Susan's Musings

The Torn Shirt

I just put my white shirt in the washing machine, a reasonable place for something I wore daily for a week. The shirt has an eight-inch tear down its front. I tore it, in accordance with Jewish tradition, at the cemetery as we were getting ready to bury my father, and wore it for the week of mourning.

I’m not quite sure why I’m laundering it. Even if my sewing skills were greater than they are, I would not be planning to mend the shirt. I realize that simply discarding a piece of clothing, as I will do, is not an option that always existed. In days when each article of dress was acquired by diligently saving money, where three or four pieces of clothing were all anyone owned, the torn shirt of mourning was mended, pressed and put back into service. It served as a constant, visible reminder of how we piece lives back together after a loss, never quite the same as before but carrying on. 

When my mother died sixteen years ago (that number shocks me as she is so present in my heart) I mourned, deeply, for her. I still miss her wisdom, laughter and love. The youngest of her family, she was the first of her five siblings to go. I found great comfort and security in talking to her sister and brothers as the years passed.  This time around, my father was one of the last remaining members of his generation. Each year, there are fewer people to answer the questions raised by old photographs and memories, on both a personal and national level. They were people who would neither be ignorant nor confused or scornful about this week’s observation of Flag Day. With or without the visible reminder of a shirt, the reality of the loss of a generation is clearly evident. 

 

Welcome to the 1500s

On the surface, President Obama and King Henry VIII of England have little in common. Even the most ardent conspiracy theorist doesn’t suggest that the president has beheaded one, let alone two, wives. Even those who recognize that there are gaps in what we know of the president’s history do not suspect multiple marriages as part of what has not been disclosed. While history shows that Henry VIII cut a dashing figure as a youth, by the time he was President Obama’s current age he was corpulent and physically loathsome. 

Yet, as I read a well-researched account of the king’s last few years, albeit historical fiction, I found myself thinking that there were comparisons to be made. I knew that Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church, establishing himself as the religious authority. What I hadn’t realized was how much of the turmoil in his life reflected the tussle playing out between following closely in Rome’s path (albeit with himself as the head of the church) versus promoting the Protestant Reformation. 

The king, whether due to a mercurial nature or as a carefully plotted pattern, alternately approved of one side or the other. When he changed, his people needed to change with him. Translations of the Bible in English were promoted by the king and then forbidden, making those who had followed his actions and words traitors to the Crown. Safety was non-existent. Speaking your mind and following your conscience, even when it was consistent with Henry VIII’s past views, branded you a criminal when his proclamations shifted. Being burned to death and tortured on the rack might follow.

Thankfully, our government doesn’t have hidden torture chambers underneath the Capitol. Yet it does have the power to destroy people’s lives, taking away their livelihoods and savings. While (we hope) it doesn’t have spies circulating with the purpose of finding ways to incriminate honest citizens, it has access to our personal records and the ability to manipulate agencies such as the IRS and the Justice Department to punish enemies and reward friends. 

For years, Barack Obama alternated between supporting civil unions while declaring marriage to be “the union between a man and a woman,” to leaning more towards homosexual rights. Once he decisively chose a side, those who are not willing to betray their religious or moral beliefs are heretics. The government is unleashed to bankrupt their businesses and  harass them. Granted, that is better than having one’s eyes put out or one’s  back broken, but no one should sanctimoniously pat themselves on the back thinking this is a great advance. To the best of my knowledge, Henry VIII is not accused of personally killing any of his subjects. Yet, no one doubts that his courtiers and lackeys knew who he wanted maltreated. That  corrupt political reality hasn’t changed. 

I’ve seen a great deal written about “angry white men” during this election cycle. I’ve also seen Wall Street Journal editorials, and the utterances of John Kasich and Paul Ryan among others studiously ignore the fact that upright, religious Americans are being criminalized. Mitt Romney avoided moral issues and only wanted to discuss the economy. Yet lots of Americans of faith feel victims of a witch hunt. The Governor of N. Carolina, and the owner of  TimberCreek Bed & Breakfast in Paxton, Illinois, who is facing an $80,000 fine can tell you about that. When every day converts normal words into “trigger words” and everyday actions into “attacks” that can cause Americans to lose jobs and reputations, it won’t be long before anyone without a protector at court will be fair game.

