Have you heard the one about…?

By Dnoll
Well, it is not exactly the same, but we seem to be living the joke about how a guy is unable to sleep at night (metaphor of restlessness), and he goes to the town Rabbi and asks him what to do about the leak in the roof, the squeak in the floor, and the drip in the sink. In our case, the Rabbi says, “leave everything comfortable that you know and move to the Middle East. After you get there you need to get a rabbit and build it a hutch. But not just any hutch, you need a hutch that keeps the rain and the sun out. It won’t matter if the rabbit droppings end up everywhere, just as long as the hutch is big enough to make your wife cringe and at times fume. When that is done you need to get a dog, but not just any dog, you need to get a dog that was abandoned and rescued off the street. You need to get a dog that challenges not only you but also your wife. You need a dog that sheds black hair everywhere, a dog that barks and growls at every dog and cat that you pass. You need to get a dog that needs lots of training. When that is accomplished, you need chickens. Now mind you, not just any chickens but ones that make noise and smell and demand care in return for maybe a measly egg or two a day.”

So far we have made it to the dog. I haven’t noticed the leak in the roof for a while now. The floors never did squeak because they are all tile and stone here. All the sinks and toilets are leaking, no matter how many times I replace the silly little washer things inside, but I don’t really care so much about all that. We have a rabbit and a dog and we live in the Middle East. We don’t actually have chickens yet but my wife keeps threatening.

In the end of the real joke, the guy goes back to the Rabbi and says that he still can’t sleep at night. All the animals make so much noise and it is really terrible. The Rabbi says to the man, “ok, get rid of all the animals.”

The guy does as he is told and immediately he feels so wonderful. The leaks and squeaks and drips all lull him to a sound sleep every night. He is truly fulfilled and happy.

Wait a second; I am already fulfilled and happy! Maybe I will stop with the rabbit and the dog and just forget the chickens, at least for now…

Always count your blessings, every minute should be cherished, and never count your chickens before they have hatched!

Shavua Tov Kulam.

Popular posts from this blog

Raining Frogs, Mini Earth, and the Downhill Sesh

By Dnoll
Image
And the storm raged on… here in the Holy Land recently, lasting for about 3 days and flattening anything that was mildly at rust or untended, trees, buildings, signs, and cliff faces collapsed or just plain disappeared. Flash flood warnings in the Negev desert were in high effect and we all buttoned up our houses with whatever we had on tap. The fires that had just swept through the north were still smoldering and the ash of the ruin of many people’s entire lives hadn’t even begun to settle; all of this, and yet... we were happy —  the rain was finally coming. The crispy ground covering the Holy Land has been parched for years from a severe draught. The Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), where much of our water comes from, has been going down, down, down, and is in its 7th year of decent; it is now 85 cm. above the ‘black line,’ the line that we dread. The black line is below the lowest ‘red line,’ which we passed a while ago. Sinking below the black line means that we will not only n...
Read more

From Pickles to Bubble Gum

By
Image
  I fell for it again today, the inevitable trap set for unwary teachers at the high school where I’m ever so slowly becoming an educator, and along the way developing some great relationships with the next generation of young Israeli leaders. This year had been a tough one, having met with my students for only a short period of time before we left for the holidays, and subsequently unable to return. By the end of Sukkot, we had all wrapped up a wonderful holiday season with family and friends, eaten and drunken far too much, and were ready for one more day of rest before the start of the real teaching season began, Sunday morning, October 8. Then, school was cancelled. It was far too dangerous, you see, to send kids out into our world. It was far too horrible to even comprehend what had happened. Each of us went into reaction mode, protecting our families, our neighborhoods, ourselves and each other, listening for the latest news, preparing for the worst, both mentally and physica...
Read more

Gan Eden

By
Image
We don’t exist in one time, we exist in all the times. Branching occurs naturally and we ride them all, encompassing each moment. We must only become aware of the path to arrive at perfection.  
Read more

Am Israel Khai / עם ישראל חי

By
Image
  My Dad - He was the tallest man I knew of, not only physically, but mentally and spiritually. It wasn’t always very easy to talk with him, but when we did, and when I needed him, he was there for me completely, without any hesitation. He loved the garden, loved his wife, loved his children, and he loved his work. He was an urban planner that conceptualized a perfect society and implemented his and other’s ideas to build environments to sustain a perfect population of residents. And it worked, right up until the time when his job ended, 10 years before his forced retirement … due to corporate takeover. The American dream, of building from scratch a perfect world, a society that worked together for the needs of all its members, became sullied. Fear of not having enough and greed began to shake my father’s foundation of hard work and faith. My father grew up in a working class family, his birth father having left him and his mother when my father was only five years old. His stepf...
Read more

