the book (although I think he will refuse to admit "love" is the appropriate word). He writes lovingly about Seattle, calling it the one place he would choose to live in if he were to move to the US, only to trade it later in the book with Savannah, Georgia. All in all, I don't think he was successful in "retracing the footsteps" of Tocqueville, but nevertheless this is still an interesting and stimulating book.

Early Sakura

I was in Tokyo for the weekend and in a park not far from where I stayed I noticed a couple of early-blossoming cherry trees. A bit early for sakura, but I guess the warm winter has brought on the blossom a bit earlier this year.

Here are a couple of pictures of this early sakura blossom in Arisugawa park:

Question to Passengers

After a torturous 10 hour flight to Seoul yesterday, I have a question to fellow air passengers:

Why is it that when you bang your tray-table back into position violently, or use the seat in front of you as a lever to help you get up from your seat, or constantly push your feet onto the seat in front of you - why is it that you do not realise someone is actually sitting in that seat? And that specific someone might be trying to get some sleep?

Why is so difficult to understand that the back of the seat in front of you also has a front to it, with a person sitting in it?

Daunt Bookshop, London

For a while now I've been wanting to visit the Daunt bookshop in London. I had read about it a long time ago but never had the opportunity to make the visit. Yesterday I had a couple of hours off so I headed to Baker Street Station and walked over to Marylebone High Street to see it.

Although it has sections with fiction, non-fiction and reference books, Daunt is first and foremost a "travel bookshop". The books are arranged by country or geographical region, and each section contains not only travel guides but also books about that country/region. So if you're looking at Israel, for example, you will find not only the ubiquitous Fodor's and Lonely Planet guides but also books about Judaism, Jewish History, etc. Very interesting set up. I also like the fact there were several tables spread around the shop with books of all types set on them, in no particular order.

The shop itself is famous for being an original Edwardian shop, complete with dark wooden galleries and a big skylight roof that lets in natural daylight (it was a nice sunny day). All so very quaint.

I spent an hour or so browsing through the store and experiencing that familiar high-low feeling I get whenever I'm in a bookstore. There are so many books to read, on so many interesting subjects, books of all sizes and shapes and colours, all beckoning you to pick them up and lose yourself in the world the author has created just for you. But so little time! What to choose? Why would this book take preference over that one? Plus there's the constant fear of getting yet another disapproving look from my wife, a look that says: "More books?! At this rate we'll run out of space once again... And why on earth would anyone in their right mind want to keep every book he's ever read?" So, sadly, I left Daunt's without purchasing even one small volume.

By the way, I had to smile when I saw where the US section was relegated to at Daun'ts: at the very end of the gallery on the right, all the way in the back, way after books about places like Cambodia or Kuwait. I guess the shop's owners were keen on making a statement about their view of tourism to the US...

Prognosis Confirmed: Profound Malaise

I have predicted before that Israel will enter a state of profound malaise, not unlike that of France, following the botched war in Lebanon. But I had no idea that my prediction would come true so quickly and so forcefully, aided by a series of shameful scandals permeating, it seems, all walks of public life in this country.

The Economist wrote briefly last week about how Israelis "have lost their usually insatiable appetite for talking politics". The summary in the second paragraph is strikingly painful in its brutal conciseness:

The prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is under investigation for allegations ranging from dishonest property trading to trying improperly to influence the privatisation of a bank. The finance minister is being probed for embezzlement, the tax-authority head for fraud. The president faces multiple charges of rape. This week a former justice minister was convicted of forcibly kissing a young woman soldier, which could land him in jail for up to three years. The army chief of staff has resigned over the Lebanon war; this month a commission of inquiry is set to shine a harsh light on the performance of army and government.

What charming times we live in... No wonder most people prefer to ignore everything and concentrate on their daily lives. Gone are the days Israelis argued passionately about every little aspect of politics and policy. Such professed apathy may be the norm in most European countries, but in Israel it's a novelty.

Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid

With a few hours to spare in Madrid last week, and as it was raining outside, I decided to make a short visit to the Reina Sofia museum. Founded in 1992, this museum replaced the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art and hosts works by Picasso, Dali, Miro and others.

