THE FAILED EXPERIMENT

February 2009

In an attempt to address our empty bank account I put David to the test and set an excessive teaching schedule for February. Throughout the month, David taught four classes a week: On Sundays he taught Jewish History in Six Chapters in Hebrew (a success) in Tel Aviv, on Tuesday nights he taught Jewish Philosophy in Four Chapters in English in Tel Aviv (excellent lectures, varying crowds) and on Wednesday he taught Jewish History in the afternoon in Jerusalem and the Jewish History in Six Chapters in the evening in Modiin (this series gradually revealed itself as a failure, although redeemed itself because we were able to record the series). In between all this, David was also recording interviews with Tovia.

The month proved to be a tremendous strain. David not only had to prepare for these sessions, but travel around the country on the Israeli public transport system was draining.

But more of a challenge was the apparent truth that the harder we seemed to work, the less money we seemed to make. By the end of the month, despite the hours, the preparation and the schlepping we had no money to really show for our work. Even the new income source of the website, after its initial show of promise, didn't really offer much hope. The situation was depressing and demoralising. In fact, it was also one of the reasons why I felt so disinclined to come back to the blog - because I could find no pleasure in reporting on our present circumstances.

We knew that in March we would be going to the UK and realised that if that trip did not alleviate our difficult financial state, we would be in very serious trouble. It was all extremely grim.