Notes of a Jewpanese Nomad

I went to a talk last night which featured Rabbi Alan Lew.

I had a few questions that I wanted to ask, but couldn’t because of the lack of time. I figured that I would write him an e-mail, but couldn’t find his e-mail address on the website. I guess he is too famous now. Oh well, if I have to, I know I can find out pretty easily.

It was a really cool talk that I am really happy that I went to. I also know that I wouldn’t have gone had it not been for Jane telling me about it. Thank you, Jane!

I thought that the talk was really excellent. It was lucid (something that I strive for), accessible, and nuanced. And if he had composed it while on his way to the place, like he says he does with a lot of his talks, I am really impressed. He had a quite engaging way of talking also.

I know a few good speakers and teachers, one of them, a good friend who is also perhaps one of the smartest people I know. I have heard her speak atshul, give a class during a communal tikkun leilShavuot, and of course, I have talked to her in person many times as well. She has always always kept me engaged from the very beginning to the end and has been very informative. Rabbi Alan Lew has joined the ranks of her in my mind. ;)

In his talk, he said that he would ask questions and then answer them himself. Although at the time I thought, “hmmm, that can sound just a little conceded…., but he is pulling it off well,” in retrospect, after having heard some of the questions that came up, I was quite happy that he kept his talk completely self-contained. It was an extremely good idea.

The talk featured R. Lew’s vision of Judaism as a religion about transformation through telling the two stories of Yaakov (the ladder dream and struggling with an unknown man) and Moshe (the burning bush story). He explained how he arrived at this vision folding in a lot of autobiographical information and how meditation enriched his Jewish religious practice. In my mind (and let me emphasize that point), while the talk was excellent, many of the questions were not. One asked questions that were really, too academic and unfit for the setting. Another asked a question that seemed to be aimed at disproving that Judaismwas in fact a ‘transformative’ religion, like he said. Another, brought up a dichotomy that I happen to dislike a lot and yet have heard over and over again. Hence, while I try to stay a calm person who does not complainalot, I find my tolerance for such statements (to follow shortly) wearing out fast.

That is, “the mind and the body” question. It comes up in statements like this:

1) Music speaks to the soul, while Math can’t.

2) Intellectual pursuits are all right, but they also drain you of spirituality

3) You can only get high on drugs and spirituality

4) What you do for your mind is intellectual, but not psychological

5) Torah study is intellectual, while meditation is spiritual.

Aaaaaarrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

I hate hearing statements like this.

And if I were the unfortunate person who had to listen to me rant about this in person, I would hear the word “hate” out of my mouth many more times than I could stand it.

What is with all this false dichotomy? This fake dualism?? These dysfunctional binaries???

Can we get away from it? Please?
And can we perhaps be aware enough of ourselves so that we all can have an experience of mental exhaustion that actually can give you a great sense of euphoria and high from racking your brains?

To be sure, it’s not easy to get to that point. But, it’s certainly there. It’s a shared experience that I wish people would stop ignoring or doubting.

Simply put, it keeps me sane.

I kind of have a wild brain that sometimes finds it difficult to rest.

I also have just a tiny little workaholic side to me that finds it difficult to take a rest when I start working on something.

Let me give you an example:

This is nothing that I can be proud of, but I tend not to start working on papers until the very last minute. In fact, it is usually past the very last minute evidenced by the fact that I almost always need to ask for an extension of the deadline–and not only once, but twice, and sometimes even more. So what happens? I pull an all-nighter. But not any all-nighter. A really long continuous one that usually lasts over three days and three nights. That's right; three days and three nights.

I sleep about eight hours total during that time, mostly taken in the form of short cat naps of about twenty minutes to two hours at a time. Then, when the three days and nights have passed and I can no longer stand it, I crash for about eight hours, I get up, and the whole cycle starts again. That's my pattern.

The scary part (for others) might be that I don't do this with reliance on any drugs such as caffeine or sugar, I do it all on my own–it's sheer brain power. It might be small wonder than, that sometimes I lose control over this powerful engine in my brain that allows me to pull these all-nighters on very short notice and sometimes I find it hard to fall asleep. Especially when I am excessively anxiety ridden or over-stimulated, or sometimes, just out of the blue.

I am told that I should meditate. But, that is a great challenge for me. Meditating, as much as I can see its obvious benefits for me is very hard.

