Assimilator vs Articulator

I am an assimilator.

Not in the way you might think of the term.  I’m not in favor of Jews becoming assimilated.

Here’s what I mean.  

When I learn something that sits well with me, that resonates with a sense of truth,  that idea becomes part of my subconscious reference universe.  From then on, whatever I should I encounter in life, learning, or experience will be evaluated somehow in that intangible realm.  It either “feels” right, or not.

An articulator, on the other hand, is one of those amazing individuals who remember almost word for word what they have learned, and exactly who taught it.  They can access all this information at seemingly lightning speed, make all the logical connections necessary to evaluate new information, and articulate the similarities and distinctions that have emerged.

It’s not that I can’t.  I’m just not disciplined enough to do it.  At least, not usually.

After all, it seems to me that the ultimate purpose of articulating thought, is so that it can be understood and then assimilated.  So why bother with the middle man?

Here’s a story.  When I lived in the Virgin Islands, my parents had a house high up on the side of a mountain overlooking the harbor of Charlotte Amalie.  I remember once my brother and I were sitting on the veranda, and he was talking to me.  (My brother, Marty, was finishing up a BA in Religion at Syracuse University.  He would go on to get his MA from Florida State, and his Ph.d from Brown University.  He became a Professor of Comparative Religion at the University of Virginia, and then moved on to the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was a tenured Professor until he retired.)  Anyway, Marty is an articulator, verbally and in writing.  

So, I don’t remember the exact subject of his articulation, but it was something about the relationship of thought to perception and it’s relation to action in the world.  While he was speaking, I noticed something below in the underbrush, and blurted something like “Look Marty, a mongoose!”.  Marty stopped in mid-sentence.  He looked at me and said, “Here I am talking about it, and you’re doing it.”

One problem with being an assimilator, is that you really have nothing to show for it.  What I mean is, I can’t enumerate or quantify what I have learned.  It only shows up during a conversation or a discussion, but even then, I can’t specify who taught this, or where, or when.  I am so impressed by people who can specify “chapter and verse”.

I am so fortunate to have sons who put up with this.  They are always very supportive and encouraging in our learning together, and I pretend not to know that I’m not being very impressive.  My youngest, Avi, learns with me over the phone every week.  He decided during his recent visit to Israel (with his amazing bride, Leah Gittel), that he would teach me a method of learning, and that by the time we finished Masechet Chagigah, I would be able to learn any gemora.  We learn once a week, and I am supposed to review 20 minutes a day - the new stuff and back to the beginning.

Trouble is, there’s an expectation that I am putting it to memory.  Well, I can remember the concepts, and maybe even apply them, but word for word?  And who said what?  And the structure of the argument?  Well, “that dog don’t hunt”.  

I was listening to a psychology lecture by Jordan Peterson.  It was the first lecture of a course on personality at the University of Toronto.  He was giving pointers to his students about how to study.  He said that highlighting doesn’t help.  After reading, he recommended writing a summary of the section you read, to assist in remembering it.

That seemed like a good idea to me, and has some similarities to Avi’s method.  So I decided I would sit down and start to memorize the gemora I’m learning.  Summarizing it in my head, so to speak.  I’ve had some success, but my personality is very rejectionist about this kind of thing.  I had the same reaction to memorizing mathematical formulas way back in high school.  I spent practically the first 12 years of my life memorizing times tables, spelling lists, historical dates, scientific and geographic terminology.  I realize that some things just have to be memorized, but I think I’ve paid my dues!

As my Mother, of blessed memory, would say, "What are you knocking yourself out for?".

I feel the same way, at this point in my life, about regular schedules.  

Anyway, I ought to just come out and admit it.  I’m lazy.  I’m lazy, and then I whine about it.  There’s nothing more pathetic than that.

But I also believe in perseverance and discipline.  So I battle myself daily.  When I win, it’s great.  When I don’t, I tend to feel sorry for myself.  I suspect that I waste half of every week this way.  Imagine what I could accomplish if I only had a single-minded purpose?

Working on myself is my full-time job, which is actually justifiable from a Torah perspective, so maybe I’m doing OK after all?  There have been critical moments in my life which required instantaneous action.  Fully assimilated knowledge becomes practically instinctual.  Without thinking, I reacted at light speed with precision and accuracy.  That’s not necessarily what an articulator might be capable of.  I felt good about that.