My main reason for visiting this museum was, like many others I suppose, to see Picasso's "Guernica". This picture was commissioned by the Repulican government in 1937 for the Spanish stand in an exhibition in Paris. I didn't realise it was such a big work of art: almost 8 meters wide and 3.5 meters tall. The hall around the "Guernica" shows Picasso's sketches from his preparation work and photographs taken during the process of painting the picture.

Most of Dali's best-known works are not hosted by this museum, but one of his classic surrealistic paintings, "El Gran Masturbador", is. Apparently, it is Dali himself who is the "head" depicted in the picture, with the woman emerging from it symbolising the masturbation. Oh well, I admit I never really understood modern art.

Another Dali work which I liked better, perhaps because it's not so "modern", was "Muchacha en la Ventana", which is apparently one of his most famous pictures, painted when he was only 20. The model standing at the window is his sister.

An hour and a half at the museum was enough. I walked up Calle de Atocha and took a short walk around the old neighbourhood where Cervantes and others lived. But the rain just wouldn't stop, so I decided to call it a day and enjoy an unplanned lunch at the excellent kosher restaurant "Naomi Grill" on my way back to the airport.

Distracting Toilet Breaks

Sitting in my hotel room in Madrid this evening, bored out of my mind, I'm zapping through the TV channels. I see "breaking news" on one of the American news channels and I pause to check it out (after all, I am Israeli; so the first thing that comes to mind is "something blew up back home").

I see it's a press conference at NASA so, thinking this is just another shuttle launch, I almost continue my zapping. But the frown on NASA's deputy administrator's face tells me this is more than just another launch. She starts talking about some Lisa Nowak but I can't figure out what's going on. So I log on to Google News and search for "Lisa Nowak". There's this story about a female astronaut (married, mother of 3) who drove from Houston to Orlando to confront a woman she suspected was involved with a colleague male astronaut she herself was involved with. Donned with an air rifle, and wearing a wig to disguise herself, she stalks the woman and sprays her face with pepper spray. Not a very interesting story; just you regular love triangle between space travellers.

But here's the intriguing part. The reporters kept asking questions about Nowak's mental stability. And the NASA deputy administrator talked about the rigorous psychological tests astronauts go through and how Lisa Nowak passed all of these tests. Nobody came right out and called Nowak a nutcase, but they were close enough. Why?

Well, you see, Nowak was in such a hurry to get to her target, that in order to avoid unnecessary toilet breaks on her long car journey halfway across the United States, she wore a... diaper! Yes, a nappy! "A piece of cloth, or other absorbent material, folded and worn as underpants", as Dictionary.com defines it.

Ahh, I say to myself, now I understand all those polite questions about mental stability. My boring evening just ended on a perkier note: a nutcase astronaut driving around in a nappy!

Always Apologise

Shorly after arriving to live in Japan, a few years ago, I received an advice from a work colleague. That advice turned out to be very sound when doing business in Japan (or generally for social relationships in Japan). The advice was: "always apologise". He told me that at every meeting I should open with some apology, even if there is nothing to apologise for. Apologise for them having to take time off their busy schedule to meet you, or for the offer for a drink. Anything.

I was reminded of this piece of advice this morning, during a flight from Tokyo to Singapore. Across the aisle from me sat a middle-aged Japanese man (the infamous oji-san, literally "uncle" but generally a term used for that ubiquitous, fastidious "salaryman" that is constantly irritable and could not care less about others). Even before we took off he managed to get into some argument with one of the Singaporean flight attendants; I'm not sure what it was about, but I'm pretty sure it was over some minor point. A few minutes after that argument, a Japanese flight attendant appeared, together with the Singaporean one, and what followed was a classic example of the "always apologise" rule.

First, the Japanese flight attendant went down on her knees. Why? Because this way he would be talking down to her instead of looking up to her. Second, the Japanese flight attendant opened by a lengthy apology, even before asking him what happened. She then listend intently to the man, constantly nodding her head in apology and understanding. When she translated for the benefit of her colleague, the Singaporean flight attendant tried to offer her own explanation (in English, standing up), but the Japanese flight attendant quickly put a hand on her arm as if to say: "please don't make things worse by interfering; just shut up and let me handle this". She proceeded to apologise again and allowed the man to continue to vent his anger. After a couple of minutes he was out of steam and she concluded by apologising again. The man gruffily accepted the apology and life went on.