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Chanuka, Take 2, Take 3...

Celebrating Chanuka is fun. Living at the times of the Maccabees was not. Similarly, Purim, the Feast of Esther, is a joyous celebration. Living in Persia with a death sentence over your head, in the days before Queen Esther revealed her identity, was frightening. Leaving Egypt after ten amazing plagues and the splitting of the Red Sea was awesome. Two-hundred and ten years of slavery was miserable. 

A popular joke sums up Jewish holidays in this way, “They tried to kill us. God saved us. Let’s eat.” But, of course, they did kill many of us. Those who survived went through scary and wretched times. Centuries later, knowing how things turned out, it is easier to channel into the joy than to feel the suffering. 

American history has its parallels. The Fourth of July, with its parades and fireworks, is a grand time. Life in Revolutionary War times was grim. When our Founding Fathers issued the Declaration of Independence saying, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor,” they did not know how things would turn out. Indeed, many of them and their families did lose their fortunes and lives.

My husband and I celebrated the first four days of Chanuka at a gorgeous resort in Puerto Vallarta, as the guests of a financial conference where he was the keynote speaker. It is a long way, in every meaning of the phrase, from the original clash between Jerusalem and Athens. We look forward to celebrating the final four days back home with family. That is also far removed from the original conflict. We can celebrate both the military victory and the miracle of the oil without having lived with the fear of those days. Yet, the underlying recurring theme of purity vs. depravity, good vs. evil, light vs. darkness, few vs. the  many is not far removed from us at all. 

I think many of us worry that life in the next few years might be darker and more dangerous. During the past few years, many have already willingly sacrificed their lives for truth or been victims of evil. This has been the pattern of history. Chanuka calls on us to take heart and channel the courage of our ancestors to do our part while relying on Divine Providence to guide and protect us. We know how it ends; our job is to do what we can to hasten that end. 

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A Different Syrian Immigrant

Some classmates at the Jewish elementary and high school I attended were the children of Syrian refugees. On Shabbat, my family ate gefilte fish while they ate kibbeh. I pronounced the Sabbath day ‘Shabbos’ while they said ‘Shabbath’. I was blonde and blue-eyed while their hair was black and their eyes brown. Some of our prayers and religious customs were different as were our cultural reference points. 

 

Most of the students in my class were the children or grandchildren of refugees. Almost all the refugee generation immigrated with little more than the clothing on their backs and horrific memories of lives destroyed. They did not speak English nor have skills that were in high demand. The families came mostly from Europe, but a not insubstantial number were expelled from Arab countries: Morocco, Egypt and most of all Syria. To the best of my knowledge, there wasn’t a Daughter of the American Revolution among us. 

I am enormously grateful that there was an America for my grandparents (and for one side of my family, my great-great grandparents) and for the grandparents and parents of my friends to come to. Many who are descended from immigrants from other nationalities feel the same way. For this reason, so many Americans feel a deep sympathy for and a desire to welcome the current wave of Syrian refugees. 

There is, however, an enormous difficulty and I don’t mean the fear that this group of refugees will include terrorists.  When my Jewish ancestors arrived, an American culture greeted them. They embraced much of that culture with love and appreciation. They had the freedom to ignore other parts, such as the Christian nature of the land, missing out on job opportunities that required work on Saturday (during the Depression that sometimes meant going hungry), not attending school parties or graduations that took place on Friday night and staying strangers to cheeseburgers and oysters.  To them, America’s promise of religious freedom meant that, unlike Russia or Germany, they weren’t persecuted or killed for being Jews. They were equal under the law. Yet, they still reaped the benefits of an American culture that was deeply rooted in America’s unique Christian experience.  That culture no longer exists. Its demise is largely what makes immigration fraught with problems. 

Let me explain with an analogy. One of my infant grandsons is highly allergic. Nursing him means that his mother can’t eat gluten, corn, soy or dairy. Another grandson has a nut allergy. It’s important to our my husband and me to have our family eat at our home. However, with these allergies, menu planning has taken on a whole new dimension. This is something that I do with love, even if it is time consuming and at times exasperating. It means that some of our traditional, favorite recipes have been retired. Our children are appreciative and my husband and I benefit from the added warmth and zest that they bring to our lives. 

