It seems that whenever I enter a restaurant, Israelis come and settle nearby. It is hard to get away from them. In general I am coming to prefer solitude to the company of others. Perhaps it’s a period in life which is anyway more conducive to this, since young people are not much interested in the company of elders. Now I am coming to welcome it. I feel confident enough about myself. If I would stay longer here I would pick up Hindi.
I have been making quick progress through Frawley and Feuerstein’s book, which gives a feeling for the ancient world, and the spiritual vision that somehow survives in this country through the millenia. It seems to linger here more than in any other modern country. It would be possible to say that Judaism too preserves an ancient culture, an ancient spiritual tradition, except that somehow it doesn’t, exactly – perhaps due to the destruction of the Temple. It does preserve a tribal tradition and an ancient dogma. And countries that are founded on the traditions of holy men or prophets such as Buddha, Jesus or Mohammad miss that ancient spiritual vision, in which natural phenomena are viewed as imbued with spirit, and the actions of humans are seen as being a part of the divine order.