Shift from Formal Teaching to Spontaneous Acts as a Means of Pursuing Life Mission

As I write in the latest post on my Russian blog, I officially became a pensioner this May - suddenly and unexpectedly, to my pleasant surprise. This new financial stability has affected me and my life in many ways. One of the areas it has affected most is the way I pursue my life mission.

Since I left Israel and moved to this country about three years ago, I have shifted my focus from Jewish life coaching to the formal teaching of practical Jewish life wisdom. Unfortunately, I've realized that the teaching I myself studied and started practicing back in Jerusalem doesn't appeal to many people here, as it's quite different from similar courses that are common and popular here.

One fundamental difference is that their approach is based on "addition", while mine is based on "subtraction". Chabad Chassidus teaches that joy is our natural state, so we only need to dispel our mental "clouds" to restore it. I often told some of my students here that the sun is always shining, even when it's cloudy.

Since I became a pensioner, I haven't had to look for new students, so I've even stopped actively marketing my formal teaching. Unfortunately or fortunately, ;-) I haven't found any new students since this significant shift in my life.

This, in turn, has brought about a no less important shift in the way I pursue my life mission - from formal teaching to spontaneous acts. This shift itself has been spontaneous. ;-) The main difference between formal teaching and spontaneous acts is that the former is conceptual, while the latter is experiential.

So what exactly do I do as spontaneous acts? I want to share with you just one kind of verbal act that I find myself performing spontaneously almost daily. The only thing I plan in advance is spontaneity itself. ;-)

When I see my new neighbors or even strangers anywhere, I tell them my spontaneous Jewish-flavored jokes. Rather than reproduce some of them here, I just want to tell you that in this way I seem to be able to "short-circuit" the egoic minds of those who hear these jokes. We laugh together instead of my laughing at them.

Their joy is restored only momentarily, but I've noticed that some of those who have heard these jokes several times have even started laughing the moment they see me opening my mouth. I feel that I'm witnessing neuroplastic in action.

PS: There will be no update in the next two weeks due to my trip abroad.

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Website
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DeepL (probably the best machine translation available now)

Irony of Finding No Common Language with Former Colleagues in Linguistics

Though I worked as a linguist for many years, I was always more attracted to knowing languages than to knowing about them. I ended up studying about a dozen languages. But one life-changing experience made me aware of a nature of language that never seems to be talked about in linguistics. Eventually, it made me lose interest in linguistics completely and decide to leave academia.

This is the nature of language as the gatekeeper of our mind-made prison. Language is supposed to be a tool that serves us, but I suddenly saw with such clarity that I had been subjugated by language. One form of this subjugation is our incessant unconscious labeling. If still "asleep", homo sapiens is also homo categoricus.

It's often said that a true prisoner is someone who is unaware that he is imprisoned and that the prison doesn't seem like a prison to him. I still don't understand how I could suddenly become aware that I had been in my own mind-made prison, with language as its gatekeeper, for so many years. But once I became aware of this, I realized that I had lost my common language with most of my former colleagues in linguistics.

"Language" here means more than just a combination of grammar and lexicon. It's even more than pragmatics. It refers to the state of consciousness, which, for the sake of this writing, can be defined as how much we are identified with our own thoughts. I don't know whether this is a curse or a blessing, but I've simply found myself unable to communicate with those who are controlled by language through unconscious labeling and are also unaware of this.

Of course, I'm not blaming them, as I was in such a prison myself. And I don't even try to explain conceptually this newly discovered nature of language that isn't taught in linguistics. Rather recently, I read a book about the nature of language written by two prominent linguists for the general public. It was actually about the nature of linguistics, which doesn't - or can't - see the above-mentioned aspect of language. ;-)

As you see, this has become too conceptual. ;-) So let me share with you an anecdote, which I myself find funny, but the linguists involved in it may not have found funny. You can see for yourself whether we had a common language or not. ;-)

Before I left Israel at the end of September 2023, I didn't tell any of my former colleagues in linguistics where I would be leaving for, simply because I already knew that if I told them, I would have to spend a lot of time answering a series of follow-up questions such as "Why that country?!" etc.

So when some of them contacted me after I left Israel and asked me where I was now, I said to them, "I'm always here and now." As you can easily imagine by now, they persisted with the same question. I, in turn, persisted with the same answer. ;-)

Pre/Trans Fallacy

Ken Wilber explains what he calls the pre/trans fallacy as follows:

"Since both prerational states and transrational states are, in their own ways, nonrational, they appear similar or even identical to the untutored eye. And once pre and trans are confused, then one of two fallacies occurs."

"In the first, all higher and transrational states are reduced to lower and prerational states. Genuine mystical or contemplative experiences, for example, are seen as a regression or throwback to infantile states of narcissism, oceanic adualism, indissociation, and even primitive autism."

"On the other hand, if one is sympathetic with higher or mystical states, but one still confuses pre and trans, then one will elevate all prerational states to some sort of transrational glory."

In other words, this is a fallacy that many rationalists are liable to commit. I have to confess that I was one of them when I still worked in academia and mistook Chassidus for something inferior to the rational study of the Talmud.

