Reading Moby Dick in 2012 in Israel
The sea has a very powerful significance in Moby Dick – it is
the place where Ishmael goes to look for a relief to his worn out soul. “Whenever
I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs…I
go to the sea”, he says at the beginning of the novel (page 20 of the 150th
anniversary Norton’s special edition). I too, like Ishmael, go to the sea when
I feel low-spirited or just in need for some fresh air. As I live two minutes
away from the beach, I have the privilege of just taking the copy of “Moby Dick”
with me and reading away. Taking my eyes off of the book and towards the crowds
of people populating the crowded beaches in the Tel Aviv shore line, I think
about the Israeli mentality which seeks to escape – to the beach, from all of
the things they have to deal with in their day to day lives. As the political spectrum in Israel is
getting more and more racist, and more and more anti-democratic rules are made
in our Parliament; as the costs of living in Israel are way higher than our
average salaries and it becomes more and more difficult to live, work and
enrich yourself as a human being – all this brings everybody to look for some comfort,
some escape – and that is what the sea provides for them. The sea is a way to
escape – and a way to keep going in our crazy world. This moment, at this
beach, for me – is the meaning I maintain for reading Moby Dick in Tel Aviv,
Israel in the year 2012.
I liked Anat’s most recent post about the significants of reading Moby Dick in the beach city of Tel Aviv. While I doubt that our collective “hypos” lead us out to sea on a normal basis, the beachside seems to suffice for many locals and tourists alike. And while the beach may not be exactly the equivalent to Ishmael’s “substitute for pistol and ball”, it does at least personally serve as a meditative, introspective-inducing place. Long oceanside Moby Dick sessions have often turned me into the young, meditative, soliloquizing “Platonist…of lean brow and hollow eye” who, instead of focusing on the task at hand (be it watching for whales or reading The White Whale) finds himself staring off into the unimaginable depths.
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