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...