What would happen, however, if as time went on, our children, grandchildren and in the future great-grandchildren, began to see tailoring meals to suit them as an entitlement rather than an offering? One after another might find this or that odor offensive, remonstrate that eating meat is barbaric, or insist that only locally grown vegetables are moral to eat. They might demand food at times to suit their schedules, forget to be thankful and start insulting my husband and me for still wanting to eat the foods of our earlier years. Rather than offering to help cook, serve and clean up, they will treat our possessions with disdain, breaking plates, messily spilling crumbs and wasting our resources. As they devour our food, they will ridicule our belief that family is important. Perhaps they will find lawyers to prove that precedent insists that we still must feed them. Slowly and surely, the care that I used to lavish on cooking will be replaced with resentment reluctance to expend much effort and certainly a refusal to welcome their friends as we do now. The food will be less tasty, the surroundings less pleasant and the experience less fulfilling. Having broken the family/love/food system that existed, they will now deride me for being unfriendly, selfish and unfaithful to my beliefs.

I realize that my analogy is imperfect. Yet, I don’t think that it is completely far-fetched. It applies not only to immigrants but to multi-generation Americans as well. As the daughter of immigrants, my mother went to a public school that had a Christmas pageant—and gave her an outstanding education. My friends’ Syrian parents learned that the bribery and under the counter activity that was routine in the Arab shuk (marketplace)  would land them in jail here—but that they could prosper with hard work and by following the rules. My Catholic neighborhood friend’s Italian grandmother never learned English and her children were mocked by classmates for not knowing the language when they entered school—but their mother punished them for complaining and they quickly became fluent.

Was it pleasant for my mother to feel singled out when she wouldn’t observe Christmas? No. Was it easy for my friends’ fathers to learn how to work in an entirely different economic culture? No. Was if fun for Italian speaking children to go to school everyday where they didn’t understand the teachers or other children? No. Would more sensitivity on the part of established Americans have been kind? Yes. 

But the bottom line is that with all this discomfort, there actually was an American culture.  It promoted Christmas, English and an honest marketplace above other ideas. When no one was apologizing for American culture, immigrants could arrive and be assimilated into an existing, successful system. 

I can’t prove a direct line between Christmas creches in public squares and a flourishing educational system. There is no direct link that I know of between abortion becoming a constitutional right and a failing economy. I can’t point at studies showing that magnifying the rights provided to new immigrants instead of the responsibilities and obligations they must acquire makes them less rather than more successful. But I think that all of the above are, indeed, connected. 

When President Obama, after the terrorist activity in Paris, spoke of letting in thousands of Syrian refugees, he said, “Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values.” The problem with that is that he and I share very few values. He believes that a suppressed American Christianity is what America needs; I believe it is a disaster for this country. He believes that redefining marriage is a step forward; I believe it is a step towards failure. He believes that individual wealth should be redistributed; I believe it should be respected. He believes in incessant pontification and carrying a stick of jello concerning foreign policy and I believe in Roosevelt’s idea of speaking softly and carrying a big stick. He believes that when Blacks or Moslems are in conflict with white people, especially Christians, that the latter are guilty until—and even when—proven innocent; I believe in blind justice. He believes in using the power of government to suppress speech with which he doesn’t agree while I believe in freedom of speech. He believes that America is not unique among nations and I believe that it is. He believes in picking through the bible to support his personal views and I believe in shaping my personal views by the same ancient Jewish wisdom about the Bible that guided my ancestors. When it come to values, there are almost no ‘our values’ of which the President and I can speak. 

Having become diffident, apologetic and afraid of what used to be the  American values of patriotism, individual responsibility, education (vs. the indoctrination on today’s campuses), hard work, a Judeo-Christian heritage, a non-fluid Constitution and a myriad of other ideas that have been destroyed and deprecated for the past fifty years, immigration is indeed a problem. Many immigrants would love and appreciate the America that greeted my ancestors, with all its lack of multicultural awareness. Other immigrants want an American of which they can take advantage or one that mimics their home country but where they, not others, are in power. Others want to destroy America. We no longer have cultural agreement on what we envision as America’s future and the president and I disagree on which types of immigrants should be welcomed. The land of freedom and opportunity into which my grandparents and my Syrian friends’ parents came doesn’t exist anymore. You don’t even need to add potential terrorists to the list to see that the ability to welcome ‘huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ is another casualty of secularist liberalism gone amok. 