What works for me well instead, is the existence of this body of law that mandates that I cannot work at certain times, like on Shabbat, and on Chagim. The best part about Shabbat is that it comes around every week so I have this great excuse to take off and be incommunicado for an entire day unless you come just knock on my door.

I can't tell you how many times Shabbat has kept me sane.

First was when I was writing my senior thesis when I was in college. –The end of my college career was rolling around and a lot of very unfortunate things (on a materialistic level) happened that made the logistics of being in school a little difficult. Writing my senior thesis was painful and difficult (writing in English was certainly NOT my forte) and I had the added stress of other things like finishing the damned thing.

That was the first time I almost broke Shabbat for serious work. But Shabbat was rolling in. The time for candle lighting had ticked on my computer screen. There was a voice in my head saying, "What are you going to do!? Is it really worth breaking Shabbes? Can you really break Shabbat for this??" and I shut my computer.

And that was it.

I savored my break from my maddening hard work that was driving me the whole week and I took a rest for 25 hours. I felt like I was on the verge of going crazy, but I didn't. Instead, I kept Shabbes. That was when I decided that I would never break Shabbes. It was the only thing that could keep me from going insane.

Lately, I had been finding it difficult to figure out what it was that I needed to do, and how to get into it. I thought I loved reading and talking about it, but I was find it hard to concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing. Instead, I kept focusing on theminial things that I didn't need to do. My sense of guilt was growing and I was eventually becoming paralyzed.

Then came Pesach. This year with two Yom Tovs and Shabbat it was a full three-day rest. This combo usually makes incredibly lethargic and restless, but this time, this was exactly what I needed. I was able to regain my focus while I had to refrain from writing or typing anything and while the only thing I could really do was to sit and muse about things, talk, or quietly sit and read whatever happened to be around. In other words, it forces someone like me, who is a complete extrovert to spend an extended amount of time as an introvert. It's a good exercise that I benefit from a lot.

Our dwelling is a shoes-off zone.

I am from Japan where this goes without saying and Misha has lived in Korea where, also this was just the understood norm.

I firmly believe that dirt from outside that sticks on the bottom of the shoes is far more unsanitary and dirty than whatever can possibly be on the floor or carpet of a house. I mean, you don't get dog shit or some stranger's phlegm in your house. The dirtiest it can get is dust that collects and food that YOU or someone you know has dropped on the floor. The dirtiness of a house really seems quite predictable.

However, it seems that others don't feel similarly.

If our lovely black carpet (–> the slightest bit of lint shows off really well) looks the slightest bit dirty the shoes don't come off–at least from the parent who seems to believe equally firmly that what looks dirty IN the house is equally unsanitary and unclean as what is OUTSIDE. The logic escapes me, since neither of us leave our shoes on in our temporary dwelling, making the inside a lot more sanitary than the outside by definition. But, such is life.

Misha tends to clean up the place quite nicely before his parents arrive, but the place apparently still appears like a dump to his perfectionist parent. Alas. I just wish that we had a 玄関. It would make the shoes-off policy a lot easier to enforce.

Leaving shoes on in the house just seems so dirty to me!! Yuck!!!

I love Pesach.

It was one of five holidays I grew up with and I always thought that it was rather fun.

I grew up celebrating Pesach, Chanukkah, お正月, Purim (sometimes), and Sukkot (until I was about 9).

Every year on Pesach my mom would read the Passover issue of the Tokyo Jewish Community Center Newsletter and tell me something new that she found out Passover that year–it usually concerned some new Kashrut rule that either she had forgotten about (I find it impossible to remember all the intricacies from year to year) or had learned new that year and she would ask me, “Do you want to do this?” Invariably I would say “Yes!”

So I fondly remember the year when we boiled all our silverwear for the first time to properly kasher them for Passover, eventhough they were unused all year.

Pesach is a crazy time of the year.

In fact, I confess that I go a little nuts during Pesach.

It’s fun for me. I get to be as machmir (strict in ritual observance) as I want in terms of Kashut in a way I usually find hard to be. Pesach gives me a great excuse.

Misha, who tends to think that I take things overboard (I disagree) thinks that it’s a bit ridiculous. But I don’t care as long as he gives me the freedom to do what I want.