Praying towards the West

By
Image
Living on the edge between land and sea, in the State of California in the USA, was all I had ever known when I met my Basherit, the love of my life. We met for the first time in the doorway to our future home, the sun directly behind me as the portal opened to reveal the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. My head began to bobble, I noticed, unconsciously as if I were from far away, in the east, in India. The shadow I had cast allowed her to see me without squinting in the low-lying sun, as it made its way across our bright blue sky. She bobbled her head in return, saying later that the peculiar action was to maintain the effect of a halo around my head. But, we both understand only now that it was actually to preserve the vision of another world. Unknown to either of us at the time, we stood at the entrance to a portal, one which offered us a vision into the world to come. Living in the West, both of the continental United States and in the greater world, we had been raised stric...
Read more

Choosing Your Lot

By
Image
  Purim, Oct. 7, and Our Next Generation  -   I grew up in a world where I could be anything I wanted, back in Southern California, in the 70s and 80s. I had the freedom to explore what life might offer, and my parents encouraged me to play and to learn. I needed a foundation and chores, mind you, but a musical instrument was essential to grow up in the human world. I was encouraged to dress for success, too. My parents tried anything they could to give me the tools they thought I would need in life. I liked art, they noticed, so my parents introduced me to a commercial artist to learn the ropes. After a year of piano lessons with Mr. Stytska playing “On Top of Spaghetti,” I quit. From a lack of social graces, I was forced to dance with a broom at cotillion (etiquette classes for middle-school aged children), so I quit. I had my own plans, you see, which needed forming ASAP if I was to prove my worthiness to my own ego first, then others around me, and only then to...
Read more

The Voice from In-between

By Dnoll
Image
The Collector Crazy… I am really feeling the time warp these days… I can’t believe it took me 6 years to get back to me, to my roots, to the ‘reason’ I now find myself in the Middle East. Yes, it is all connected. You see, when I was young, I realized that I was meant to explore the inner-space that rides the waves caused by physical space. It’s a kind of spiritual plain of existence that most just shrug-off as metaphysics or some such nonsense.  Haw… even I do it sometimes; you know, when reality just cakes up around the edges of your vision to the point that you just give in to the momentum of it all…? Crazy… Wow… I am in an art exhibition. I have never pushed the whole art front too much, always finding other ways to make a living; hence my endeavors with woodworking, writing, marcom & web design, and other assorted handyman-type sidetracks... To be honest with myself, I always wanted to move to New York, live in a loft, and paint while high on whatever drug sui...
Read more

Seed

By
Image
There’s a knowing left under the world that reminds me of me. I think it sometimes, this knowing, but it leaves soon thereafter, spitting nonsense into my memory of it being. The life it left always tilts my reservoir of love but never touches my lips up, never begs to begin. I sing, I dance, slamming it out unseen, but always tasting the wishing in which it began ~ image:  Etrog in Space, 10-2016  
Read more

Paper Plane

By
Image
The glee in her eyes told the story from the beginning to its end. Well, except the part where we all jumped into the air screaming… My young student stood at the back corner of the room, eyebrows pursed in concentration. She inched her way forward, begging my attention, with a paper plane she had folded; also begging… So, I agreed. She could throw it in one direction only, towards the garbage can in the opposite corner. She grinned before our lesson, and I knew she would try it. I breathed in as it flew, around one student, then another. It arced to and fro, ascending then dropping down, but (no way) just enough. Then it swooped up, stalled, and came down … exactly into the corner alcove… It landed perfectly into the trashcan that I had asked for, a hole in one. We all screamed as we jumped from our seats, TWO POINTS! And then our lesson began.
Read more

Conical Time

By
Image
The dirt at my feet swirled as I drove my favorite matchbox-car through it. My lap was open with my legs encompassing the hole I’d dug. I was living, and couldn’t stop. I had to do a number two, but shifted my heel to plug the eruption from ever occurring… ever. My lap and the hole I’d dug begged my attention with every moment occurring, and I drove and dug and drove again as my life unfolded. I was living, and the world around me sped forward, but never even registered into the realm I inhabited. I had stopped, and I was living. My friends went to accost pedophiles in the park, and I went along. We were in high school, young and tender beings. We wanted to live, we wanted something to happen. My Italian friend’s little brother did the deed, plunging into deep cover, sitting wantonly on a bench. We were all developed, being California surfers, so it was easy to see how perverts could bridge between ‘adult’ and a mere child. I watched as the mark put his arm around the kid, whispering s...
Read more