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Keep Those Problems Coming

Recently, my husband and I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Ben Carson speak. For the moment, I’d like to put aside his presidential aspirations to focus on one insight he gave us into his life. 

Speaking of his adolescence, Dr. Carson told us how closely he came to succumbing to an explosive temper and badly hurting or even murdering someone. By God’s grace, his blows were deflected and the horror at what had almost happened propelled him to put himself in God’s hands and ask for His help. 

Just imagine. Instead of becoming a world-famous pediatric neurosurgeon, saving lives and being a blessing to so many, Dr. Carson could have been one more inmate of juvenile hall, on a path to a life either wasted or a curse to those around him. 

At the age of seventeen, Chris Wilson did commit a murder and was sentenced to life in prison. While incarcerated he made a decision that even if his life was spent behind bars, he would keep learning and strive to help others. At 33, a judge saw the person behind the sentence and gave Wilson a chance. He is now a hard-working entrepreneur on parole, giving ex-prisoners a chance to re-enter society through his business. 

In Israel today, thirteen and fourteen year old boys and girls are acting on the message of hatred they have been receiving since birth and stabbing Israelis. They, like the teenaged Dr. Carson and Mr. Wilson, grew up in a society that failed them, not with a lack of money, but with a lack of positive values. 

What to do with teenagers who commit heinous crimes is a valid question. Do we lock them up for the rest of their lives or not? Yet, that question lets us, as a society, off the hook. Imagine if we discovered that the drinking water in a city was poisoning the inhabitants. Citizens would be appalled and the government would provide millions of dollars for compensation to those who lost family members, while making sure that blood transfusions and hospital care for those who were sickened was available. All this is meaningless if no changes are made to the water supply. Even as we were trying to cope with the disaster, the next group of people would be being poisoned. 

Isn’t it better to fix the problem and then deal with past consequences rather than keeping the flow of harm running, while racing to cope with the ever-increasing number of casualties? I cringe when politicians speak of the importance of higher education for minorities and lower income families. How about fixing elementary schools first rather than pushing colleges to enroll illiterate individuals with poor study habits? What is the point if at the same time the next batch of first graders is destroyed? I am disgusted when politicians shed crocodile tears for inner city youth while promoting programs that work against marriage and demanding that only ideas that reject traditional Judeo-Christian values must be disseminated in the public square. I recoil when politicians pontificate about violence in the Middle East and don’t withhold funding from groups that run TV shows for preschoolers that teach violence and hatred against Jews and Christians. 

Like many Americans, I have views on Dr. Carson’s candidacy. Wherever you fall on that question, we all should recognize the catastrophe in the making as human potential gets wasted while adults, who should be wiser, betray the youth for whom we are responsible.

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Joy and Heartbreak

My husband and I were blessed once again to be in Jerusalem for the chock-full month of holidays that just ended, as we have been for the past few years. This trip was different. 

The month tends to be packed with seeing family and friends, celebrating the Festival days and Shabbat, and keeping up with our ministry work. We aren’t looking to run around the country (though there is much we would love to see). There is much joy in living in Jerusalem, visiting the cafes and restaurants within a few blocks of the apartment we rent, being able to walk or take a short bus ride to the Western Wall, drinking in the unique aura of the city and spending as much time as we can with our Israeli daughter, son-in-law and grandson.  Each year, however, we do try to set aside one day for an outing. 

One year, we went to the cave of Machpela in Hebron, where Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah are buried. On our way back from there, we stopped at Rachel’s tomb. Another year, we spent a day in Shiloh, the site of Hannah’s prayer for a son and where the Mishkan, the temporary Temple, stood for hundreds of years. This year, our plan was to go to Yad VaShem, Jerusalem’s Holocaust Museum. Neither of us had been there for a few decades and it has been entirely rebuilt from when we saw it.         

 

We didn’t make it. There was no time to focus on the attempted extermination of Jews seventy years ago in Europe when outside our door the attempted extermination of Jews in Israel was taking place right now. 

