hodayot [thanksgivings] for today

7:20
My Body, my Partner, my God
I give thanks to our immune-system,
your natural defense against infections, "which also appears to be capable
of recognizing and eliminating at least some cancer cells,
thus providing a natural protection against the development and spread of cancer."
Though I'm not afraid of cancer or of dying,
and though I've always observed in cancer-sick people whom I knew,
that they were "very good" people, i.e. very denying their feelings,
- being confronted with the terror of cancer as expressed in Rudoy's book,
I feel the need to thank you for protecting me from all kinds of "attacks".




I finally give thanks to Yossi Rudoy for the gift of his biography,
which - through delight about similarities and resistance to "oddities" -
is written in an otherworldly beauty of style and imagery.
What was hitting me before sleep and after waking up too soon,
was the lovely, sad love-story about a woman,
he keeps calling by her name (her real name?), Yonina Talmon.
I give thanks to another Yonina Talmon, a professor of sociology,
to whom I was invited for Pesach by my teacher Shmaryahu Talmon.
This was in 1961! She taught me a precious song [see below].
I met her again a few weeks before her death of cancer (1968?)

10:10
Did I ask for peace and quiet in order to realize my plan????
I came back from the pool, started to cook my porridge,
while washing the dishes of yesterday and listening to the news on 3SAT:
"8 pupils in a religious school murdered by a suicide-terrorist."
I opened the Hebrew Ynet News and checked the 8 names,
their age and where they come from
[Is one of Ra'ayah's many religious family-members studying at Yeshivat-haRav?]

In the pool I had thought mainly about Yonina Talmon,
and the wondrous connection between us,
when I was their only guest on Pesach-Eve 1961,
sitting with the learned couple and their two small children,
asking questions like mad - as one is supposed to do on the night of the "Seder".
"It was the most wonderful Pesach with you", said Yonina the next morning,
for when the evening was over, it was clear that I would stay over night.
During breakfast, and more intense teaching and learning,
she taught me a song, which even then touched me deeply,
though at that time I had no idea of Zecharja's prophecy.

Back from the pool, I was determined to choose that song,
not only as "the song of today", but as the "image of today".
But then the line which prays: "appoint guards for your city"
which I always found "out of place" in the context of that song,
now got a cynical meaning,
and I did, what all the media do always,
I gave preference to murder and death of what had occurred,
instead to hope and knowing
that indeed that day of which Zecharia speaks of, is nigh.

"Near is the day which is neither day nor night,
.... you'll light up like the light of the day
the darkness of the night!"

finetuning to my present

Hamza from Gaza responded immediately to my letter on March 5.
I tried to find the courage to call him via "Skype",
but in the end I succumbed to my fear
and wrote an e-mail.
The fear of talking via phone or skype (I call it "telephono-phobia") is there,
even when I'm called by good friends, or by my son, or - yesterday - by Mika.
I've no problem to listen, but when I feel, spoken words are expected from me,
I panic - be it from the Democratic School in Modi'in, or be it from Hamza in Gaza...

Finetuning to my Present

This is how the "rain-safe" veranda looked on Febr. 26 - until 2 days ago.

Now, that the veranda is in order, and no rain to be expected,
I could hang up the content of one washing machine on the strings,
which I installed for that purpose.
And for the first time I could take pictures from outside to inside,
through the two openings.

I watch the things on the strings
and remember most of the people they came from,
next to the green Indian "salvar" from Efrat, pretty, but faded,
hangs the sun-moon-star cover of one of the mattrasses,
a gift from Tamir , when I started my 3 years at Modi'in, in 2001.
[Just now I got an SMS from him,
blessing me towards the New Moon, Rosh-Chodesh].
It's old and mended and faded now, - should I discard it?
This is the question, which bothers me without end:
the black and the blue trousers -outworn - on the strings with the bells?
the blue-white sweater, which has become extended and hard?
This was bought, for a change! and I remember the situation in 1987:
Wardit Bar-Ilan visited in Berlin,
while I was there too, to prepare for Hannah's move to Israel.
I see us in a department store (me??),
and Wardit urges me to buy that sweater (did I need it?).
Though it is now washed and dried,
I'm almost "ripe" to discard it, together with at least 3 of outworn trousers,
but how? just throw it into the garbage-bin?
Who can identify with this emotional impossibility to throw away things?
be it food or clothes or any item needed in house, kitchen, study-room etc?
It's more difficult to let go of something material than of a behavioral pattern.
Because the latter is of no use to anyone,
but the former "might be useful for people who don't have enough".
And when I see, that nobody in Israel is so poor,
that s/he would wear those clothes, the pattern says:
"But you could cut them into pieces,
maybe you'll need it one day, to make something out of it."

16:40~ soon~ Shabbat Eve and Rosh Chodesh ~`I'll go to the garbage-bin~~~

This article, from which I excerpted the passages to the left,
is an example of so many "messages" which reach me,
and which always make me so sad.

It is, of course, true,
that "we try our best
to find some measure of contentment"
and "undertake all kinds of activities and projects
that for a time fill our life
and offer us a modicum of satisfaction."

But what is "the missing element to our happiness"?
Is it really just "the knowing who we are"?

If returning to Oneness would be all we need,
then why did "Oneness" split apart in the first place?
For what purpose is there a manifestation, a creation?
See Godchannel about "Original Heart"

In this moment I remembered that I had clicked a flash-movie,
in the Oneness Website
which took endless time to upload.
Now it was ready - magnificent nature photos -
and the words - at least - included also this:

But when, when, when will you, who call yourself "way-showers",
leave the tired words about all the bliss for the blessed who know who they are,
and get into the nitty-gritty of creating
the conditions for Heaven-on-Earth?
And before we "ascend", we have to descend,
to descend to the Feeling which dwells in Hell!