What the Japanese flight attendant did was something I've witnessed countless times in Japan. I have no doubt the flight attendants had a good answer to the man's complaint and quite possibly they were also completely in the right and his complaint was baseless. But that was not the point. The Japanese flight attendant understood that in order to prevent escalation she needed to save this oji-san's face. After making the complaint he could not simply accept any explanation; his "status" as a passenger (and, yes, as a man) was such that he needed to be offered a way to climb down from the tree. She offered him that way not by addressing his complaint but by aplogising for him having to make a complaint in the first place!

This is a tactic that us Westerners (and Israelis in particular) find very had to adopt. Many times I insisted on proving the other side wrong, making absolutely sure what my position was. A much more successful tactic would have been, on many of those occasions, to obfuscate the point, apologise, and offer the other side the chance to step down without having to admit defeat. What I saw this morning was a classic example of such behaviour. I don't believe the Singaporean flight attendant realised exactly what had transpired.

Oedo Monogatari Onsen, Tokyo

The Japanese love hot water. Actually, "love" is an understatement. From times immemorial, immersing oneself in hot water is a favourite pastime in Japan, whether it be at home (in those small but deep baths), in the neighbourhood ofuro (public bath) or in that ultimate hot-water experience: the revered onsen.

In fact, hot water has such standing in Japanese culture that there is a special word for "hot water" in Japanese: yu. Here is the Japanese character (kanji) for yu, which appears on virtually every ofuro in the country:

During my last trip to Tokyo I visited the onsen in Odaiba (an artificial island in Tokyo bay): the Oedo Monogatari Onsen. This complex opened in 2003 and is more than just a hot bath. It was constructed in the ancient Oedo style (Oedo was the old name of Tokyo) and contains more than 20 hot baths, massage parlours and other attractions. It also boasts a mutltitude of restaurants and shops situated along a roofed street, which is modelled as a hirokouji street of the Edo period. Apparently, the water is brought up to the baths from 1,400 metres below ground. Aside from the indoor baths there are a couple of outdoor baths with simulated landscaping, and if it were not for the planes overhead landing at 2-minute intervals in nearby Haneda airport, one could almost imagine this was a genuine countryside onsen.

When you arrive at the onsen you put your shoes in a locker then proceed to pay and get your yukata (the traditional Japenese robe). You can choose from ten or so different yukata designs (who said Japanese were not individualistic people?). Then you proceed to the changing rooms where you get rid of your clothes and don the yukata; everybody walks around barefoot in their yukata throughout the onsen complex. The baths are separated but there is an outdoor foot-bath area which is mixed. I went on a Sunday and many families were there for the day.

One particularly interesting attraction at the Oedo Monogatari is the "fish doctor" treatment. These are tiny fish, 1-1.5cm in length and very thin, that live in hot water, where regular fish cannot survive. As a result, these fish live off dead matter. Someone discovered that the fish can be used to eat off the dead skin from your body. You immerse your hands or feet in the bath and theses small fish gather around and nibble off the dry skin off your extremities. It's quite ticklish at first but after a couple of minutes it becomes quite enjoyable, a kind of "mini massage" feeling.

The Oedo Monogatari Onsen is not the typical Japanese onsen. Far from it. It is a tourist attraction and it flaunts that rather shamelessly. But if one is in Tokyo and has no time to visit Japan's countryside for a "real" onsen then this is certainly a worthwhile experience.

The Long Journey Home

A while ago, I quoted an article about the difference between trains in Israel and trains in Japan. This evening I had the misfortune of getting a taste of this difference. And what a bitter taste it turned out to be.

My wife drove me to work this morning as she needed the car. At the end of the day she called to propose to come and pick me up, but I declined and told her I'm going to check out the train for the first time. I knew that getting from the office to the train station and then from the train station to my home would be problematic (no convenient public transport), but I thought that once I would get on the train, things would roll nicely. After all, I had one stop to travel, change to another train, and then two stops. How bad could 3 stops possibly be?

How bad? Well, you judge. Here is what I went through:

17:55 Left office, walked to train station.

