Leon's No News Bulletin 112 Wed 8th July 09

Dear Friends, shalom,

As you read this letter I would like you to listen to the same music I’m listening to as I write it. If you manage this then you will understand how the pleasure you have in reading is the same the as I have in writing.

The CD is called “In a Spanish Garden”, the piece is called “Recuerdos de la Alhamba” and the artist who collected this type of music is Musette.

I downloaded this from a music site called emusic.com

Now I’ve gone over to Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in D Major with Nathan Milstein.

Every time I take tourists for a walk to Montefiore’s windmill, overlooking the walls of the Old City especially at sunset, I think of music because we have a center there for the training of young musicians. Once a year Yitzhak Pearlman comes there to give coaching. There are probably others also.

A few weeks ago I was fortunate to accompany my friend Shaul there to hear music played by young children and an orchestra of handicapped and retarded children.

Playing in rhythm requires control, which is really what many of these people lack. I think that the beautiful harmony they create is a great encouragement to them to control their movements keeping them to a certain unison and rhythm.

From tomorrow the Jerusalem Cinematech will be hosting the annual Jerusalem Film Festival so I hope to have some good movies to tell you about.

All the movies at the festival are so good that I don’t have to select a particular movie to see; I just go along when I have a free hour or two and see whatever is showing.

Everything we do and hear sinks into us like water sinks into a sponge. Writing is like squeezing the sponge. You can’t choose which drops of water will come out.

I would like only experiences which reveal good thoughts and feelings to come out, not thoughts that might shock my reader by revealing unpleasant aspects of my life.

I like my readers to consider me a happy person without ruffled feelings that seem to bristle like the hairs on a dog’s back when he’s on guard ready to defend himself.

Last Thursday I was at Herziliya. I had just dropped my tourists, a couple with two cute kids, a boy of 12 and a girl of 9 at the beach and was in the parking ground nearby, resigned to the idea that I’d get home late today.

They’d had a good day’s touring; we had visited the Diaspora Museum in the campus of the Tel Aviv University, driven out to Latrun to visit Mini Israel, nearby, then on to The Ayalon Institute, a museum of a secret weapons factory of the War of Independence days. Now we were in the beautiful town of Herziliyah and I was waiting for the family to finish their swim in the Mediterranean Sea, before we’d continue to Jaffa to watch the sunset, listen to the music in the Flea Market and eat some tuna and cheese sandwiches at Abulafia.

I had read a few pages of my book about Maimonides, walked around under the palm trees in the warm late afternoon sun and the phone rang.

I was very pleased to hear my brother Bernard calling from Australia; he always told me good news and cheered me up.

Today he said three words that shattered me so much that I’m still shattered “Avron died this morning”.

I didn’t expect such a tragedy and I didn’t want to hear it. How? When? Why? He was only 37. What could have happened to make a young, healthy guy like that die?

I was relieved that I was alone and could give full vent to my sadness. I called Ettie and my children, Avron’s cousins. They called Bernard and we learnt that sadly Avron had chosen not to live. He had chosen to die.

I don’t agree with anyone making such a choice and I would do everything in my power to prevent someone carrying out such a decision.

Nevertheless once it’s done I have no choice but to respect the decision. It was Avron’s decision and nobody can judge it. I am very sad he made that decision because I loved him and would have been happier had he made a decision to live.

We’ll all miss him very much.

Somewhere I read a legend that the world exists at a particular moment in time because of the number of people in existence at that particular moment. If there’s one more or less the world would come to an end.

This legend is designed to illustrate the importance on the one hand of each and every human life and on the other necessity for people to die and be born.

This legend shows that transience is necessary if the world is to achieve permanence. We live in permanent world because its permanence is guaranteed by a continuity of transitory moments.

Permanence is like an equilibrium; the moments that pass are on the one side of the scale the moments to come are on the other side. Equilibrium is always maintained.

One should rejoice when a moment has passed because it’s a sign that another moment is going to take its place in the future.

Wishing you a great no news day

Yours truly

Leon Gork

Come for a Jerusalem Walk with Leon Gork

Jerusalemwalks.com

legork@netvision.net.il

Tel: 052 3801867