Or maybe not?

Or, is it just me?

RockaMySoul

This post dedicated to Avrum Weisss - friend, chavrusa, scouter of sources of Torah, who listens to my ravings with interest, and encourages me to write them down.  Thanks Avrum. This post is your fault!

Sometimes various realms of reality come together in a strange way.  One new piece of information or an experience of learning triggers bits of information that have been stored away until a connection arises.  You can glorify this by calling it random access memory or, perhaps more accurately - stream of consciousness, or free association.

I recently had an experience of this type, during a shiur where we were learning from R. Noson’s Likutei Halachos, Orach Chaim, Hilchos Tefillas Mincha, 4:1.

R. Noson brings from Rebbe Nachman how careful we have to be at the time for dovening Mincha.  It was at this time, just before the creation of the world, that God somehow withdrew or contracted his presence so that something else could exist.  This is the afternoon before “and there was evening, and there was morning”.

This “space” from which God withdrew his presence is known as the Chalal HaPanui - the “Unoccupied Vacuum”.  The time of mincha, then, is a time to be carefully aware that God’s presence is in some way in a state of relative absence.

R. Noson goes on to speak about questions and doubts for which we have no apparent answers.  The answers to these questions are beyond our understanding, and so we must rely on our Emunah to accept that they are Truth.  These kinds of questions, he says, are formed from the Chalal HaPanui - that Unoccupied Vacuum - from which God removed himself (and continues to do so at this time every day) in order for the world to exist.

Therefore, says R. Noson, if one were to actually be able to answer these questions, and therefore fill that vacuum, then one would locate God there - which is impossible - for to do that would eliminate the Chalal HaPanui which allows for Creation to be, and thus this world would cease to exist. So it is forbidden to seek the answers to these questions.

R. Yitzchok Bell, our teacher, explained that there are actually three levels of God’s presence implied here - 1. the heavens, where His presence is complete, 2. in this world, where His presence is concealed, and 3. in the Chalal HaPanui, where His presence is absent.  Yet, R. Noson goes on to say that God is always present, even in the Chalal HaPanui!  Don’t ask me how that works.  I don’t know.  This is an unresolvable contradiction.

It is one of those things that are impossible to comprehend.  Reb Noson says the only approach to such things is through Emunah - that is the only way we can live within this state of contradiction.

That brought to mind one of the corollaries of Murphy’s Law: “There are Some Things Which are Impossible to Know, But it is Impossible to Know these Things”.

Then the old Spritual, from the days of slavery in America, called Rocka My Soul, came to mind.  It goes like this (at least this is one version):

Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,

Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,

Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,

O Rocka My Soul, O Lordy,

So high you can’t get over it,

So low you can’t get under it,

So wide you can’t get around it,

Ya gotta go in through the door.

My cranial synapses crackled and sparked and came up with this:  this song is perhaps about how to co-exist with existential questions that have no answers - they are too high, too low, and too wide - so you have to enter that world through the front door - Emunah.  Abraham was the ultimate man of faith - Emunah - who encountered the unknowable All Present, and who marched unquestionably into the unknown when commanded by God.  Father Abraham, please hold us close, and give us of your Emunah, so that we can live meaningfully despite our profound inability to fully understand.

Those snapping neurons then came up with something else regarding the three worlds of God’s presence - heaven (all present), this world (concealed presence), and Unoccupied Vacuum (no presence).  

There was a series of recordings way back in the enlightened age of the 60’s and 70’s by a group called Firesign Theater.  They were a surreal comedy group, that recorded complex tales containing multiple levels of allusion and reference, which were primarily listened to by stoned out hippies and college students (of course, I was neither of those!).  You could listen to them over and over, and hear new things that you hadn’t noticed in the first 100 listens.  (Wow !  Far out !).

Anyway, they had one album that asked the question: “How Can You Be in Two Places at Once when You’re not Anywhere at All”.  God is in heaven, God is in this world, but He’s nowhere at all in the Unoccupied Vacuum, but actually He is!  This is one of the unanswerable questions of R. Noson !

Now, I have also been listening to the University lectures of Jordan Peterson, of the University of Toronto.  He’s a Clinical Psychologist who wrote a book entitled Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief.  Simply put, it’s about the psychology of religion, although it’s really much more than that.  It’s about how to find meaning in life.