I love all the matzah eating and the lack of rice (since I don’t eat kitniyot on Pesach) and all those familiar soy foods (like しょう油、味噌、豆腐) replaced with delicious matzo balls in vegetable broth. Matzah brie is something that my mother made only a few times during Passover, but I am lucky this year that that is one of the things Misha makes a lot of. I have already had savory and delicious matzo brie five times this Pesach!!

The sad thing is that Pesach is already on its way out. Sure, I am happy that my familiar Japanese and Korean foods can re-enter my life again, but I am also sad that that little craziness of Pesach is also almost over.

The three day break (two yom tovim plus Shabbat) at the beginning of Pesach this year really did me some good. It helped me to completely relax and re-focus like nothing else worked for me in the past.

Because it feels like I have been moving non-stop from the time I left home in 1995. 

I first lived in a dorm in Victoria, Canada. (2yrs.)–The summers were spent away from there of course, because you couldn't stay. Renting out the place during the summer was one of their most important ways of gaining revenue, as was the case for the college that I entered later.  Places I went to during those summers–England; Grenoble, France; Besançon, France; Taiwan; Singapore; Hong Kong, and of course, home (Japan). 

For college, I went to a school in New York City. (4yrs.) Places I went to during the summers–Durham, North Carolina (American Dance Festival); Bates, Maine (Bates Dance Festival); New York; and home(Japan).
After college, I immediately went on to graduate school in Berkeley, California and took up residents there. (2yrs.)–Going to graduate school right away was the right idea, but perhaps the year was the wrong one for me (it was 2001).  The year between my first and second years, I got to go to Seoul, Korea thanks to a shortage of Korean Studies people in our department.  I had a blast.

On a whim, I decided to go to Korea for a year (or so) after my second year of graduate school, so I took off, stayed with my parents a bit (3 months) and then went to Seoul, Korea.  Again, I absolutely loved living there.  I also happened upon some great friends and my love there too.
My love, let's call him Misha, wanted to return to live by his family in the City of Angels after extending his stay in Korea (by 3 months)  so I reciprocated and went to live in the City of Angels for 3 months.  I suffered trying to finish my Master's Thesis, which seemed to be long due while I was in LA.  Unfortunately, the project was far from being done. 

After my extended break of a year, I went back to graduate school, but this time in stead of moving back to a city that gave me a lot of allergic reactions and bad memories, I opted to live in San Francisco.  This, actually, was Misha's idea. 

I found a roommate who was born the same date as me, but only a year later.  This was after making friends with someone in Korea who was also born the same date as me, but a year earlier.  I had never met people born on the same date as me, so it felt strange.  

I tell you, a have these few "charged years" in my life, and surely, this year of 2003, from October until the end of 2004 was another "charged" year like that.  So many coincidence and happenings that just keep coming together in strange ways. 

After a year of an impossible (for me) mid-distance relationship with Misha, we got married in New York and now we live in the City of Angels. Except, we will be in Japan within a year or two, and also Jerusalem within two or three years.  

No, compare to some, I am not a hard-core Nomad. But the fact that I keep changing my city (and often country) of residence every few years makes me feel like one because I grew up in the same house from 5 to 17 and the same city from 3 to 17. I had a pretty stable childhood.  Plus, the fact that there is no one paying for my moves, and that I have no family around in the places that I am going to or leaving from to be able to dump all my stuff at makes me feel the stress of the move even more acutely.  So, I consider myself a Nomad.  Not a bad thing…. It's just makes it hard to have a cat or two or three in my life, which I would really love to have again….

I am born a Jew(ish American) and a Japanese; hence, a Jewpanese, as my mother-in-law has called me (only in the privacy of talking to her son, of course).

And I pursue those (at least) two sides of myself rather rigorously.

I grew up in Japan until 17 (I am 27 now) with a good old Japanese education, so my English is sometimes imperfect. Be aware!

I am also in the midst of studying for my oral examinations to be taken some time soon, so I should not be updating this too regurlary. I have another life as a blogger of a Japanese-language site (http://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/pensees), which you are also welcome to take a peak at. ;)

these words….

Hold on a sec!

I am busy with Passover (aka Pesach) and all the work I have to do!!

I will post something soon…. But not quite yet.

次回まで、乞うご期待！！