18:10 Arrived at train station, purchased ticket.

18:25 Train left train station.

18:30 Train arrived at next station, got off to change trains.

18:35 Standing on platform 3, waiting for next train (due in 10 minutes).

18:40 Announcement: "All northbound and southbound trains will be approximately 10 minutes late".

18:45 Announcement: "The train that was supposed to depart from platform 3 will depart from platform 1. Please change platforms". Had to rush to platform 1.

18:54 Train arrives and departs.

18:58 Train arrives at next station. One more station to go!

18:59 Announcement: "This train will be delayed in leaving the station due to congestion"

19:05 Train leaves station.

19:09 Train arrives at destination. Mission (almost) accomplished.

19:15 Wife picks me up in car from train station, we head home.

19:35 Arrived home (through rush-hour traffic).

In summary, total travel time door-to-door was 1.5 hours, of which 13 minutes were spent in a moving train. Even with the worst rush-hour traffic it never takes me more than 45-50 minutes to get home from work. Is it a wonder people, unless they have to, don't use public transportation in Israel?

And don't get me going about the state of the toilets on the train, the fact that all announcements are in Hebrew only (I guess Israel has given up on tourism), the absence of taxis and/or buses at both train stations, etc. etc. I guess I expect too much; after all, this is the middle east...

Quest for (Im)perfection

A small post scritum to my previous post about the Japanese quest for perfection.

Last week I took a few days off and went to Costa del Sol with my son. The hotel we stayed at was almost brand new and part of a respectable chain of resort hotels. This what the toiletries tray looked like:




Note how the shower cap is placed. Note that one bar of soap is upside down. Note that the entire tray is a tad askew. Now compare that to the pictures of the toiletries I took in the Tokyo hotel and answer these questions: Would you rather buy a Mazda or a Seat? Would you rather have a Japanese plumber or a Spanish one fix your drain?

I rest my case.

Quest for Perfection

The Japanese are notorious for being extremely good in producing quality goods. Companies worldwide have adopted Japanese methodologies and practices in order to improve the quality of their products. Countless business books laud Japanese manufacturing as a model for imitation.

This does not come out of nowhere. The Japanese spend a lot of time and effort to ensure that everything they do is done well. The quest for perfection is ingrained in all walks of life: from the lady cleaning the sidewalk in front of her home, leaving no leaf behind; through the delivery man, making sure he delivers on time and fills out every detail on his forms; to the shop attendant who wraps the goods purchased as if they were destined to be handed to the Emperor himself, no less. No matter how lowly and unimportant the job may seem to be, most Japanese will do everything to complete it to perfection.

Anyone who works in Japan notices this. Deliveries of products or services purchased by Japanese companies from overseas suppliers are almost always considered sub-standard by the Japanese, who expect a quality level that most foreign companies fail to achieve. One of our customers in Japan is nearing the end of their project and the test scenarios are being written for the final testing phase of the software. My colleagues did their utmost to produce what they believed were very detailed and comprehensive scenarios; having failed to satisfy this customer on previous deliveries, they really did their best this time. And the outcome was probably the best my company has done in a decade in terms of documentation, for any customer.

Last week I was in Tokyo and noticed that the engineers of our partner company were working on writing test scenarios. Puzzled, I asked them why they were still working on the scenarios, when these have been delivered by us already. After much prodding, they sheepishly admitted that our scenarios were simply not good enough, so they were re-writing them from scratch! One quick look at their work confirmed the sad truth: there is absolutely no way an Israeli engineer could have produced such documentation. Not in a thousand years, not under extreme torture. When I asked how much they were charging the customer for this work, the (unsurprising) reply was: nothing. This is what the customer expects as a standard in these types of projects, so they won't charge for it.

To illustrate my point, I'm going to use what may seem like a very trivial example. And yet, I believe that through this seemingly trivial example one can perhaps begin to grasp what I mean when I write that the quest for perfection is ingrained in the Japanese work ethic.

Here are a few pictures I took in my Tokyo hotel room last week:

1. The hand towels hanging in the bathroom. Note that the towels are folded in opposite directions, and placed on the rack at the exact height, so that the writing of the hotel name is perfectly aligned, as if it were one towel and not two.

