Mekimi, by Noa Yaron-Dayan

I hesitated before buying and reading this book. After all, I am not a big fan of Breslover Hasidim, especially the born-again, light-in-their-eyes, street-dancing, Uman-going kind. And that's an understatement. After having finished reading the book, my ambivalence persists.

Noa Yaron was a radio and TV celebrity in Israel in the early 90s. She was exposed, like many in her circle, to the teachings and writings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, the 18th-century founder of the Brelover movement. Today, at the age of 35, she has six children and spends her time disseminating the teachings of R. Nachman to any woman who will listen. Everybody in Israel is aware of the Breslover Hasidim, as their ill-founded mantra (Na-Nach-Nachma-Nachman-MiUman) is plastered on walls, stickers, kippot, t-shirts, etc. This quasi-messianic sect of Judaism works particularly well for those seeking a Judaism that is somewhat "new-age", an alternative to seeking the truth in a remote Ashram in India.

In this book, Yaron-Dayan describes her path to the light. Mekimi in Hebrew means "the one who lifts me" and is derived from a verse in Psalm 113 - "He who raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the needy out of the dunghill" - an appropriate metaphor for how she sees her journey. Although Yaron-Dayan describes the book only as "semi-autobiographical", for example she names the woman Alma and her boyfriend-husband Ben (her husband's name is Yuval), it is based on diaries she wrote during the years and is therefore a good account of the processes she went through.

The book opens with an account of the secular world, the world Yaron-Dayan knew well, a world that made a star out of her. The description is, as expected, quite glum: materialism is the only religion, drugs are being smoked on a daily basis, relationships come and go and there is this huge void in everyone's stomach, a void that cannot be filled by anything or anyone. The process begins halfway through the book, when Ben, at the behest of a good friend, agrees to listen to a lecture by an ultra-orthodox person, a lecture that transforms him completely. He begins his own journey towards Judaism and Alma, his partner, joins. The last part of the book is a shameless praise (propaganda) for R. Nachman.

So why am I ambivalent about this book? It is well written. Yaron-Dayan has not lost her sense of humour and the book is interspersed with witty remarks, some of it refreshingsly self-defecating. But more importantly, it is genuine. Her passion and her ardent belief in her newly-found way are palpably present in every page of this book. Yaron-Dayan does not embellish the process she went through (and is still undergoing). She makes it plainly clear that becoming, and staying, religious is a continuous struggle. One does not "see the light" and change his/her ways overnight. There are endless obstacles along the way. It does not feel like a path but rather like a roller-coaster ride, where every high point is inevitably followed by a fall. The trick, as Yaron-Dayan vividly demonstrates through her own experiences, is how to make it up the next slope, to the next high point.

And yet I cannot completely identify with what this book is about. Yaron-Dayan is trying to convince us (that is, the secular among us) that if we become religious we will be happier. The recurring theme in this book is: Judaism is the key to personal happiness. If you feel a void in your life, Judaism will fill it. I do not believe this to be true, neither in practice nor on a theological level. In practice, this is a dangerous approach; although for some people finding Judaism may mean finding happiness, this feeling might be temporary and then the question is, what happens next? If Judaism loses its initial lustre, does that mean we go back, or try a new approach?

More importantly, defining religion in an anthopocentric way is theologically wrong. Judaism is first and foremost a theocentric religion; God is in the centre and man's purpose is to worship Him. We are commanded by God and the mitsvot we are to fulfill are a yoke. Promising happiness to people is dangerously close to subjugating God to our purposes, in other words, close to avodah zarah. While I identify with Yaron-Dayan's focus on the quest rather than on the target - she understands the target is unattainable and the best we can do is strive constantly to reach it, even though we know it is impossible - I cannot identify with the proposition that our happiness is the main purpose of this exercise. This is the source of my criticism of the Breslover way (and, indeed, Hasidim in general).