But many rationalists are not as rational as they think they are. They often have blind faith in their intellect. They also often have blind faith that they have no blind faith. ;-) I know this from my own experience as a former rationalist.

One of the main reasons why I decided to leave academia before reaching the official retirement age was that I encountered Chassidus through a long chain of chance encounters following a life challenge I had experienced.

In retrospect, I had to experience a difficult challenge to become humble enough to appreciate the teachings of Chassidus. It didn't take me long to realize that Chassidus, as Jewish mysticism or nonduality, is not only not primitive but actually transcends rationality.

Not everything that is nonrational is prerational. It can also be transrational. But it's also a fallacy to think that rationality is always wrong. Both rationality and transrationality can serve us in complementary ways.

One major obstacle to studying mystical/nondual teachings is that they cannot always be studied through language alone, using reason. You also have to experience them. In this respect, I was lucky that the particular form of mysticism/nonduality I studied uses language to transcend language. This may sound paradoxical, but you have to experience it.

If you're interested in studying Chabad Chassidus through rational inquiry, ;-) here are some authentic introductory books I'd recommend. I've read all of them and have even taught courses using them.

• The Basics of Chassidus 1 Chabad: Its Origins, Principles, and Purpose by Rabbi Nissan Dovid Dubov & Rabbi Naftoli Hertz Pewzner
• Reclaiming the Self by Rabbi DovBer Pinson
• It's All the Same to Me by Rabbi Moshe Gersht
• The Jewish Book of Life after Life by Rabbi DovBer Pinson

PS: Ken Wilber is not a Chabadnik, but he could be a good Chabadnik. ;-)

Importance of Connecting the Dots

When I look back now at my own experience of waking up from sleep in two important areas, I seem to have experienced the eureka moment by connecting the dots that seemed unrelated. I can see it now as the culmination of a long process of study, direct experience, and contemplation. I have often been inspired by experts who paved the way for those who are open enough to listen to them without prejudice while the rest of the world thinks they are crazy.

In one area - geopolitics - I'm constantly reminded of this experience as I encounter so many people, including those I know personally, who talk about two controversial issues as if they were not connected at all.

Especially when I hear such people talk about one of them with such authority and confidence, I can't help asking them - often playfully - what they think of the other issue and whether they don't see a connection between them. A typical answer I get from them is, "What connection?!" ;-)

I've learned not to try to convince them, as this is a futile attempt. Even worse, such an attempt by others, especially those who are close to them, can make them even more stubborn, as I remember very well from my own experience of many futile attempts by well-meaning people to wake me up through rational conviction. When we don't know what we don't know, nobody else can generally help us turn this unknown unknown into the known unknown.

And in a sense, it seems even less problematic to remain asleep in both of the mutually connected issues than to be awake in one of them but remain asleep in the other, not only in this specific area but also elsewhere. In the former, you are at least consistent, ;-) while in the latter, you use two separate standards without realizing that you do so.

My ongoing experience of waking up from the prison of the egoic mind involved a totally different kind of connecting the dots. If we see each creature as a dot, all the dots are interconnected. So connecting these dots is actually getting rid of the illusion of separation, rediscovering the connection that already exists, or even dissolving the dots.

Here, I haven't even tried to explain this experience to anyone who seems to be still trapped in this prison, imagining that nobody else could have helped me wake up from sleep rationally without my prior direct experience.

Of course, there is no guarantee that I, as well as my predecessors who paved the way for us, have correctly connected the dots in these two areas. But one thing I can say is that what used to look nebulous and murky looks crystal-clear now.

Physical and Online Bookstores

Before I talk about how physical and online bookstores live in rather complicated symbiosis - partly because I buy and read books in multiple languages, and partly because I have no access to all my favorite physical bookstores - I have to say that as a general rule I prefer electronic books to paper ones.

This might lead automatically to my preference for online bookstores, as I can't buy electronic books at physical bookstores. But I love the latter much more than the former for a very simple reason - I can experience far more unexpected encounters with books I didn't know existed by walking through any physical bookstore. I even felt many times that such books "found" me, so to speak, instead of my finding them.

Some online bookstores, including Amazon, do recommend related books on the basis of our browsing history, but they can't recommend books we ourselves didn't know might interest us. In this respect, I don't think even the best generative AI can help such books "find" us in the way they "find" us directly at physical bookstores.

Where I've been living since October 2023, I visit two huge local bookstores every week, mainly to browse new books. If I find interesting books, I generally buy them as electronic copies from online bookstores. And many of the books I find interesting are translations of English originals into the local language, so I acquire the originals.

In this new place I've bought very few physical books at local physical bookstores for a very simple reason: they don't sell those books I need or want as physical copies. They are either Chassidic books in Hebrew, English or Russian, or Russian books for Russian sociocultural literacy.

But I have to mention one special exception. In the capital of the country where I live now there is a physical bookstore that imports and sells Russian books. In the past three years I've bought about 20 such Russian books from there. When I visited this physical bookstore last November, I also got acquainted with its owner. Since then we've been corresponding by email almost on a daily basis about various topics, including not only Russian books and Russian (book) culture but also geopolitics and geoeconomics.