2. The toiletries. The same set of 3 toiletry bottles are placed in the bathtub (first picture) and on the shelf (second picture). Needless to say, the bottles are positioned so that the writing is facing outside; that's a given. But look carefully: in both locations, the bottles are placed so that the "shampoo" and "rinse" bottles are touching each other, and the "body shampoo" is slightly to the right, not touching. You'd think this was a coincidence, right? I stayed in the hotel for 7 nights and every single day the three bottles were placed just so, in exactly the same manner.

3. The bedside table. See the glass half-filled with water? I left it there one morning. Instead of simply removing it, the cleaning lady took the pain of covering it with a piece of paper, just in case I needed that water again...

Some may scoff at these trivial examples saying they prove nothing. But after a long exposure to Japan I firmly believe that it is these seemingly trivial everyday activities - and there are hundreds of such small details in every walk of life in Japan - that are testimony to the quality and perfection inherent in Japanese culture.

Islam and Christianity

A friend emailed me this "religious debate" from the Jon Stewart show. It's quite funny:

Turning Forty

This week I turned forty. While brooding about this momentous milestonein my life, I Googled "turning forty" and came across this article in The Guardian from 2003. Out of sheer boredom I decided to check which of these "40 things about turning 40" applied to me and which did not:

1 Gardening is suddenly good.

• Hmmm... It's true that this year I finally have a garden I can call my own, but as for gardening, I'm not quite there yet.

2 As is Schubert.

• Schubert was always good, not suddenly so.

3 The prospect of dancing in public is terrifying.

• Always was for me.

4 You hiss when mobile phones go off at the Titian exhibition.

• (I had to look up "Titian exhibition"). I've always been fond of giving the dirty look to people who forget to silence their phones in movies, theatres, etc. One of the deadliest social combinations is an Israeli with mobile phone.

5 You have a Party Seven stomach rather than a six-pack.

• I'll pass on this one.

6 You know what Party Seven means.

• Hah! Now it's clear why I didn't understand #5. I have no clue what "party seven" means.

7 Your younger colleagues think your libido requires chemical enhancement, or that it's OK to make jokes about the probability that it does. The unfeeling brutes. (This may just be a guy thing.)

• I have had Viagra recommended to me, but I'm proud to say I never had the need to try it.

8 You buy more chart CDs than ever (in an attempt to hang on in there) but still go home and slap on Prince's Sign o' the Times.

• Haven't bought a CD in years (isn't that what MP3 is all about?) Never owned a Prince CD.

9 You start playing football.

• Only since about a month ago, when I purchased GameCube FIFA '06 for my son and got caught up by the brilliant graphics of the game. Real football? Not in a million years.

10 You punch the next person who says "Denial isn't just a river in Africa, you know" and laugh when anyone uses the word "closure" in a purportedly emotionally insightful manner.

• I actually never heard that one before ("denial"). Not bad. And yes, I find the americanism "closure" to be, like most americanisms, quite laughable.

11 You are more inclined to tell people to shut up.

• I don't know about more inclined. Internally, I've been telling people to shut up since I remember myself.

12 If you're a guy, harmless office flirting may not be so harmless. You don't want to end up a dirty old man.

• Luckily for me, I seldom go to work in the office.

13 You know that texting has passed you by.

• Oh yes. Unfortunately, emailing on Blackberry has not.

14 You worry about rudeness, graffiti, the newspaper arriving late, the decline of public services and the possible truth in libido jibes.

• All true, except the last one.

15 Moisturiser for men is the new wet-look hair gel.

• Huh?

16 Thinking about death is the new thinking about nothing much.

• Not quite there yet, I'm afraid.

17 You sit at traffic lights singing along to Barry White. Small boys with squeegees laugh at you. Screw them.

• Who's Barry White?

18 When your boss asks you when you can do some urgent task, you feel more free to say: "How about never? Is never good for you?"

• Oh, I've been saying that for ages. Internally, of course. I want to keep my job.

19 You think younger people who wear hooded sweatshirts with the hood up look stupid and sinister. You cross the street to avoid them.

• Stupid, definitely. Sinister?

20 You go to the pub less often due to the belated realisation that it's rubbish and makes your clothes smell.

• Never been much of a pub-goer, but yes, it is mostly rubbish and the smoke is terrible.