The second day my husband and I were in Israel, we went to the graves of his parents on Har HaMenuchot, ‘The Mount of Those Who are Resting.’ At the end of our stay, on the day we had set aside for an outing, we paid a shiva (condolence) call on the parents of Eitam Henkin who, along with his wife Na’ama, had just been buried on Har HaMenuchot. Driving home on the evening of October 1st, with their four sons, ages 9, 7, 4, and 9 months, they were fired on and killed by Moslem terrorists. Their deaths were the first of too many and the number is increasing daily. 

 

Israel is a small country; the Jewish people make up a small population. You would be hard pressed to find one Israeli Jew, who does not know one of the victims of this new Intifiada. Yet, funeral attendance and shiva calls for terrorist victims in Israel are attended by hundreds, even thousands, who do not necessarily know the individuals involved. Not only is there a feeling of family but there is also a recognition that had I driven home a different way, boarded an earlier bus or walked down a different street, that could have been me. While we were in the Henkin apartment, two beautiful teenage girls came to pay a shiva call. As they hugged Rabbanit Henkin, who with her husband and Na’ama’s parents will be raising the orphaned grandchildren, they told her that the grandchildren will be all right. How do they know? Because seven years ago, that was their situation when their mother was murdered. 

Think of the way you felt in the days following 9/11 and you will have an inkling of how Israelis feel. Yet, unlike 9/11 which was an aberration in America, this is their norm. Life continues, as despite the incredible tension, the heightened awareness, people continue working, shopping and going to school. We found ourselves in a business meeting, sharing ideas and laughter. Later in the meeting, the man we were meeting mentioned that his study partner had been murdered less than a year earlier. A friend told me the following story. A number of years ago, after two young boys who played  hookey from school to hike in the hills behind their home were found slaughtered in a cave, she asked her daughter not to take a shortcut home that went through an undeveloped field. For a few days, her daughter obeyed. Then she came to her mother and said, “Mom, do you want me to live in Israel?” “Of course, was the reply.”  The daughter said, “Then you have to let me live.” She went back to using the shortcut.  

Jews are given to introspection. It is not an accident that Freud was Jewish. He may have been wrong in his ideas, and motivated by rebellion against God, but ‘go with the flow,’  and ‘eat, drink and be merry,’ are not part of the Jewish psyche. The Israeli press is filled with articles of people reminding themselves and others that not all Moslems are evil and that Israel could handle things better. There are Moslem citizens of Israel who are grateful for and loyal to the state, including serving honorably in the army, and there are Jewish ones who hate the state and do not serve. There have been scattered lone-wolf attacks by Jews against Moslems and scattered instances of Moslems saving the lives of Jews under attack. That is all true–and in terms of stopping this evil it is all irrelevant. 

What matters is the majority message, the respective government’s directives and the underlying culture on each side. When a Moslem teenager viciously stabs and critically wounds a 13 year old boy riding a bicycle and is subsequently killed by the police when he refuses orders to   stand still and drop his knife, and papers around the world run a headline, “Palestinian teenager killed by Israeli police,” that has nothing to do with any Israeli policy. When a Palestinian law student at an Israeli university starts stabbing Israelis, that has nothing to do with poverty. When John Kerry spouts idiocy, talking of blame on both sides, that has zero to do with the Temple Mount. When the Moslem Arab world and the United Nations choose to exploit and institutionalize refugees that has nothing to do with Israel, a country that absorbed hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Moslem lands.  

Please read Bret Stephens’ Wall Street Journal article. Please know that most of what you hear and read in the world press, including America’s, is slanted, false and misleading. You need to know this, because, while God punishes his chosen people, those who choose to side with the persecutors or to join in the persecution end up suffering too. Often, they disappear from the stage of history. (Horrifically, as when 80% of the Jewish nation remained in Egypt rather than aligning with Moses, most of the Jewish community in America is frequently on the wrong side.) 

It is tragic when any human suffers. Our hearts are properly torn when a tsunami ravages any city or when any humans attack each other. There is an added element of tragedy when the world turns against the Jewish people. Whether it is fair or not, whether we like it or not, what is happening in Israel will determine what happens in America. An America founded on Judeo-Christian values was a blessing to the Jewish people and had the right to ask for God’s protection. A secular, Godless America, evolving as an enemy to the Jewish people, cannot. 