This has made me realize that another important benefit of physical bookstores, though probably such specialized ones, is the existence of fellow book lovers who are familiar with books they are "matchmaking" with their customers. I also have three such physical bookstores in Jerusalem, and I miss them and the "matchmakers" there most in Jerusalem.

Linguistic (In)competence and Cultural (In)compatibility

Every time I started learning a new language, I could never know in advance if the culture of its native speakers was compatible with me. By "culture" I mean here the mentality of these speakers. I had to communicate with enough of them to decide whether their culture was compatible with me or not. I stopped learning or even using certain languages after discovering that their respective cultures were incompatible with me.

I say all this because it's often neglected in practice, if not in theory, by both language learners and teachers that cultural competence is no less important than linguistic competence, especially if we see a language as a means of communication and not just grammar and lexicon. We can say what is grammatically correct but culturally incorrect.

This cultural competence in communication concerns, among other things, the so-called speech acts, including how (not) to express gratitude, how (not) to apologize, etc. Even advanced learners can often "import" automatically into a foreign language what they are used to using unconsciously in their native language. I would also add a shared sense of humor (or lack thereof) as part of cultural (in)competence.

This problem becomes complicated when we are fluent in a certain language both linguistically and culturally but feel that its culture is incompatible with us. I've found myself in this dilemma in at least two languages.

What "solution" have I found? I intentionally "violate" with full awareness those cultural norms in communication that I simply can't allow myself to follow, while speaking with no foreign (linguistic) accent.

I've even started to turn what might otherwise become an obstacle in communication into a playful "lubricant" in such a way that some native speakers may become aware of those cultural norms they have been following unconsciously. Once they realize these unconscious cultural norms of theirs, often including their absurdity, they laugh with me instead of my laughing at them.

Recently I've discovered something truly amazing and even consoling, at least for me. What really counts in heart-to-heart communication is neither linguistic competence nor cultural competence. What comes from our heart - with genuine care and/or curiosity - enters the heart of our interlocutor even when we are culturally incompatible with each other.

Now I suddenly recall that I've already experienced true heart-to-heart communication, where silence with action, such as hugging and offering help, can be far more eloquent in certain contexts where speech seems too powerless and totally out of place.

Skills and Habits from My Academic Life: "Recycled" vs. "Liberated"

When I left academia officially at the end of September 2020 and practically at the end of September 2018, I never imagined that I would be able to "recycle" in my post-academic life some of the skills and habits I seem to have acquired rather unconsciously during my almost 30-year-long life there. But to my pleasant surprise, I was wrong. ;-)

Though I concluded that academia was not for me, I didn't automatically reject all those 30 years there as just a long waste of time. But it was only after leaving academia that I realized clearly for the first time what skills and habits I had acquired - and suppressed.

Leaving academia meant, among other things, being able to study what truly interested me not only intellectually but also spiritually, first and foremost, from books. The skill - or meta-skill, to be more precise - of learning any new subject, at least in the humanities and for myself, from scratch has turned out to be especially handy.

Habits I acquired in academia unconsciously and have been "recycling" more consciously in my post-academic life include preferring the original to a translation, preferring primary sources to secondary interpretations, checking at least three primary sources and/or at least three secondary interpretations, cross-checking both primary sources and secondary interpretations, quoting others verbatim, and giving credit where credit is due, among others. These habits, which I may not have been able to acquire outside academia, have been enhancing both my input and output enormously in my post-academic life, too.

But there are also skills and habits I had to suppress while I was still in academia and could finally "liberate" after leaving it. One skill that I had to suppress consciously and "liberated" consciously concerns how to write. I could finally let go of the illusion of WYSIWYG and the "tyranny" of Word and switch to a plain text editor and Markdown for writing almost everything now. The difference between these two mindsets and tools is like that between swimming in a suit and tie and swimming in minimal swimwear.

Probably the most important habit I could "liberate" is preferring lived experience to conceptual understanding. One academic incident I experienced at the "threshold" of leaving academia made me realize the fundamental difference between lived experience and conceptual understanding in such a vivid way. It was also comical to me in that it was not comical to those who are still in academia. ;-)

Here is the story. After spending a year studying Chabad Chassidus as life wisdom at a special school in Jerusalem, I contacted one association of Jewish studies outside Israel, thinking that some members of this association might benefit from experiencing indirectly this rather rare direct experience of mine. I asked them to allow me to give a non-academic talk. But I was too naive. I received a letter of rejection that said, "Your proposal is not academic enough." ;-)

This and other similar observations of other researchers, first from inside, then from outside, have led me to let go of blind faith in my intellect, then blind faith that I have no blind faith. This, in turn, has led me to decide to continue working on one character trait as an indispensable tool for turning the unknown unknown into the known unknown, and hopefully into the known known in some cases.

So thank you, academia. ;-)

What If We Are Idealizing the Place We Feel Is More Aligned with Us Than Anywhere Else

Perhaps one of the greatest possible dangers of being in a place we feel is misaligned with us is idealizing the place we feel is more aligned with us than anywhere else as a kind of compensation, compensating for an unsatisfactory present with an imaginary better future.

For me this danger is not only a theoretical possibility as I did fall into it a couple of times in the past when I found myself in a very similar situation. But this time, unlike before, I've refused to let myself be dragged into this danger again by living in the present as I've elaborated in my companion blog post in Russian.

