Experiencing Four Seasons in Nature

I've experieced a full year of four seasons in nature for the first time in many years. When I still lived in Jerusalem, I couldn't fully experience four seasons not only because I seldom left my apartment except for daily running on weekday mornings and some other daily routines but also because to all intents and purposes there are only two seasons - summer and winter - in Israel with very short sprint and fall.

In this new place where I started living at the beginning of October 2023 there are full four seasons, and I also walk quite a lot in nature not only for my weekly self-seclusion in nature on Sabbath late afternoons.

Right after I moved here, I thought of taking pictures of the nature here, but I soon gave up this idea, realizing that I can't fully capture it with pictures, though I send pictures of the changing nature at least once a week to my closest friends in Jerusalem.

I've also realized how detatched I had been from nature in Jerusalem not because of the place but because of my life style. I was a typical city dweller, paying little attention to how nature changes and how this change affects the way I feel.

I still prefer living in a big city, and in its center at that, as I used to in Jerusalem, and will hopefully be able to do so again in the future, but I want to combine then the benefits of living in a big city with those of experiencing four seasons in nature.

Choosing a Community

Since October 2023 I've been living in social isolation with no community I can call mine in physical proximity. To my surprise and joy, I haven't been suffering from loneliness. I've even been feeling that I'd prefer remaining in such social isolation to being part of a community that isn't sufficiently compatible with my views, values and taste. For this reason I want/have to live in a city where there are at least several options I can choose from.

It took me years to finally realize that the single most important factor for me in choosing a Jewish community where I daven regularly is its ritual music that accompanies regular prayers. It's often said that music is universal, but at least for me nothing is less universal than music. On the one hand, there are types of music that make me cry out of joy, but on the other hand, there are also types of music that are nothing but tortures for me. I like East European music best.

Another important factor that is specific to my choice of a Jewish community is the pronunciation of Hebrew prayers. I prefer a community that doesn't use Modern Israeli pronunciation as its public norm. Here again I like Ashkenazic, or to be more precise, that variety of pronunciation used in the so-called Northeastern Yiddish in prewar Eastern Europe and still preserved, for example, in Chabad communities.

These two, musical and linguistic, factors generally correlate with worldviews of regular members. There is one ideological branch of Judaism I can't tolerate any more. Values are more subtle and less apparent. Another word for values is the state of consciousness of individual members and of a community as a whole. Ideally, I'd choose a community where the majority of regular members have systematically studied Chassidus and are aware of the roles the ego plays in our life. But practically, I already know that this is too high a demand.