Hi. It’s been a while. Missed me?
Some haven’t. At all. You know what? I’m okay with that. I’m controversial. But I’m one person, in a very big world. If you can’t handle what I say, what chance have you got when you go out into the big wide world?
One of my very best friends here at university is a most amazing person. She’s kind, she’s beautiful. She’s compassionate and puts everybody else’s feelings above her own. But that’s her problem – she doesn’t want to concentrate on herself. She takes such an emotional investment in everything and everyone around her that it piles up on her, and I think that coming to university to do such a demanding course was a bit of a stretch too far on an already strained heart. What can she do? If she can’t indeed handle these “little” things at university, what’s it going to be like in the big wide world? Well, that’s the thing: Nothing is little. Nothing is too little. Your feelings are never, ever, EVER, insignificant or silly. If you feel it, it’s important. It’s your life. And yes, your friends will force you to talk about how you feel. Your friends will force you to talk to your personal tutor and be honest – it’s getting a little much, sometimes. You won’t want to talk about it, at all – you’re too kind-hearted and want to look after others, you feel less important or less valid or even silly for feeling sad sometimes. But you’re not silly. Of course not. You’re who you are and I love you no matter what. Feeling sad is okay. It’s normal to feel sad. The only thing that matters is that you feel happy more often than you feel sad. And I’ll be there for you, forever, until that happens, and forever after.
It seems at this point in the term, everyone’s breaking down a bit.
I have a little cry almost every day. Why? It lets out the feelings that I can’t let out in the middle of Biblical Hebrew – the extraordinary frustration when I just can’t remember that damn possessive suffix or that damn construct noun formation. When I can’t start screaming at my lecturer in Jewish History because I can’t cope with how many reasons there were for the first Jewish-Roman War in Jerusalem, and why Josephus won’t talk about them all. When, in Evrit class, I haven’t had time to do my vocabulary revision because I was doing an essay all weekend, which I couldn’t understand anyway, so now I can’t figure out how to describe Shabat last week. I cry. It’s okay.
What I say to all my friends and everyone across the country and the world who is just going through rubbish at the moment? I’d like to quote one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite bands:
“Do you know what it’s like to fall on the floor, cry your guts out ‘till you got no more? Well I used to see the sun rise over the hill, it never used to give me much of a thrill. Have you ever sat down in the fresh cut grass, thought about the moment and when it will pass?
Hey man. Now you’re really living.”
– Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living) – Eels
I’d like to share one of my favourite Hebrew proverbs with you – “Everything revolves around bread and death”. After reading a “thread” (which is a discussion on an internet forum) about Israel, I made the comment “Why can’t we all just hug and make up and get along? It’s a small minority that is making everything so hard for everyone”. Everything revolves around bread and death. It all ends in that and the hard stuff is part of life, so get through it and over it while you’re alive because soon you’ll be gone!
To get in my regular spot of major controversy: I’d say the same about Israel/Palestine too. Let’s get it all sorted because soon we’ll be gone and millions more people will have their lives messed up because of a tiny stubborn minority.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m really quite right-wing when it comes to Israeli politics – I love Israel and I want Israel to exist always, but I’d like it to exist as a country and culture and people, not just as a political nexus.
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