If you also feel you are in the wrong place now, you are welcome to ask yourself whether you are idealizing what you feel is more aligned with you than anywhere else on this planet - or even elsewhere. ;-) It's very easy, and even soothing, to blame the place where you live now by comparing it with your "ideal place" and saying that everything is totally different there as if it were a rose garden with no shortcomings whatsoever.

I once made the mistake of idealizing one such "ideal place" of mine, only to realize later that my "love" for it was blind. In retrospect, I couldn't see it objectively enough while I was still living elsewhere. Idealizing the place I felt was the perfect match for me was a very convenient way to escape from the present in the place where I actually lived.

Hopefully, I'm not making this mistake again. Even when I mention, as objectively as possible and with a sufficient dose of humor, some advantages of the place I feel is more aligned with me than anywhere else to some people here, a few of them wisely ask me if I'm not idealizing it. I have to "disappoint" them every time by saying "no" and even mentioning some of its disadvantages to show that my love for it is not blind this time.

But I also have to be honest with myself. I can't fully deny the possibility that I may still be idealizing this place. I've found a perfect way to check whether I'm making this mistake again or not: (re)visiting this place in the near future. But even then, I may still be idealizing it a little, as I can't fully see, as a tourist, what a permanent resident can see. What I can do is experience this place during my forthcoming visit as if I already lived there.

What I Did (Not) Quit

I had to quit a number of things to finally quit the very preconception that quitting is always wrong. My own experience has also taught me that it is not.

The decision I made this week to quit yet another social group has made me start asking myself anew what I quit and what I did not quit, and what divided them. I've been intrigued more by categories of what I did (not) quit than by individual cases.

One thing I already know for sure is that I've quit all the conventional human social groups, including communities and clubs, which I joined voluntarily or involuntarily. One fresh case has just joined this long "honorable" list. ;-)

The experience of being forced to quit one social group which I had also been forced to join as a result of my violating one of its unwritten rules has made me very - or even too - sensitive to the collective ego of any social group I subsequently joined, even voluntarily. The same pattern repeated itself again and again. After the initial stage of "honeymoon", I start to feel more and more suffocated.

I wrote about this category in detail in my companion blog post in Russian, so if you are interested, you are welcome to read it there. Even if you don't read Russian, you can use DeepL, which is, in my opinion, the best machine translation tool.

Even after spending quite some time trying to recall things I quit, I haven't been able to identify any other significant category except for one, which consists of only one individual case - quitting alcohol. This category is very unique in that, unlike all the other things I quit, I quit drinking with no relation whatsoever to my own willpower. Every time I told others that I had quit drinking, they praised my strong willpower. I had to try to explain that this occurred precisely when I let go of my willpower to control things.

Now let me switch to the second half of the question of this writing - what I did not quit - which intrigues me no less. Here again I've tried to recall all the meaningful things I didn't quit and categorize them. One significant category has emerged, and I haven't even realized the common denominator among the things in this category until now.

It took me ten years to finish my PhD dissertation, another ten years to find a permanent position in academia, and eight years to find a spouse since I felt I was ready for marriage. At first sight, these three cases of not quitting don't seem to have anything in common. But I've just identified their common denominator. Back then I had a very strong inner motive to persevere instead of quitting before reaching the goal.

In retrospect, I have good reason to believe now that if I had had only an external motive or motives, I might have quit even after encountering the first "threshold guardian".

Now I also realize that this contrast between inner and external motives may be parallel to the contrast between unconditional love and conditional love and between joy as the natural state of the soul and the so-called happiness. The latter, that is, external motives, conditional love, and happiness, all depend on external factors, which by nature come and go and are thus ephemeral. On the other hand, if we base ourselves on something more stable, we have a much higher chance of persevering.

This may also explain why I've been continuing my rather solitary study of Russian. My motives are not only utilitarian but even concern something spiritual. In this respect, my continued study of Russian might even be a spiritual practice for me, so constantly changing external factors don't affect my perseverance.

In retrospect, I learned this unconsciously when I persevered to finish writing my PhD dissertation, finding a permanent position in academia, and finding a spouse. This spiritual "muscle", so to speak, hasn't quit me since then and has remained with me as a kind of "muscle memory".

I started this writing to ask myself a pair of two seemingly mutually exclusive choices - what I quit and what I did not quit. But having written this far, I now realize that they seem to have something fundamental in common: all my decisions to quit or not to quit, at least concerning the above-mentioned things, seem to concern integrity. That is, I quit what turned out to be misaligned with my nonnegotiable core values, and I continued what was aligned with them even after encountering more than one "threshold guardian" along the way.

Test of Revisiting Familiar Places after a Long Time

Generally speaking, revisiting familiar places after a long time can be a pleasant experience. But in certain cases, it can also be a test for us - a test to face the unexpected changes in these places, as well as our own changes inside ourselves and in our relationship to these places.

The test can be especially demanding if we know that we ourselves have undergone some fundamental changes in one or more important areas, such as our state of consciousness and worldview, and we also know that these familiar places have undergone no less fundamental changes since we were there a long time ago.