A Terrorist in New York

Surprisingly, with all the noise around Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visiting New York and making speeches at the UN and at Columbia University, one obvious question has somehow completely slipped my mind.

Last night my wife, who does not usually follow the news as avidly as I do, turned around from her laptop and asked me: "Are you telling me Ahmadinejad is in the US and is going to leave back for Iran unharmed?"

When you think about it, it is indeed a good question. We have all come to accept the fact that terrorists and heads of state who support terrorism can walk about freely in our countries, whereas we do not even dare think about the possibility of visiting their countries. Think about it: Palestinians can walk about Tel Aviv, have coffee on the beach and shop in the malls, and return home safely to their homes. An Israeli would never dream of setting foot in Gaza City or Ramallah for fear of lynching.

The US has missed a chance to grab one of the world's biggest terrorists. What a shame.

Cars on Yom Kippur

Yesterday morning, Yom Kippur, around 7:30am, on my way to the synagogue, I saw two cars on the road. They were driving slowly, but they were definitely cars and they were definitely moving. On the road.

Why is this so unusual? Because in Israel on Yom Kippur, there are no cars on the road. And when I write "no cars", I mean NO cars. In every city and on most inter-city roads, the roads are completely empty for 25 hours. For kids in Israel, Yom Kippur has become "bicycle day", as they can roam the streets freely with their bikes undisturbed by other vehicles. Obviously in non-religious and non-Jewish towns people drive their cars, but if you live in a big city the likelihood of seeing a car driving on Yom Kippur is close to zero (aside to emergency services).

The most interesting part about this phenomenon is that there is no law that prohibits driving on Yom Kippur in Israel. It is a custom that developed out of respect for the holiest day in the year and Israelis have been keeping this custom for decades. As in most other areas concerning religion in Israel - shabbat, kashrut, marriages, etc. - there has been a steady erosion in recent years. I guess this erosion has now reached Yom Kippur as well. This is why seeing the two cars yesterday morning was both surprising and sad.

I am for separation of religion and state in Israel, so I cannot object to people driving on Yom Kippur. It is not the act of driving on this day that bothers me. After all, most people drive on shabbat. It is the fact that there was this island of consensus between religious and non-religious in Israel, and island that was not created artificially (or coercively) through legislation. And now even this small island is slowly disappearing.

I still believe such islands of agreement can be reached in order to maintain some public vestige of "Jewishness" in the Jewish state, but these cannot be had through the means of legislation. Unfortunately what most religious people (and political parties) do not understand is that the more religious legislation they enact, the less chance there is for a consensual modus vivendi that will do good not only to Israeli society as a whole but mostly to religion itself. Judaism free of state legistlation has flourished for 2,000 years; it gave us the core corpus of Jewish law and thought and kept Jews together through good times and bad. Somewhat paradoxically, a mere half-century of the "Jewish state" have reduced Judaism's standing and power amongst most Israelis. Time is running out if we wish to reverse this trend.

Belgian Table Manners

There has been talk recently about the possibility of Belgium breaking up as a country, because the two main groups - the French-speaking Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Dutch - seem unable to get along. The Economist recently carried a leader about this, entitled "Time to call it a day". Rather blunt.

I'm not going to enter into the fray. After all, who am I to say whether Belgium is a viable country. But all this talk about Belgium reminded me of the excellent sketch from "Not the Nine O'clock News" about eating habits in Belgium. I have it on DVD at home, but found it also on YouTube (starts from about 1 minute into the following video). What a pleasure it was to watch it again after all these years.

Do We Deserve Gaydamak?

Those who lived in Israel in the 1980s will remember a popular car sticker that proclaimed: "Maxwell: Buy Me!". The sticker referred to the late British media mogul Robert Maxwell who at the time was busy buying up Israeli companies, including a leading newspaper. "Buy Me!" was a semi-ironic cry of desperation that symbolised a general feeling of discomfort with the economy and the way the government was running it.

