a shabbos thought

The point is to be able to communicate well. It's not to *appear* as
if you know how to communicate well. It can often be a hindrance to
appear to communicate well, while in fact not being able to. At the
same time, it is nice, and useful, for people to feel comfortable, and
the simple communication, and the joy in being able to communicate
simply, is not to be overlooked. I want to know five languages by the
time I'm 30, not because I want to then kick back and pat myself on
the back, but because then I will be ready to really get down to
business. With English, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, and Japanese, I
should have communication access to about 1/3 of the world, and it
will then be time for some pretty serious organizing.

Recently, I've been having a lot of good conversations with myself, in
my head. Remembering that people like to read what I write, I think to
myself: I should write down some of these conversations. The
conversations happen while I'm *doing*; either praying, or walking--
when I'm engaged. Writing does not feel like doing to me. It feels
like attempting to transmit the insights gained by doing. Perhaps
writing in itself can become a *doing* for me, and then I will be able
to marry the inspiration to the ability to write.

I write on shabbat. Right now, I'm writing on a computer on shabbat.
In some version of the future, I don't want to write, or use
computers, on shabbat, but because I don't write as much as I'd like
during the week, I feel okay about allowing myself this leisure on
shabbat. As I was saving the file, I considered specifically not
saving it, like creating a rule for myself that I can write on
shabbat, but I can't save it. My writing will be like smoke. But
because I love reading my writing later, and because I have the
feeling that *it could be important*, and actually writing for me on
shabbat might make a lot of sense, because my head is quite clear, I'm
going to keep it for now. Perhaps in a future I will dedicate my
Saturday nights to writing, after I've already had a full day of
shabbat, and then I will have a night of writing. It is so hard for me
to resist the temptation of spending time with others! But I bet that
I can do it.

Maybe I need to just write for myself more, then I will have more to
give to other people. Sometimes it's hard that everything I write I
send out, because I end up censoring myself somewhat, or at least
tailoring to an audience. I don't write audacious things. I write
perceptions. And I try to be, true to my Pacific Northwest white
Jewish upper-class upbringing, politically correct.

I want to write a story, with amazing characters. A character that I
thought of recently is "Rabotai Tzvi." I don't know who that is yet. I
need to learn more about what "Rabotai" means, and what "Tzvi" means.
Then I might know who Rabotai Tzvi is.

Today when I was praying, my voice echoed in my head, as I bowed right
and left: strife, joy. strife, joy. strife, joy. When I pray around
here, I usually think about Palestine. I often try to think about
other things, I feel like a cliche unto myself, but it is the case
that Palestine is what I have in mind. It's hard for me to form other
things to pray about. All kinds of other things enter my thoughts, but
only tangentially. I often pray for understanding. (not "to be
understood", but rather "the ability to understand")

Today, when I bowed right and left, and prayed strife and joy, I was
engaging to hold both of those ideas in my mind at the same time. For
me, that is so much about Palestine. In Palestine, they give you
coffee and tea, and push food on you incessantly, they treat you with
the greatest respect. They have real, connected relationships; in a
town like Bethlehem, I can tell the taxi driver the name of the man I
am meeting, and most likely he knows him. Some people's houses are
really nice, and they do so much to make you comfortable. In many ways
it is idyllic.
And it also makes me cringe. Like a dull pain, slow arthritis. The
checkpoints, economic depression, the dusty roads, the nothing-to-do
that hangs in the air, which to my Western sensibilities feels like
impotence. That I'm not openly Jewish there. That I sometimes can't,
and more often think I can't, talk openly about spending time in
Palestine, which creates for me a divided life.

You are an insignificant speck of dust.
You are made in the image of G-d.

Shavua tov,
Jacob

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