We often notice changes in other places (and people) more clearly precisely because we haven't seen them for a long time. If we see them every day, we do not always notice their changes. And noticing these changes after our long absence can, in turn, reflect back to us like a mirror those changes that must have taken place inside ourselves.

This late fall I'm planning to revisit two familiar places after a long time. I try to remain open to any surprise I may experience by noticing their changes, for better or for worse, so that I may learn as much as I can from this doubly double test.

I also have mixed feelings about my meetings with the few people with whom I have remained in touch in these two places, as well as my possible chance encounters with those with whom my relationship has faded away over time, also because of the physical distance between us.

I called this test "doubly double" not only because I'll visit two familiar places but also because I have two different, almost opposite new relationships to them since I was there last time. So the contrast that will emerge will be not only between what I remembered about them a long time ago and what I will see this time, but also between these two places.

I also consider this doubly double test a vision quest - or, to be more precise, a doubly double vision quest. Yes, a vision quest, and a doubly double one at that. ;-) You may wonder what kind of vision I seek this time. It concerns something deeply personal and is comprised of a number of delicate and complicated variables. I'll keep it between me and myself, at least until I finish (and fully "digest") it.

Healthy Balance between Curiosity and Humility

On the basis of my own experience of teaching students from about 30 countries for almost 30 years, I've identified three character traits that make my teaching experience both enjoyable and meaningful. They are intellectual curiosity, intellectual humility, and a sense of humor.

Curiosity is the minimal requirement without which not only I but also my students suffer in our "project" of learning and growing together. The problem becomes worse when the course in question is an obligatory one. Not all students are curious enough to study it though some of them seem curious to know why it is obligatory. ;-)

The importance of curiosity isn't restricted to the classroom because curiosity generally leads to learning, which in turn generally leads to growth. On the other hand, a lack of curiosity can easily lead to apathy, which some spiritual sages explain is worse than such negative character traits as anger and hatred because it lacks vitality.

But curiosity can run out of control if left alone. I've learned that the most reliable bumper is humility because it can turn the unknown ("I don't know that I don't know") into the known unknown ("I know that I don't know").

When I still taught at an Israeli university, I was blessed with many intellectually curious students, but some of them were also "blessed" with a lack of intellectual humility. At least in this specific context, I noticed one unfortunate tendency: the more intellectually curious students are, the less humble some of them can be. Of course, this doesn't mean that curiosity is the direct cause of a lack of humility.

I don't know if this tendency is specific to Israeli academia or is universally human, but it doesn't have to be this way. A healthy balance between curiosity and humility is required to maximize our learning and resulting growth.

Humility tells us that our human intellect is limited and can't fully understand everything. My limited intellect can only imagine that there must be more things we can't understand than those we can. ;-) Therefore, humility must also tell us that we don't have to be obsessed with knowing everything about everything and everyone.

Let me conclude this short essay of mine with the following prayer I've made to illustrate this healthy balance between curiosity and humility, in the spirit of the famous Serenity Prayer.

God, grant me the curiosity to know the things I can know, the humility to know that I cannot know everything, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The Obstacle Is the Way

You must have heard that astronauts lose their muscles in outer space for lack of gravity. But I don't know how many of us have also heard that we lose our muscles on earth if we don't train them even though there is gravity. The common denominator is that the obstacle is the way, or physical resistance is necessary for maintaining and developing our physical muscles.

I stressed the word "physical" on purpose because I've learned the hard way that this principle applies not only to our physical muscles but also to our spiritual "muscles". In other words, the obstacle is the way not only physically but also spiritually.

This is why one of the sages I know often says that the biggest challenge in life for our spiritual growth is the lack of challenges. And this is also why I prefer being wished growth rather than success by others.

This is because I feel that "success", as in "I wish you success", often seems to connote a lack of resistance, which seems to imply that the obstacle is not the way. So what is the way that those who wish "success" to others and themselves typically seem to prefer? Perhaps remaining in their comfort zone their whole lives.

I not only start feeling uncomfortable after remaining in my comfort zone for a certain amount of time, but I even remove myself from it consciously in search of less comfort so that I can grow further, as I've already experienced that the obstacle is the way.

You may wonder whether I oppose any form of "success". Not at all! Enjoy it while you can ;-) as it's often a temporary state. I'm just careful not to turn it into the ultimate goal of my life.

You may also wonder what the most efficient way to face any obstacle is. Many of us are probably used to trying to overcome obstacles with as little friction as possible, which often leads us onto roundabout paths. As you can imagine, I used to think and behave this way until I encountered an amazing approach as part of my study of Chabad Chassidus.

It's embodied most typically in the famous teaching "לכתּחילה אַריבער" (lekhatkhile ariber). You face the challenge head-on from the very beginning as your first choice. It was precisely the counterintuitiveness of this teaching that first appealed to me. Then, once I stopped overthinking and started taking this approach, it worked amazingly well though it was not an easy path at all. Again, the obstacle is the way, and the most direct way to face it is chosen consciously.

PS: Let me share with you a link to a famous Chabad melody also called "לכתּחילה אַריבער" (lekhatkhile ariber), sung by an amazing Chabad singer named Benny Friedman. This melody has accompanied me for the past few years, especially every time I start to face an obstacle head-on.