Maxwell is long dead now, buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. But his spirit lives on, having been miraculously reincarnated in Arcadi Gaydamak. This Russian-born billionaire rose to local fame after some particularly distasteful publicity stints: offering free "fun days" for the residents of the southern city of Sderot who are suffering from daily rocket attacks from Gaza; erecting a "tent city" in Tel Aviv for people who fled south from northern Israel during last year's Second Lebanon War; showing up as a visitor to the Knesset and at the same time telling the press that most parliamentarians were there solely for their salary; and the list goes on. One of his first moves here was to buy Beitar Yerushalayim, a legendary soccer team whose vocal, and sometimes violent, fans have made a semi-God out of him. His latest unsavoury move is an advertising campaign by one of the cellular companies featuring Gaydamak as... himself, the man who can buy anything.

All of this would have been nothing but a distraction, another indicator of the poor taste of some Israelis, who will worship anyone willing to offer them a free gift. But Gaydamak has expressed his intentions to establish a political party and to run for the mayorship of Jerusalem (a post formerly occupied by the current Prime Minister). He has also announced his support for Binyamin Netanyahu, head of the Likud party and a notorious populist himself. The man clearly has aspirations that go beyond buying up faltering Israeli enterprises.

Gaydamak's background is questionable at best. He is wanted in France for an arms deal in Africa; he travels with an Angolan diplomatic passport to avoid arrest; there are stories circulating about money laundering in Russia and of the unorthodox ways he made his fortune; Israeli police advised the Jewish Agency to reject a $50M donation from him so as to avoid "problematic money" entering a government agency. Although he served in the military here, he spent most of his life outside Israel. His command of Hebrew is minimal. Despite his economic involvement in Israel and all the fanfare around his so-called "good deeds", he is still viewed by many as an outsider. And yet this man stands a real chance to become a member of the Knesset, perhaps even the mayor of the capital city. His ability to influence the outcome of the next election is not in doubt.

I know we Israelis have done a poor job in electing our politicians in the past, but could we be as bad as to deserve Gaydamak? If this is the case, we have some serious repenting to do this coming weekend...

Musings on the Eve of 5768

Another year ends. Time for reflection, for making resolutions, for doing away with last year's curses and looking forward to next year's blessings.

But who has time for reflection, let alone making new resolutions? I personally have had such a busy time at work lately and I'm currently losing my mind trying to balance my business travel over the next month (with most holidays being "stuck" in the middle of the week), that taking time off for reflections is a luxury I can ill afford. I am embarassed to say how many times I've attended selichot this past month (I belong to those who started repenting on the 2nd of Elul, not two days ago). It looks like Rosh HaShana itself will have to do for my selichot.

But, patur belo klum i efshar, so here are some thoughts as we approach 5768:

• First, let's not go into the number 5768. With the dinosaur bones and all those fossils it's not a good idea. Best to recommend the book Bereshit Bara, by Prof. Nathan Aviezer, for some peace of mind on the subject of reconciliating creationism chronology with science.
• Next year will be shnat shemitah, the seventh year, where one is supposed to let the land rest and the debts disappear. Alas, all that is left from a beautiful social, economic and environmental idea is the ritual bickering between rabbis about who to give money to to bypass the prohibition of eating fruits and vegetables grown in Israel. That, and a plethora of booklets detailing ad nauseam what one should do with one's shrubberies in the back garden.
• A year ago Israel was licking its wounds from the botched war in Lebanon. And as a present for the New Year we got this week a whiff of renewed winds of war. So far it looks like all sides are happy with turning a blind eye to the nightly excursion of our brave pilots over the Syrian sky, but these incidents are exactly how wars get started.
• A-propos war. After the missile attack last night on an IDF trainee camp near Gaza, what are the headlines on the internet? Get this: "Parents complain: why were soldiers sleeping in non-protected tents?" One has to read this twice to believe it's not a joke. Does anyone need more proof Israelis have lost the will to fight?
• Perhaps 5768 will be the year I will finally take that (expensive) speed reading course I've read about? I am constantly frustrated at the number of books in my library waiting patiently their turn.
• No resolutions for the new year. Old age brings with it realism about resolutions that look promisingly achievable when made but then leave nothing but a sour taste of disappointment a year later. Except maybe one: I will try to keep a steady schedule of working out, despite all the travelling. I really will try harder.