21 You are less certain of things than you used to be.

• Oh, definitely so. And less certain every day that goes by.

22 You argue with the television. You always win.

• I don't watch television, not for 5 years now. So as far as I'm concerned, I've already won.

23 Reading is the new staring into space.

• Frankly, I can't remember when I last stared into space.

24 Board games are the new cocaine.

• Sadly, I never really got the habit of playing board games.

25 Childcare is the new nightlife.

• I thought this was about turning 40, not turning 30...

26 You find children less irksome than hitherto, and are less perturbed about making small talk with them.

• Not sure about this one. I don't mind small talk with children, but I still find them irksome. Especially if they're not my children.

27 You increasingly find cryptic crossword puzzles diverting entertainment.

• That's not me. That's my wife.

28 You're temperamentally incapable of using the following phrases: "Oh. My. God"; "And I'm like ..."; "And she's all ..."; "Whatever". But, oddly, not "Well, duh."

• Not true, true, true, not true. And not true.

29 You're temperamentally incapable of doing high fives or other showy handshakes.

• I high-five my kids all the time.

30 You find solace in birdsong.

• Not much birdsong in my neck of the woods, I'm afraid.

31 You aren't surprised that the Cheeky Girls were spawned by Ceaucescu's Romania.

• Cheeky Girls?

32 You wonder if you would be shopping at Dunn and Co if it was still going.

• I have no clue what "Dunn and Co" was/is.

33 You pretend to care about J-Lo and Ben Affleck, subscribe to Heat magazine and have a Celebdaq account to stay in touch with celebrity culture, while simultaneously despising it.

• I don't need to pretend; I simply don't give a damn.

34 You think nothing of spending £8 on a bottle of wine.

• £8 = NIS66. True. Didn't realise that's a hefty amout for a bottle of wine.

35 You take a Thermos on demos.

• Nope. Bottle of water.

36 Actually, the rugby's on. There are enough people on the march already.

• Oh, I thought "demos" meant presentations to customers... Just goes to show how much work is affecting my ability to think straight. Haven't been to a "demo" since the peace rally on Nov. 4, 1995, the one prime minister Rabin was murdered at.

37 You write letters of complaint to Currys, Ikea, Norwich Union etc, while not expecting or receiving anything approaching a reply, civil or otherwise.

• Well, not to these companies, but yes I do occasionally shake off my apathy and write a letter of complaint.

38 It's hardly ever quiet enough.

• How true.

39 It can be too quiet.

• Not in Israel.

40 You're going to die sooner than ever.

• Thank you, The Guardian, for ending this on such a positive note...

Chayey Sarah - Stranger and Sojourner

ויקם אברהם מעל פני מתו וידבר אל בני חת לאמר: גר ותושב אנכי עמכם תנו לי אחוזת קבר עמכם ואקברה את מתי מלפני

(בראשית כ"ג, ג'-ד')

The parasha called "The Life of Sarah" begins with the death of Sarah. Avraham, after the period of mourning, sets about to find a suitable burial spot for his dead wife. He turns to the people of Chet, residents of the land, and says to them:

"I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight."

(Bereshit, 23, 5)

The words Avraham uses to describe himself - stranger (ger) and sojourner (toshav) - require some investigation. Why would Avraham label himself both a stranger and a sojourner? Perhaps we can learn a few things from this choice of words by Avraham.

Rashi, and many other commentators, explain that Avraham wanted to stress the fact that, although he is a stranger to the land, his intentions are to become a sojourner, a permanent resident. Therefore, his claim to be allocated a plot of land for burial purposes, something which a passing stranger cannot ask for, is justified. The Or HaChaim expands on this explanation by claiming (somewhat asynchronously) that Avraham was relying on the halacha that one is allowed to give a "ger toshav" a permanent gift, and that this halacha was binding also upon the people of Chet. Giving a burial plot to someone who has emigrated to live among you is considered "the done thing", part of the Natural Law; the halacha merely restates this law. Avraham demonstrated his friendly and neighbourly ways, for example by fighting the four kings to liberate the people of Sodom or by his insistence to take nothing from Avimelech, so he was right in expecting the locals to reciprocate in a fair and friendly manner.