PPS: I often present myself as an "astronaut" in that I'm often detached from "reality," that is, conventional sociocultural norms. But I refuse to be an astronaut who lets a lack of gravity cause him to lose his "muscles". In this respect, "reality" is also an obstacle in itself for me.

Gospel of Muscle Training

It's paradoxical that "my" body was born prematurely and remained smaller than most others, yet I became aware of the importance of daily physical workouts. I've read many books on the subject by medical professionals as well as trainers and tried various physical workouts until I settled on three: bodyweight muscle training and running (ChiRunning) in the morning, and yoga (Iyengar Yoga) at night.

I continue these three to maintain the strength, stamina, and flexibility of "my" body. I've been asking myself which of the three is the most important though all of them are indispensable. Having continued to read various books by medical professionals, I've become more and more convinced that strength - and hence muscle training - is the most important for aging well.

If you are interested in learning the theory and practice of muscle training, I would highly recommend Forever Strong by Gabrielle Lyon and You Are Your Own Gym by Mark Lauren respectively. Of course, you are also more than welcome to contact me by email!

I've even become an "evangelist" of muscle training in general and bodyweight muscle training in particular, especially after seeing why a number of older people fall and become bedridden. The "gospel" I've started to share with others is fairly simple: Use them or lose them, but it's never too late to start using them again, or even for the first time. This can also be called the "gospel" of neuroplasticity.

I've also noticed that many people seem to have to change their mindset before they can start training their muscles. The two biggest mental obstacles I've identified so far are inertia and lack of self-discipline. I can't say that I myself had to cope with either of them in the beginning. But they, too, can be "rewired." Neuroplasticity applies to both the body and the mind.

As far as I'm concerned, what makes my daily "ritual" of three physical workouts, especially bodyweight muscle training, even "sacred" is, paradoxically, the awareness that I'm only borrowing this physical body so that the soul may accomplish its mission in this physical world. From this perspective, training "my" body is not a pastime but an obligation, just as I feel obliged to return a book I borrow from a public library in the best possible condition.

How the Collective Ego Keeps Us under Its Control

You must have heard of the ego, but you may not have heard of the collective ego. In very plain language - so don't quote me ;-) - the ego is a man's instinctive desire to preserve himself. I find it useful to think of collectives and even man-made systems as if they had an ego - a tendency to preserve themselves.

Every collective has its own, mostly unwritten, rules of conduct, including what is praised, accepted, avoided, and prohibited. These are actually rules of the collective ego of that collective.

As we grow, we learn these rules by watching and then imitating other, older members of a collective to which we are supposed to belong. And we belong to more than one collective at the national, regional, and other levels.

Having observed various collectives at various levels and various degrees of obedience to their rules by their respective members, I have the impression that a sufficiently large number of members of many collectives obey these rules, whether willingly or unwillingly.

I've come to identify one pair of very powerful means used by any collective to enforce these unwritten rules on its members. They are rewards and punishments. Unfortunately (when I was in the middle of the incident) and fortunately (after the fact), I experienced being ostracized by a collective called junior high school as a result of my refusal to obey one of its unwritten rules that made no sense to me.

You may wonder what "terrible" rule it was. I simply refused to obey the unwritten rule requiring every student to join one of the few sports clubs as part of the extracurricular activities. After this refusal, I was humiliated in public. I still remember how the other students as well as our teachers looked at me. Many years later, I visited the very place and found harvested onions instead of humans. ;-)

This experience in my young adulthood seems to have developed my sensitivity and immunity to the "tyranny" of the collective ego, until I came to consider myself a "professional outsider." ;-) Whatever collective I join or am made to join, I start to feel suffocated sooner or later and almost always end up leaving it consciously before I'm ostracized.

Ostracization is a rather extreme - but not necessarily uncommon - example of a punishment imposed upon those members of a collective who don't obey one or more of its most fundamental rules.

Rewards include recognition by other members of the collective and a good reputation among them, which sometimes leads to financial prosperity. So it seems quite natural that many people weigh rewards against punishments and conclude that obeying the rules is more beneficial than disobeying them, even when doing so may conflict with their values.

Of course, I fully understand this rationale and even admire them in a sense. But as for me, I've realized that I can't always deceive myself, especially when these rules fundamentally contradict my core values. I can't betray what I know to be true. When some friends of mine tell me I should have become a diplomat because I'm a polyglot, I quote this sentence of mine as my answer to them. ;-)

Prioritizing Calmness over Correctness

I used to love not only arguing with others but also refuting them. Unfortunately, ;-) I won in many cases, whatever this means, which in turn increased this love of mine. No less unfortunately, since I started learning the Talmud, I also started to refute others even more successfully, to the joy of the ego.

Now I see this as vanity, and after learning the hard way, I've also come to prioritize being calm over being right. This is especially after I've realized that I have more things - and people - as well as more energy to lose by trying to be right, and this is too heavy a price to pay. I simply don't feel any need to be the one to correct others. Nor do I even care if I'm misunderstood, except by those who truly matter to me.

"Correctness" can mean not only being right but also the obsession with trying to know everything about everything (and everyone). Love of knowing, as well as learning as a way of knowing, may be healthy, but once it becomes an obsession, we end up being used by our mind instead of using it.