Shana Tova to all.

Scientific Proof: We Are Smarter

Several newspapers today are carrying a story about a study published in Nature Neuroscience. The headlines vary, but the basic theme is "the brain of left-wing people is different from the brain of right-wing people".

Here is the abstract of the study:

Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning using event-related potentials, and found that greater liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern.

At long last there is scientific proof that we back-stabbing, self-hating, left-wing liberals are smarter. We seem to react better to complex information and adapt faster to changing circumstances. We also have better "neurocognitive sensitivity"; I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds like a good thing to have!

In other words, I was right all along. In recent years I have mostly refrained from entering into arguments with right-wing people, something I enjoyed doing in the past. After all, why bother arguing with someone if you've been scientifically certified to be much smarter than he/she is?

Ordering Coffee

A few months ago I read a book by Bill Bryson called "Notes from a Big Country", which is a compilation of columns he wrote for The Mail on Sunday, describing his experiences upon returning with his English wife and family to live in the US after a long stint in the UK.

In one of these columns, he laments the fact that one can no longer order a simple cup of coffee. Gone are the days that you asked for a cup of coffee, paid for it, and walked away happy. You now had to make several choices before your coffee could be prepared for you, and some of these choices were mind-boggling.

I was reminded of this when reading an op-ed column by Stanley Fish in the New York Times (reprinted here in the IHT). Read it, it's funny.

But even funnier is a riposte by Ron Rosenbaum in Slate Magazine, here. Mr. Rosenbaum asks himself whether Mr. Fish's was "the worst op-ed ever". It's all very amusing.

Harry Potter, by J. K. Rowling

Having just finished the last book in the Harry Potter series, I felt I had to write a few words about this extraordinary literary phenomenon.

My acquaintance with the Harry Potter books happened by chance. For some reason, I completely missed the success of the first book; I might have read about it somewhere, but I probably wasn't paying much attention. Later on, during one of my visits to Boston, I entered a Borders bookshop in the centre of the city just to have a look. An entire wall was covered with a book I had not heard about; so I picked it up, read the first couple of pages, and decided I liked it. Only after having finished reading it, I found out it was the first book of the series ("Sorcerer's Stone", it was the US edition). It was plastered on the bookshop walls because the second book ("Chamber of Secrets") had just come out. So it is by this coincidence I stumbled upon the magical world created by Ms. Rowling. And, like many before me, I fell under its spell.

The second and third ("Prisoner of Azkaban") books I bought in Singapore, while on a trip to Asia. The fourth ("Goblet of Fire") and fifth ("Order of the Phoenix") I took off my mother, who bought them in the US. By this time my son was immersed in the books himself and was reading them over and over again. He read the sixth ("Half-Blood Prince") before me and it actually took me months before I got around to reading it. Reason was that I found the fifth book a little too long and not as captivating as the previous ones, so I thought I was beginning to have enough of Harry Potter. After reading the sixth book I realised how wrong I was and was pleased to see Rowling was back in form.

I got the seventh book ("Deathly Hallows") in Scotland a couple of weeks ago. I gave it first to my son to read'; he finished it in 4 days (it is the summer holidays after all), and then I read it (took me a bit longer, I admit). Rowling's finishing stroke is a masterpiece of suspense and storytelling which I very much enjoyed. There were some open questions I had at the end, but I attribute these mostly to my overlooking some facts along the way...

I will not go into any review of the Harry Potter books. Oceans of ink have been poured in literaray criticisms by people far more accomplished than me. One very good review was written by Stephen King, whom I don't like as an author but I think made some very good points about Rowling and the series. But I will make the following observations:

• Whilst I resent most of the hype around Harry Potter, I admire the marketing genius of Rowling or whomever gave her advice.