At Home Away from Home—Israel

Once again, we have the blessing of being in Israel for the fall holydays. While we love America and feel endless gratitude towards her, as Jews, we are a minority within her culture. (Personally, we wish we felt like more of a minority and would like to see a reawakening of America’s Christian nature.) Not so in Israel, where a holiday atmosphere reigns in September, not December, and where the secular looking taxi driver regales us with stories of his Yom Kipur/Day of Atonement fast.  

One of our favorite activities in Israel is taking the bus. Sometimes, we take a roundabout route so that we can see different neighborhoods. Israeli bus drivers are fearless cowboys. They drive aggressively and quickly through narrow streets and around sharp curves. We refrain from bursting into applause, though their performance frequently deserves it. 

Israeli buses host a cacophony of different languages, and people from almost every country on earth.  Their external dress reveals a gamut of geographical origins and religious affiliation. Nonetheless, the resonant feeling is of being on a road trip with extended family. This can be sometimes annoying but is also comforting. An elderly Yemenite grandmother with her grandchild in a stroller will tell (not ask) a Russian teenager to hold onto the stroller while she goes to check with the driver about where to disembark. A mother boarding with an infant will plop the infant onto an Israeli-Ethiopian soldier’s lap while she rummages for her bus card in her purse. 

Once off the bus, the inter-relationships among people persists. To the sometimes discomfort of many American immigrants, children are seen as a national treasure and responsibility. Mothers are assaulted by strangers telling them that their babies are dressed too warmly or not warmly enough.  It is not unusual to stand at a corner, getting ready to cross a major intersection, and find a young five or six-year-old tuck her hand into yours, confident that you will help her cross safely. No words are exchanged as she lets go of your hand at the other side, continuing on her way to her destination. Helicopter parenting is not an Israeli affliction. 

While America is moving in the direction of being a country based on fear in general and fear of lawsuits in particular, Israel, for both good and bad, is a country of adventure and bravado. Consequently, it suffers from a high rate of car accidents, causing great sorrow, but it also assumes the people should bear responsibility for themselves. While Americans can’t market a balloon without warning that it can cause harm if swallowed (and if swallowed, there still will be a lawsuit) Jerusalem runs its light rail down a busy pedestrian street, with no guardrails, warning signs, or irritating announcement that a train is coming so you should move to the side. Instead the driver beeps a slightly louder horn than the one you had on your childhood bicycle as he doesn’t slow down a whit, expecting people to move out of his way in time not to get hit. They do.

When we are in Israel, Yom Kipur, the Day of Atonement, is one of my favorite holy days. While I have only prayed in a few synagogues in America on that fast day, I always found the day draining, if meaningful. I certainly cast more than one look at my watch through the day counting down the hours until I could eat and drink (25 hours fast in total). My Israel experiences have been entirely different. It starts, as in America, with the solemn Kol Nidrei prayer at night. Yet, the next day, as the day moves along from morning to afternoon to sunset, a joyous festive mood captures the congregation. One senses a feeling that having undergone the process of atonement for the past forty days, as the day moves along people are confident in God’s mercy and forgiveness. The closing prayers are joyous as hands clap and feet dance. If someone ran in and said that the clocks were all wrong and there was another hour to go, I might be thirsty and hungry, but I would be grateful for the extra time. 

We are now moving into the next set of holy days, known as Sukot or Tabernacles, but also as ‘The Time of Our Rejoicing’. Sukot (booths used for the holydays) are popping up on every porch and corner. I pray that this coming year brings rejoicing to all of us and also brings God’s rejoicing in His children as everyone alive today has the opportunity to reject the false gods so prevalent among us and embrace Him.

 

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Aldrich Comes After Alcott Even in a Crazy World

If you wandered around the Marina del Rey, CA docks a few years back, you might have found my husband on his hands and knees, polishing the teak on his cherished sailboat. Sun and salt water are both tough on wood, so it was a job that constantly needed doing.

Polishing wood was therapeutic. Daily life is filled with activities that only give us delayed feedback. As the rabbi of a congregation, a business-owner, a husband and a father, it was frequently difficult for my husband to know how things were actually going. A discouraging week could be followed by a productive one, a brilliant speech could be followed by one that fell flat. Did we over-react or under-react to a child’s problem? In many cases, it is a matter of weeks, months, years and even a lifetime before we can gauge our success. 

