The bus ride through the Galilee was beautiful, although the roads were bumpy, curvy, and uneven. It's just as well: with such amazing views of the mountains on every side, I think that a book would have diverted my eyes from seeing Israel. I don't think I've ever seen so many orchards in my life: at this time of year, Israel really does look like a garden in bloom. Thousands of years ago, there were Jewish olive presses and olive orchards in this region (archaeologists have found the ruins): now, they've returned. There was a lot less Rebbe Nachman graffiti in ancient times, though.
I arrived in Acco about an hour later. The lower compartment where I kept my suitcase did not open, and the bus began to drive off with my suitcase, but it was flagged down, and I retrieved my luggage, no worries. I walked to the train station, just across the street from the bus stop, and thought about Acre, the site of so much bloodshed during the Crusades. I paid 49 shekels for a direct ticket to Tel-Aviv airport, ate my apricots (it was 4:00 by this time), and waited about 15 minutes. There was at least one of group Israeli soldiers riding on the train, to and from I know not wear. They looked as if they might have been going home: I hope so, for their sake. I think that I'm going to miss seeing Israeli soldiers. I spent most of the train ride reading Plato's Republic (from my Kindle), which was, by and large, what I read throughout this particular journey (I also had my Tanakh with me, which takes significantly more concentration, a resource short in supply in transit). I know that I am not the first to make the connection, but there are a lot of parallels between the ways Plato and Chasidut describe the human soul. In Phaedrus, Plato (through the mouth of Socrates, of course) describes the soul as a two-horsed chariot, each horse in constant contention with the other; in Book IV of the Republic, he argues that the soul's components "are two, and that they differ from one another; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul; the other, with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions." For those of you who haven't had Tanya courses five nights a week, the Alter Rebbe likewise described Jewish people as possessing two souls, the Animal and the Godly: the former is basal, tied to physicality, and addicted to worldly pleasures; the second is motivated by love of God, and is the spark of divinity within every Jewish person. The human soul as a whole, therefore, he describes as a small city, over which two kings are battling.
The train ride made the distance from Tzfat feel all of a sudden very real, and, despite the resemblances in Plato to Chasidut, I felt as if I was coming up for air out of a long and difficult dive, one of the real lung-crushers (help me here, Travis). Not all men were wearing kippot, and were reading books other than Talmuds: not all women were wearing headscarves and long-sleeved long dresses. I got some good reading done.
I arrived at the airport a around 15 hours before my flight was scheduled to take off: I was prepared to spend the night in the airport. I ended up meeting a man waiting for his fiance's delayed flight (made me think about Judah), spent the last of my shekels on nourishment, and ended up passing out while reading, sometime around 1:00 am. On Amazon, I had found a free Kindle eBook about Rashi, written in 1906, which I decided to begin (I got around 20% through it). A passage in the preface nearly made me switch back to the Republic immediately: it began with the dated and unpropitious observation that "no people has greater need than the Jews to steep itself again in the sources of its existence... Scattered over the face of the globe, no longer constituting a body politic, the Jewish people by cultivating its intellectual patrimony creates for itself an ideal fatherland... But the Jewish people, its national life crushed out of it, though deprived of all political ambitions..." etc. I looked up from my book, and saw three Israeli flags snapping in the weekend, outside, by the landing path. I smiled, and read the first two chapters.
It was chilly in the airport, and I'm glad that I had the red hoodie from Andrew and Allison in which to wrap myself for warmth. Just before 6:00 am, I staggered over to the El Al registration, where I signed in (I got hit with more security questions, but they weren't nearly as difficult as those I had answered when entering Israel). I checked my suitcase, went through security that didn't even require that I remove my shoes, and even found my way to the Beit Knesset (they were in the middle of P'sukei D'zimra, and I managed to catch up to them by Yishtabach). I only mention this because, it being Monday morning, this was my last opportunity to have an aliyah in Israel: I wasn't chosen (the odds were against me), but I'm still a little bit disappointed that, after nearly three weeks, I haven't had a single Torah honor. Perhaps I'm just spoiled at Cornell, where a week doesn't go by without me touching or carrying the Torah Scroll.
The plane to Paris was tightly-packed, and I sat next to a French couple in their 60s. Throughout the flight, I was trapped in a slicha/pardonnez-moi/excuse me grey zone, where I didn't know what to tell people whom I unintentionally smacked. Usually, I just mumbled, and that worked out well enough. I read, and though my body really wanted to sleep, I didn't let it. It was a smooth, pleasant flight. We arrived just around noon, local time. I had my passport stamped, grabbed my baggage (without even stopping to state "rien á déclarer"), and ran off to the train station at Charles de Gaulle airport. It seemed that my French has not sufficiently deteriorated in the past six months so much that I cannot understand or make myself understood, although I still have problems with translating numbers.
I took the train to Saint-Pierre-des-Corps: the ticket cost me (or, more properly, cost the Einaudi Center) 65 Euros. I took the 5-minute train to Tours, and found myself back in a town I recognized. Walking up the Rue Nationale, the main street of the city, I saw that little had changed since I first arrived in the town, around 11 months ago. There was still construction in all of the places that I remembered, and in a few places I didn't remember. Finally, around 5:30, I arrived at the youth hostel, signed in for a week's worth of room, board, and Internet, and went out to buy food, soap, and napkins. I found some general guidelines for eating kosher in Europe, and it looks as if baguettes are safe (thank goodness), now that I'm trying to keep by more stringent guidelines. I took a much-needed shower, ate dinner, chatted with my Mother and Rayleigh on Facebook, and with Eli on Skype.
And I'm available to chat with the rest of you, too, now! I have a microphone and headphones, and am living in a building where my own voice will not be overheard! If you want to speak, please, let me know, give me a time, and we can communicate!
~JD
"He whose nature is amorous of anything cannot help loving all that belongs or is akin to the object of his affections" (Plato, Republic).
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