Hola Doctor Linda ~ We learn about others close to us by how they respond or react to the same situation that we face. Nothing replaces direct experience. Someday I will get there... Lord willing!
Sometimes in the same family the children can grow into adults and come out so different, even if they had the same basic environmental background. This could be the result of our own DNA
-individualized nature and our responses and/or reactions to environmental stimuli. Not everybody tastes salt or sugar the same way. +Peta-de-Aztlan+
Sometimes in the same family the children can grow into adults and come out so different, even if they had the same basic environmental background. This could be the result of our own DNA
-individualized nature and our responses and/or reactions to environmental stimuli. Not everybody tastes salt or sugar the same way. +Peta-de-Aztlan+
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Linda Whittaker Email= olsvig2000@yahoo.com; wrote:
Linda Whittaker Email= olsvig2000@yahoo.com; wrote:
Hi everyone,
It has been an interesting week. My sister arrived on a weeklong visit to me in Jerusalem, the first time she has been here in my 25 years in Israel. I took the week off from work as vacation time, and have taken her around the area, the Old City of Jerusalem, The Holy Sepulcher, Via Dolorosa, Western Wall, Temple Mount, the Dead Sea, Qumran, the open bazaar, a Lebanese restaurant, a Turkish restuarant, etc.
Yet she seemed very unhappy, not a word of appreciation of any of this stuff. Finally last night I asked her what was the matter and what she said dumbfounded me. She isn't interested in any of this stuff, she enjoys theater, opera, concerts, and things like that. And I don't even have a television set. She doesn't want to attend my congregation tomorrow because they speak Hebrew. (duh)
The lady lives a few miles from where she grew up in Ohio and except for a year in London, had never been outside the United States. I think she is struggling with the fact that this is a country halfway around the world which operates in a different languge and has a different culture. (I mean, I could take her to see theater, but it's in Hebrew, which I don't think she realizes.....) So she's spent five days in a really foreign country and she doesn't like any of it despite my best efforts to keep her entertained.....Israel turned out to be more different than she can handle, so she spends daylight hours over my laptop on email with friends back home.....
I was a little annoyed that she's so negative about things that some people have saved for a lifetime to see once. But I have to understand she is probably suffering severe culture shock. She was expecting Dayton, Ohio with a little klezmer music in the background, and she got stone houses without central heating, and a religious city in which the performing arts are simply not developed, and are even frowned upon by a large part of the population.
In a way, I think it is good for her to experience this. She had no idea how different the world really is beyond the American borders, and the fact that when you are traveling you have to be open to what the world really is, and not impose your own values on it. Jerusalem is one of the great cities of the world, but nobody would mistake it for an American city even with his eyes closed. The smells, the language, the character of the people, the street behavior are all different. Life is much more intense and vital, and people don't seek passive entertainment to any great degree, but amuse themselves instead. It's just a different way of life.
So, we had a talk about that and I am letting her digest it a bit. She only has two more days before she flies back, so whatever happens won't kill her. I can see that even this short visit has broadened her horizons, but the mental stretching is painful. She will need a long time to digest what she has experience here, and very little of the struggle has to do directly with me.....
Meanwhile we have been blessed with beautiful weather all week and it has been possible to enjoy getting out and around. Usually my work has me confined to an ofice from early morning until after dark, so I don't have this kind of time to enjoy my own city. On Sunday it will be back to work as usual, so I am glad of the time I had to renew my own acquaintance with Jerusalem, and I just hope my sister doesn't have a meltdown before she is on her own way home.
shabbat shalom,
Linda
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