Not so with teak. One sets out to tackle a worn, tired looking patch of deck and after applying polish, time and elbow grease that same area is a shiny pleasure to behold. Of course the change won’t last, but for a short while you know that the job is well done. 

My version of wood polishing is tidying up, and one of my favorite things to tidy is bookshelves. I love seeing favorite editions lined up neatly and I delight in greeting volumes I haven’t perused for a while. Last week, as the world spun out of control, I organized many years’ accumulation of children’s books. 

While the authorities that instantaneously knew that the murderer of church members in Charleston was motivated by racism but found themselves confused as to what could possibly have motivated the murderer of five military members, I sorted books. While politicians explained that giving nuclear weapons to those who hate us would bring peace, I alphabetized fiction. While newspapers covered up stories of violent crime unless the “right” people were the victims, I labelled biographies.   

Amidst it all, I prayed. Yes, I called my political representatives telling them of my concern about the Iran debacle and I took my own private steps to add merit to the world’s balance, but most of all, I prayed. The hatred for God’s guidance, the growing anti-Semitism and anti-Christianism in the world, the betrayal of America’s foundations and the irrational blame placed on Israel demand that we resist these ‘advances’ with all our human effort. However, we will only defeat them with God’s mercy and help. So, I pray for peaceful years when my grandchildren can cuddle up with books, their imaginations venturing far afield while their families and homes provide a safe and secure oasis among a world once again running amok.

We have to do what we can to give young people guidance.
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Useful Idealists

When I wrote last week’s Musing a week in advance and declared that whatever was happening, I was not going to pay much attention, I had no idea that my Musing would run right after one of the most momentous weeks in American history. Two major Supreme Court decisions came down, each of which, in its own way reshaped this country. (As for my week, it was wonderful and you can see some pictures below.) 

The Obergefell vs. Hodges ruling did not happen in a vacuum. It is, in many ways, the logical conclusion of the 1962 and 1963 Supreme Court decisions removing prayer and Bible reading from government schools. A featured player in those endeavors was Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who, according to her son, openly stated her goal of bringing down the United States. These rulings effectively began the powerful process dedicated to replacing the idea from our Declaration of Independence that our rights come from our Creator, with the concept that rights emanate from government. 

The overwhelming majority of those who supported Madalyn Murray O’Hair, including I daresay, the Supreme Court Justices who signed on to the ruling, did not share her adoration of the Soviet Union or her hatred for America. They weren’t even the Americans and other Soviet apologists around the world who were known as ‘useful idiots’. Those people believed the propaganda put out by the Communists and, depending on their level of influence, helped suppress any facts that contradicted the false, rosy picture those in control painted. Their passionate defense of what they wanted to believe rather than reality made them the unwitting supporters of misery and bloodshed. 

However, the average American of good will who felt sympathy for the atheist child in school, or Heaven have mercy, the way too many misguided Jews who saw these rulings as a victory, were mostly good and virtuous people. Those who supported taking prayer and Bibles out of schools were often highly schooled themselves, articulate and accomplished. However, they lacked a Godly moral compass and the historical wisdom that would have told them that their efforts would lead to the dangerous and ineffective school system that exists today. They scoffed at those who claimed that education institutions would be harmed, thereby trapping children of all and no faiths in wretchedness and effectively ending America being a land of opportunity for so many. Many would still argue that those Supreme Court decisions have no bearing on the decline of education, rather they simply happened to coincide. I disagree. 

The majority of people supporting homosexual marriage today are neither evil nor stupid. In many cases, they are the result of an education that left them historically ignorant, stripped of a Biblical moral code,  and open to manipulation. They are well-meaning, kind and intelligent. Nonetheless, they are being used to advance an agenda that already is leading to suppression of free speech, association and religion—in other words, the end of America as we know it. They sincerely believe the replacement will be better; I sincerely believe it will be a tragedy leading to greater poverty, increased inhumanity and more barriers to opportunity— all results that will dismay these useful idealists.

