On the Road Again
Jacob Rosenblum
Near and Far!
Another missive from the elusive, profuse, and profound Jacob
Rosenblum, who lives at at particular hostel in a particular sleepy
little Capital city in a particular state in Cascadia.
Much may have changed since we last spoke. My current plans include:
*A visit to Toronto
*A return to Israel/Palestine!
*And much, much more! Stay tuned for the latest.
If you are receiving this missive, that means that you are also on my
update list from Israel/Palestine, so you don't have to worry about
that. Now for the stories.
The hostel has undergone some minor changes... Jonah moved back into
the house, and bunks are going up in the garage space. Alex has taken
on caretaking duties while I'm gone, so they still have two-person
flexibility. We've had a variety of very interesting guests lately
(like always). The recent crew included some Japanese experimental
musicians (Hiroshi made his own shoes! way cool), an ex-smuggler who's
been kidnapped and shot several times recently, some friendly folks...
it's been feeling more like a hostel lately.
I'm right now laying on the bed of Sarah Bean, the person who I was
provisionally dating. Shelly, my RRP said, "the writing's on the
wall," by which she means: Sarah and I can't date and take on active
leadership within co-counseling, so that's pretty much what there is
to say about that for now (we're not dating anymore). You may not
understand anything that I just wrote in this paragraph, so I'll try
to cover the basics.
I have a practice that is both to change myself, and to change the
world (one part of this is that if everyone is changing themselves,
then we are effectively changing the world), and it's called
Re-Evaluation Counseling (RC). For the sake of analogy, I'm going to
call RC my Family. So I met someone else who is also from my Family,
and we really like each other a lot, but maybe it makes sense to date
outside the Family, you know? It's great to have close, loving
relationships with people in the Family, but dating isn't such a good
idea. Not to say that it can't be, and hasn't been, done (Albert
Einstein for example), but it's not so kosher.
Anyhow, I don't expect anyone to understand this particularly, this
is just kind of an update for those of you who know that I've been
dealing with this. Been traveling for a solid day: got a ride from
Olympia to Seattle (1030), took a bus from Seattle to the Vancouver
Aiport (1605), flew from Vancouver to Toronto (2345), then
mass-transitted to Sarah's house (0750 next day). Now I'm chillin',
typing to you! So far, Toronto is very different from what I'm used
to. It seems most like Philadelphia of all the places I've been. The
Jewish/Israeli neighborhood kind of blows my mind, that there's so
much Jewish stuff on Bathurst Street here. Also, people here are
really into donuts.
What am I doing in Israel/Palestine? Good question. First I'm going
to do Aish Hatorah's "Essentials" program (an orthodox Jewish study
program, right next to the Western Wall) from July 31 – August 15.
Then I'm a free agent. I will do something in the categories of:
visiting friends/relatives, supporting nonviolent resistance in the
Palestinian territories, studying Hebrew, showing my mother around,
working with Israeli activists. I will be in Israel through Rosh
Hashanah, and will be back in the States for Yom Kippur.
I have a friend who's slated to partner with me on the "sherut"
(passenger van service- tentative name is "Shared Roots" over "Chez
Route"), so that's something exciting that I will be coming back to.
It's kind of cool to think that me and this guy, Benjamin, could fill
a niche in the transportation needs of Cascadia. It's very impressive
to see the way people within the Asian community on the East Coast
pulled together the Chinatown Bus system; primarily to meet the needs
of their own community, but not in any way at the exclusion of
supporting the great masses seeking cheap transportation.
Just finished reading The Jew in the Lotus last night, after many
months. It's a very interesting book with a lot of insight and
challenge to Jews looking to broaden and make richer the range of
possible experiences within Judaism. It also was an important book for
me to understand what's at stake and what the core issues are
surrounding Jews who venture towards Buddhism, I have a strong and
renewed regard for the nonviolence of Buddhist practice.
Okay, that's good for now, updates will start coming more frequently
(weekly?) now as I am in a traveling mode.
Peace,
jake