This obsession seems to stem from discomfort with uncertainty. It was seemingly paradoxical that I could - or had to - let go of my instinctive desire for certainty when I faced a much higher degree of uncertainty I had never experienced before. Then I deeply realized how limited our human intellect is. After these two realizations, I've been able to make peace with uncertainty instead of seeing it as a source of discomfort. And even when I feel such discomfort, I can also accept and let go of it.

This shift of prioritizing calmness over correctness in its two manifestations may even seem like passivity to outsiders, especially if they still prioritize correctness over calmness. But at least as far as I'm concerned, since I've made this shift slowly but surely, my life has undergone a profound change. The resulting inner calmness often surprises even myself - for the better.

Prisoners Who Are Unaware That They Are Imprisoned

It is often said that awareness of a problem is half a solution. In other words, if we are unaware of a problem we have, we have a bigger problem.

I don't think those who are in a physical prison are unaware that they are imprisoned. But when it comes to a mind-made prison, there seem to be many prisoners who are unaware that they are imprisoned.

Let me illustrate this with something funny I either heard from someone or am quoting myself. ;-) When the world looks dirty to you, there are three possibilities: 1) the world is really dirty; 2) your glasses are dirty; 3) both the world and your glasses are dirty. ;-)

Mind-made prisons can be created by others or by ourselves. The former include, for example, various types of propaganda, whether political, religious, etc. It is also often said that if those who are being propagandized are unaware that they are being propagandized, this is a sign that the propaganda works most efficiently.

But much more subtle and problematic are mind-made prisons of the second type. They include, for example, various kinds of mental labeling of other people and ourselves. This last type seems the most subtle and problematic of all mind-made prisons. This is also known as self-deception.

Now a meta-problem is how to deal with those who have this problem. One thing I know from my own experience on both sides is that it is often a waste of time to try to convince such people. This can only arouse or increase their animosity toward us.

So what do I do now, for example, when they try to challenge me, often unconsciously? I simply stay silent or walk away from them in silence, whether literally or figuratively. I have learned the hard way to prioritize being calm over being right.

Shift from Receiving to Giving (and Beyond)

In retrospect, when I still worked in academia, my focus was on receiving - positive peer reviews, recognition from colleagues, reputation, tenure, higher academic rank, more income, etc. I don't think any of these was one of the main reasons for my decision to become a researcher. But once inside academia, I gradually internalized these values until I came to take them for granted.

I felt the first glimmer of my instinctive desire for giving when I experienced firsthand what helped me overcome a life challenge that had seemed daunting. I was so impressed by this help that I felt like giving it to others who might be struggling with the same or other life challenges.

This help was Jewish life coaching, which I received together with other frum Jewish men back in Jerusalem. It also helped me identify my life mission for the first time. A life mission is what we came into this world for, and it is something unique that each of us can give to the world.

This realization was truly life-changing for me. It didn't take me long to realize that what I was doing in academia was not even a means of fulfilling this life mission. A couple of months after this additional realization, I found myself submitting a letter of resignation to the university where I worked.

But I had a heavy price to pay in exchange for what seemed like spiritual liberation: the loss of financial stability. Of course, I feared how I would survive the next twelve years as an independent Jewish life coach and teacher of Jewish life wisdom until reaching the official retirement age in Israel. But the fear of spending those twelve years doing something that had stopped resonating with me was much greater than the fear of losing financial stability.

I spent the next eight years in constant fear of financial instability. I even experienced standing at the edge of a bridge several times. But each time, some rescue appeared out of nowhere at the very last moment.

My last experience of standing there was this April. I didn't know how to make ends meet. Then, through an unbelievable chain of events, I discovered that it would be financially worthwhile to start withdrawing my Israeli pension now, four years before the official retirement age. Last month I regained my financial stability, which, I soon realized, has enabled me to focus more on giving to others. This happened so suddenly that I am still trying to digest it and understand its implications.

When my focus was still on receiving, especially money for survival, I wasn't aware that giving consists of many factors. I soon realized that giving indiscriminately can often do more harm than good. I've learned the hard way that I need to learn what to give to whom, how much, when, where, and how.

This is my new life challenge. Almost every day I learn something new that I couldn't have learned when my focus was still on receiving. And these daily lessons are what I receive now as a giver.

Turning Life Challenges into Opportunities for Spiritual Growth

When some "bad" thing happens to you, how do you usually react? Seemingly like many other people, I used to react "Why does this happen to me?" I don't remember exactly when, but some time ago, I changed this question to "What does this try to teach me?"

These two questions can be summarized as לָמָּה lama 'why" and לְמָה lema 'for what' in Hebrew. This small change in vocalization in Hebrew has brought about a big change in how I see what my ego used to interpret as "bad" things. Simply put, these "bad" things, or life challenges, have stopped being sources for lamenting and suffering and started becoming opportunities for spiritual growth.

In my case, and probably in the case of many other people who have experienced this life-changing shift, lived experience preceded conceptual understanding. Faced with one life challenge I had never experienced before, I spent some time asking myself why this "bad" thing happened to me, until I exhausted all the possible answers, none of which fully convinced me.