We are seeing the results of almost sixty years of a societal take-over. Too many in our country, let alone immigrants who are kept from learning what ‘American culture’ traditionally meant, are highly schooled though poorly educated; highly indoctrinated with underdeveloped powers of independent thought; technologically advanced but deprived of the gift of insightful contemplation, highly emotional  and poorly equipped to handle thoughts that differ from their own. They pride themselves on ‘inclusiveness’ while exhibiting breath-taking bigotry. 

Are there enough Americans willing to still fight for the country of our Founders? It will require individuals who, struggling to feed their families in a moribund economy, will still take the time to educate themselves in history (both ours and of other countries), in politics, in logic and in elocution among other fields. It will require courage, stamina and firmness of character to withstand ad hominem attacks. It will require determination not to be dissuaded by setbacks. It will require faith in God, despite economic and social punishment for that belief. I personally hope I am up to the battle—I will pray for strength and strive to be. 

Here are two places to begin. In World War I, especially in Britain, white feathers were distributed to those men who didn’t enlist. It is time to shame those who profess love for this country and God but do not vote, whether in a presidential, senatorial or school board election. There should be 100% turnout among those appalled at the direction this country is taking.  

Secondly, we all must fight for the next generation. That means taking charge of our children and grandchildren’s education, protecting them from the culture and presenting loving, coherent and intelligent counter-forces. It will be a full time job, but like the man who planted a tree knowing that it would never grow quickly enough for him to enjoy its shade in his lifetime, it is our obligation to take a page from secular fundamentalists and plan for decades down the road even as we try to fight the onslaught currently heading our way. 

 

 

 

 

Choice or Consequence?

 

More than 6,000 people attended 90 year old Winston Churchill’s funeral. More than 400 people attended 92 year old Chaya Gretman’s funeral. Both these lives were irrevocably altered by the Nazis, and the homage paid to them at death directly reflected this fact. 

Who was Chaya Gretman?* Most of the Israelis who escorted her body to burial knew little about her. What they did know was that she was a Holocaust survivor who, as the victim of Nazi medical experimentation, could not bear children.  When she died, her neighbors used social media to ask her extended family, the Jewish people, to pay her this final respect. Hundreds responded.

Last week, our Ask the Rabbi questioner asked whether there were single mothers in the Bible. We printed only part of the response we originally wrote. We were concerned about sounding insensitive to women who are despairing of marriage and yearning motherhood, so we deleted part of our answer.

What we left out was a paragraph discussing how the Tanach (Five Books of Moses, Prophets and Writings) heavily links widows and orphans. Society is obligated to care for widows and orphans, clearly suggesting that the word orphan refers to a fatherless child. What does this mean for our society, where so many make the voluntary choice to raise fatherless children? Does this suggest that mothers don’t matter, that a motherless child is not an orphan? 

God’s instructions provide guidance for successful societies. A child  whose mother is dead lacks so much, but society as a unit cannot fill that void. Individuals can and should provide extra warmth and loving kindness to such an orphan, but by definition those maternal qualities are hard for society to command or supply. A child whose father is dead lacks much, including protection and financial support. Those are things that we can obligate extended families and society to supply. The Bible does so.

Is this a proof that we must increase taxes and provide more social services to single mothers and their children? No, it is not. You see, the number of fathers who die is finite. We can deal with that. Once society devolves so that fatherhood is not valued and is voluntarily renounced, compensating for what those children lack moves beyond what is possible. In a similar way, in a healthy society most people marry and have children. Those children, and the children’s children, mourn the death of their parents and grandparents. When the rare individual dies childless, either because he or she was not blessed with children, or tragically because children pre-decease them, or, as in the case of Chaya Gretman, human cruelty decrees they be childless, society in general can step in. 

As today’s culture validates, and even encourages, people not to have children, more and more people will - by choice - die without descendants. The older they are when they die, the fewer of their same-aged relatives and friends will be around. Perhaps, like Winston Churchill, they will have benefitted so many during their lives that multitudes of all ages will yearn to honor them (as did my husband who as a young boy attended Churchill’s funeral). Barring that, society will not be able to substitute for offspring, as it did for Chaya Gretman. 

 

*A thank you to Jewish Mom blogger, Chana Jenny Weisberg, for bringing Mrs. Gretman’s funeral to my attention.

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Encourage the young people in your life to make wise choices