• At the end of the day, the main ingredients of the Harry Potter series - magical creatures, fantasy worlds and bravery of the good against the bad - were all available well before Rowling. Some even wrote that she "borrowed" a little too much off other authors. for example Tolkien. But it is the mix that makes the book, and Rowling's mix is a recipe few can imitate.


• Perhaps a little too much is made of the fact that "children are reading again" because of Harry Potter. I think children were reading well before Harry Potter and there are some excellent children series out there (Lemony Snicket is a good example). But who am I to argue against any claim that will make the young generation read more? The fact that many Israeli kids are making an effort to read the last book in English (the Hebrew version will not be available before December) is an added bonus.


• It was reported that Rowling is working on a new series. I have mixed feelings about that. If I were in her place (as if I ever will be...) I would want to be remembered as the magical creator of the most successful book series in history, and not take the risk of not attaining the same success with a new series. But that's just me.

Re'eh - Reconciling the Two Choices

ראה אנכי נתן לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה

(דברים י"א, כ"ו)

One of the basic tenets of Jewish faith is free will. God, through the Torah, has shown us the right way to live our lives, but the choice on whether to follow this way or not is in the hands of each individual. The opening word of our parasha is re'eh - watch, or behold - a word which many commentators explain as understanding. We understand that God is giving us both a blessing and a curse, and that we need to choose between the two.

However, this week's parasha also has several references to the temple in Jerusalem (implicitly referred to as the "place that God will choose") as the only place where sacrifices can be brought to. The choice of the place where to worship God is not up to man, and man is commanded to come to a specific place and is prohibited from doing God's work elsewhere. In the story in Bereshit about Avraham being commanded to sacrifice his son Yitzchak, God says to him that He will show him which mountain to go to for this purpose. Answering Yitzchak's question about why there is no animal going with them, Avraham replies that God is supposed to show them which animal to sacrifice. We see here that it is God that tells us how and when to worship Him, and that we have no free will in this matter.

But if we read the story of the akedah more closely we see that Avraham is the one that actually "sees" the mountain, their destination. Avraham is also the one that "sees" the animal to sacrifice, after the angel of God tells him not to sacrifice Yitzchak. The idea here is that a person who reaches a high level of faith (and fear) of God, is a person who is able to "see" what God has chosen for him.

Rambam approaches the age-old theological question of free will against the will of God and asks a question on the verse from Tehillim 115: "whatever pleases [God] He has done". How can man have free will if God does whatever pleases him? Rambam answers that God gave us the right to make mistakes and choose the wrong way, in order to preserve free will. The value of man's free will is higher in God's eyes, so to speak, than the value of man following God's ways. This is true in a time when we are not close to God. But when we succeed in approaching God and understanding his ways, like Avraham did, we are able to make our choices freely and our choices match the will of God.

The famous story in the Talmud about the discussion among the sages that ended in a voice from heaven saying what is right and R. Yehoshua exclaiming: "it is not in heaven" - meaning man is free to interpret the law - is an illustration of this free will. At the end of this story, we are told God says "my sons have beaten me" and accepts the interpretation of the majority of the sages against the voice from heaven. In an interesting reversal of the order of things, the choice of God has become the choice of man!

So how do we reconcile the edict that we can worship God only in the temple in Jerusalem with our free will? How do we worship God the way we want and where we want, and make our choice also the choice of God? The answer is in the verse from Shemot 20, 20: "in every place where I cause my name to be mentioned, I will come unto you and bless you". The Talmud in Berachot says that even if one person sits down and learns Torah, God's presence is with him. If we follow God's edict and come to the place he mentioned His name, then He will come to us and bless us, He will come to the place we choose. This is the reconciliation between the two choices: God's choice and our choice.

This idea for this week's thought is from R. David Dov Levanon.

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!