Obsession with Many Other People's Obsession

The most common first question people ask when they meet for the first time in Israel is "Where are you from". Until rather recently, or until I started to wake up from the illusions of the egoic mind, I never thought twice to answer this otherwise naive question. The truth is that many people ask this question unconsciously, many others also answer it no less unconsciously.

Though this question can have multiple meanings, including very profound ones, most people take it for granted that it's about the country where they were born, or to be more precise, where their respective physical bodies were born.

I've already seen many times in various contexts of encounters that many people are obsessed with this question as if they wouldn't be able to be able to relate to the person they've just met for the first time. They don't seem aware, either, that this way they are categorizing and labeling this person, which in turn makes them distant from the true nature of the person.

If I'm fully awake, I must be able to satisfy the obsessive need of these people by answering naturally in the meaning they have in mind unconsciously. Paradoxically, it's by realizing my obsession with this obsession of many other people that I also realize that I'm not fully awake yet.

I simply can't answer this way. Something bothers me. I answer instead, "I'm from Home" or "I come from Him". None of those who ask others, "Where are you from", don't seem to understand my answer. Many of them ask me to repeat this answer of mine, and some even repeat the very same question. Then I ask them if they want to know where the physical body my soul borrows was born. They are even more confused.

At this stage of my spiritual development or ego rectification I can't use what seems to be the language of the ego. I simply can't. This may be a cunning manifestation of the so-called spiritual ego.

Citizenship and Practical Knowledge of the National Language

Though I haven't checked all the countries in the world, I'm sure that many of those that respect themselves require their prospective citizens to have a test of their respective national languages and show a sufficiently high level of practical knowledge of these languages. I know as a fact that the Russian Federation, for example, has such a state-run examination called тестирование по русскому языку иностранных граждан.

Israel is one of the exceptions to this. According to its Law of Return, every Jewish person and those who have at least one Jewish grandparent, including those who are therefore halakhically non-Jewish, are eligible for Israeli citizenship upon their arrivial to the country without proving their proficiency in Hebrew. This law was enacted to offer a safe refuge to everyone who was persecuted according to the so-called Nuremberg Laws, which led to the Holocaust.

I don't know if this is realistic, but personally I would like to see this law reformed so that every new applicant may receive Israeli citizenship only after proving his or her proficiency in Hebrew as well as basic cultural literacy in Judaism and Israel.

Though such a legal requirement doesn't exist yet, many new citizens learn Hebrew quite well, at least in speaking, including those from the Russian Federation who don't know any other foreign language and even if they immigrated to Israel after the age of retirement.

There is one noticeable group of people who don't take the trouble of learning Hebrew at all and continue speaking to everyone here in the language of the coutry of their origin as if they were still living there. Actually, they are still living there, at least in their mind. I wish I were wrong, but the more people of this group I meet, the more convinced I'm that they waited to immigrate here until after retirement in their country of origin in order to take from two countries without giving to their new country. I would even call this linguistic arrogance, which seems to be part of the overall arrogance of their country of origin I witness in many other areas of life.

Unfortunately, many native speakers of Hebrew in Israel seem to "collaborate" on this. They willingly give up Hebrew in favor of the native language of these immigrants. Both of them seem to assume that the whole world speaks this language. Though it's one of the languages I use very actively, I don't like to be spoken to in it by those who have an apparent Hebrew accent as this seems to be the mentality of the colonized who don't respect their native language (and national culture).

Digging a Seemingly Endless Tunnel

I'm in the middle of my fifth seemingly endless tunnel. When I was in the middle of each of the four previous similar tunnels, I wondered if I would see the light at the end of tunnel. And before I dared to start digging each of them, I hesitated a lot as they were either almost or complemetely unprecedended not only in my own life but also in those of others around me. It took me around ten years to finish digginng these four seemingly endless tunnels and see the light of day.

The present one seems quite different from the previous four in nature. It depends too much on external, rather than internal, factors. I could continue digging the first four eternally without my life seriously damaged by not seeing the light of day, but this time I can't continue digging the tunnel further.

The simplest choice is to stop digging it completely now. But having invested so much time, energy and money in the preparation and process, I don't want to give up so easily though I've been digging for about four years.

I've decided instead to continue digging this tunnel with less investment of time and energy than before and start digging a new parallel tunnel. This new parallel tunnel, though far more conventional, also seems quite scary. Naturally, there is no guarantee that I'll be able to finish digging this one, either.

When I was in the middle of struggling with each seemingly endless tunnel, I also wondered what could be more difficult. But each time I finished dinning it and starting digging the next one, I was pleasantly surprised every time anew that the next one was even more difficult. The present one, if not the new parallel one, seems the most difficult of all.

Strangely, I'm not so scared - or I'm scared that I'm not scared enough - in spite of all the difficulties. I'm more scared to think how my life would have been if I hadn't decided to dig any of these life-changing tunnels. I can say at least about the first four that without daring to start digging them regardless of the respective desired outcome my life would have been less meaningful as I must have lost precious opportunities to know the so-called unknown of the unknown, that is, through this process I could learn important life lessons I hadn't know I hadn't known [this repetition is not a typo].

I have no idea how and when I'll be able to get out of this fifth and new parallel tunnels, but if I do, I'm sure that this will become priceless asset for the rest of my life.