But Rashi provides a further explanation. He quotes the Midrash that says that Avraham was in effect threatening the people of Chet: if you do not accept me as a stranger, I will take the land by force as a sojourner; it is rightfully mine, as was promised to me by God. Why would Rashi bring this Midrash? To understand this, we need to recall the first Rashi on the Torah, which quotes another Midrash: Why did the Torah start with the Creation story and not with the first mitzvah given to the People of Israel? Because nobody has an inalienable right to the land; the "promised land" is not a promise that is kept without any conditions. In fact, it depends on the will of God. When the people deserve the land, by walking in God's ways, they get it; if not, they don't. And indeed history proves this: the current situation, where Israel has been independent for almost 60 years, is an aberration in the thousands of years of Jewish history.

So Rashi is perhaps trying to tell us that although we have a divine promise to inherit the Land of Israel, this is a right that we cannot claim by force no matter what. Avraham's veiled threat comes with the plea of being a stranger that has demonstrated his willingness to live peacefully in the new land. Yes, the land has been promised to Avraham, but he knows he also needs to deserve it.

A final thought about the use of "stranger and sojourner" is from Rabbi Lichtenstein, who uses these words of Avraham to describe the existential dilemma of every human being. As humans, as lives are finite and we do not know when we will die. And yet at times we act as if we we will live for ever, making long-term plans and feeling (over)confident about ourselves. This paradox is highlighted by the story from Berachot: the sages were at a party and asked R. Himnuna to sing a song. He stood up and sang about how terrible is the day of our death (talk about a party spoiler). When asked by the stunned sages how they should respond to this, R. Himnuna answered that they should sing about our faith in God and his laws. By acting like he did. R. Himnuna illustrated not only the paradox of our short lives (we are "strangers" on this earth) coupled with our tendency to feel invincible (as real "sojourners"), but also the remedy for this existentialist conundrum: attach yourself to the real sojourner, the eternal one, in order to get by this life.

In summary, Avraham's use of the expression "ger ve'toshav" to describe himself teaches us a few things: that we should act in a neighbourly and honourable manner with the residents of the land; that we should not think our right to the land is unconditional, as it depends on our behaviour; and that to survive in this world we need to attach ourselves to God.

Fighting Toothpaste

New security measures are in effect in all airports in Europe. If one wants to take liquids or gels on board - e.g. toothpaste, deodorant, cream, lisptick, etc. - these need to be placed in a transparent, resealable plastic bag and taken out for security scanning. The liquids/gels need to be in containers of less than 100ml each, and no more than 1l in total.

I was unfortunate enough to be travelling to Europe on the day these new measures came into effect - Monday of last week. I went through four different European airports during the week and in all of them chaos reigned (except for Heathrow, where these measures are actually more lenient than the ones that were in effect for the past few months). The security lines were unbelievably long. The security personnel were busy checking containers to see whether the 100ml limitation was being violated, scarcely giving the passgengers themselves a second look. Debates raged between security personnel regarding whether this or that item qualified as liquid or gel. My instant shoe polish sponge was taken out from my carry-on as it contained a tiny capsule of shoe polish, which unfortunately was in liquid form.

In short, it is clear that the Western world has given up the fight against terrorism in favour of fighting toothpaste. I don't blame them. It is much easier to fight toothpaste than it is to fight terrorists...

On a more serious note, these security measures seem to indicate, once again, that the entire approach is wrong. In Ben Gurion airport, the security machines (x-ray, chemical scanner, etc.) are a secondary measure; the focus is on the PERSON and not on the LUGGAGE he or she are carrying. Security personnel question each passenger and only those that arouse suspicion or fit a certain profile are subject to a thorough search. Profiling, a taboo concept in the "enlightened" world, prevents Americans and Europeans from adopting this rational and effective approach to airport security. For them, a 90-year-old nun's bag poses the same security threat as that of a bearded youngster carrying a Pakistani passport. I whisk through security in Israel because I carry an Israeli passport and travel often, but my European colleagues - sharing this profile in their countries - must undergo the same security ordeal I go through as a foreigner in Europe. Their toothpaste is as suspicious as mine is...