Then the only thing that was left to me was to ask this very question and the assumption behind it. I used to assume conceptually that the Universe isn't always kind to us. But now I'm more and more convinced experientially that it has our back after all.

My formal systematic study of Chabad Chassidus has also strengthened this experiential conviction of mine. Of all the courses I took for the period of three academic years in Jerusalem the most unforgettable one was "Faith and Confidence" - faith that everything is good, and confidence that G-d will give me the power to discover that everything is good.

In retrospect, all my subsequent life challenges have been precious opportunities for internalizing this confidence, and each one of them has helped me grow spiritually in one specific area of life or another. Again, what has enabled this far-reaching change in how I related to life challenges in a tiny change in the vocalization of one Hebrew word.

My present ongoing challenge is to see goodness in any new life challenge while I'm still in the middle of experiencing it, and not after the fact. Of course, this challenge is an enormous one, but the same old narrative by the ego seems to be becoming weaker and weaker and less and less convincing.

PS: While preparing this writing, I had a new experience of accompanying someone who was experiencing a very difficult life challenge, and immediately realized without knowing how yet that not only our own life challenges but also someone else's can be turned into opportunities for spiritual growth.

Self-Seclusion in Nature as a Spiritual Practice

It must have been about four years ago, that is, in 2022, back in Jerusalem, that I spontaneously started what later became my weekly practice of secluding myself, also known as התבודדות in Chassidus, in nature. This was already after I had realized, as part of my spiritual awakening, how language also serves as the gatekeeper of our mind-made prison (and after I had left my academic job as a linguist).

The initial shock of this realization was still rather fresh, and it had not yet been fully integrated into my daily life, even though I meditated daily and practiced a few more conventional spiritual disciplines. In retrospect, it was still half conceptual.

About four years ago, I listened again to the audiobook version of "Stillness Speaks" narrated by the author himself, Eckhart Tolle, who had already left a profound influence upon me and my post-academic life through his two books entitled "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth". But it was this third, lesser-known, and much smaller book that helped me directly experience how our categorization of the universe strengthens our illusion of separation.

When I listened to this booklet for the third or fourth time, I suddenly felt like walking in nature. Then, for the first time in my life, I started consciously listening to the stillness in nature without categorizing anything I saw there.

Little by little, trees started becoming nameless, individual trees started becoming unitary wholes that were not categorically divided into smaller parts, and the whole universe even seemed to have stopped being fragmented. The first reaction I had after this sudden and intense realization was to start weeping out of sheer joy on the very spot where I had been walking silently.

Since then, I have continued this practice weekly during the last hour before the end of every Sabbath. I have also continued this weekly practice after leaving Israel for another country and starting to live in a rural area with rich nature.

It didn't take me long to realize that many people in this new location are also trapped in the mind-made prison through language. I was such a "prisoner" myself, and a hopeless one at that. ;-) So secluding myself at least once a week helps me recharge in nature, where nobody labels me, others, or themselves.

During this weekly self-seclusion, I even stop my inner monologue, at least temporarily. I'm not claiming that this inner monologue has completely stopped, but after continuing this weekly practice for the past four years, I have started to experience occasional pauses in which I don't label anything and even remain equanimous.

Paper Books vs. Electronic Books

Recently I stumbled upon a new book by a well-known essayist who criticized electronic books and proclaimed that he would never read them instead of paper books. Though I've only checked its table of contents and some excerpts, a number of factual errors and inaccuracies immediately caught my attention.

I wouldn't be surprised if I were told that he has never read (enough) electronic books, as these errors and inaccuracies seem to suggest. But I would have to ask the author himself about this. Even meta-criticism must be based on directly examining what is being criticized.

In the meantime, however, this otherwise irritating book has given me a precious opportunity to reexamine how I relate to electronic books and when I prefer their time-honored counterparts instead of allowing it to remain a source of irritation. Here is what it has made me rediscover.

Generally speaking, I prefer electronic books mainly because they occupy far less physical space. This has become especially crucial for me in my present life situation - I'm thinking of relocating to another country when the time comes. For this very reason I left most of my paper books in the warehouse of a close friend of mine, who is a publisher of Chassidic books in Jerusalem.

In short, the fewer paper books I have, the easier it will be for me to relocate to another country. I spent the last month I was in Jerusalem, in September 2023, choosing which 100 books I would send to my present location by mail. I couldn’t afford to send more, as the shipping cost was very expensive.

I find electronic books especially convenient when they deal with information and knowledge. I seldom read them again. But when it comes to books on wisdom, especially those Chassidic books I sent here from Jerusalem, I do read them again and again, including on Sabbaths, when I can't read electronic books.

Furthermore, their presence is no less important than their contents. You may wonder how books can "radiate" presence, but I feel this especially when I am surrounded by them in my present room, which seems like a Chassidic enclave in non-Jewish surroundings. So even though I have electronic copies of many of these wisdom books, I have acquired their paper copies as well.

In conclusion, I see no reason to choose either paper or electronic books. I enjoy both though I benefit from them differently. If I had not stumbled upon this new book, which initially irritated me, I would not have arrived at this clarity. I am therefore grateful to this essayist for his provocative "manifesto". The best way to express my gratitude in action may be to purchase and read an electronic copy of this book. ;-)