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Something Understood

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Spiritual themes explored through music, prose and poetry.

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry

Something Understood: Something Understood

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Religion & Ethics

31/05/2009

BBC World Service - Something Understood, Something Understood

Is it true that most old people are homesick for the culture of their childhood?

This week Mark Tully explores homesickness, a yearning more complex than a simple nostalgia for homeland.

For some it’s a kind of bump in the heart, a visceral yearning. A smell of home, of your mother. Something Understood this week explores homesickness, a yearning more complex than a simple nostalgia for homeland. 

Mark Tully asks whether it’s true that most old people are homesick for the culture of their childhood. He talks to Rabbi Lionel Blue, who was brought up in the Yiddish culture of London’s East End, about knowing even as a child that the world around him was disappearing. 

That experience has led the Rabbi to think of this world as a ‘departure lounge’ - as he says, “you meet lots of interesting people, but then your flight is called and then it’s time to go”.

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