He emphasizes that it is the nature of human beings to explore the unknown and plumb it for the riches (moral, psychological, social, physical, etc.) that are hidden amongst the dangers that lurk there.  He talks about the archetypical Hero who has the “heroic willingness to encounter the unknown, articulate it, and share that with people.  There’s no nobler vision than that”.

According to Peterson, it is essential for individuals to encounter what is beyond what they know in order to grow and thrive.  People are very complex, and so these encounters take place on many inter-related levels, primarily in the realm of social interaction.  Each level he calls a Map.  It is when all of our maps stack up and align along a single axis, when we find the coherent thread that is common to them all, that we discover the value structure in our lives.  That is the Map of maps, the Meta-Map.  Hence, Maps of Meaning.  

He points out how essential it is to discover the meaning in our lives through ACTION, because what we value is revealed to us via what we do, though it may remain consciously unarticulated.

I have been profoundly affected by this series of 12 lectures, and also a simpler version of his book, entitled 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos.  

So, bringing this back to R. Yitzchok’s shiur - he talked about Rebbe Nachman’s concept of Niggun - which he said is best described as harmony.  A niggun is commonly understood as a chasidic wordless melody, but Rebbe Nachman’s concept of Niggun is much more than that.  

It seems to me that, like action, Niggun expresses what has not been articulated, and is understood without speech, which would limit its completeness.  We can learn from Niggun, or our actions, what is meaningful to us even if not articulated, just like the harmony that is revealed when levels of maps of meaning are aligned via their common element, or when we listen to a symphony, or when we get a joke.  That’s how something we hear or see may instantly resonate within us, and express an as yet unarticulated truth.

This is possible because, according to Peterson, the articulated world is like waking thought.  It strives for coherence by selecting for what is relevant, and imposing order. Dream thought is inarticulate.  It strives for completeness by paying attention to everything, ascribing equal relevance to all experience.  “Waking thought sacrifices completeness for coherence, whereas dream thought sacrifices coherence for completeness”.  We have to limit our perceptions in order to focus on a coherent view of our reality in order to function in the world, despite knowing very little of it. “You have to move through the entire world even though you don’t know it in detail”.

Niggun may be a form a dream thought.  Incoherent, yet complete. Perhaps like the idea of Shira in the Torah.  I wondered about the possibility, through art or music, of fully expressing Shir shel Yam without the words. How could such an experience be completely expressed in mere words?  I wish the Niggun had been preserved as well.

OK, so, getting back to the inherent contradictions in the concept of Chalal HaPanui.  Peterson talks about how the ideal state of existence is to have one leg in the “explored” world, and one in the unknown, the world of chaos.  Chaos, like water, is “a constant source of renewal - drink the chaos of life - chaos is water - washing away too much order.”  “The proper amount of chaos is the water that nourishes the garden”.  Just like a river flooding it's banks restores fertility to the land.  

That edge zone where we encounter contradiction, the flood plain, is the place where the known and the unknown meet.  What we can understand, and what we might never understand.  And that place of contradiction is itself a source of energy and creativity.  God created Contradiction (He is, and yet He isn’t), through which the world could come into Being.  In the terminology of Ecology, this is a concept called the “edge effect”.  Where two different ecosystems meet, this is where the most bio-diversity is found.  It is where nature is most prolific.

The known (the absence of contradiction) is a comfortable and safe retreat from the encounter with contradiction (the unknown), but only a respite.  It is not a healthy or permanent state.  We regroup in the known, in order to return to the exhausting yet energizing creative state.  The Friction of Contradiction is what creates energy and existence, like the generation of electricity through the interaction of oppositely charged magnets.

As Peterson says “Being is a problem.  If you want to have no problems, then there is no Being”.  As I understand it, the unanswerable questions are a problem.  But, if you remove them, you eliminate Being itself.  They are there expressly for us to grapple with, because that struggle generates Being.  Without the struggle, it all disappears.

This reminded me of something that Rabbi Menachem Goldberger brought down from his Rebbe, Rabbi Shloime Twersky, ztz"l.  To paraphrase: we grow in leaps from one level to the next.  At each level, we rest and assimilate what we have learned.  Then, we make the next leap.  It is during the leap between levels that we encounter the Eternal. 

peekaboo !

And this brought to mind an article written by Morty Tenenbaum in the journal Introspection, Number 2, 5764 (2003-2004),  entitled “Humor as a Spiritual Experience”.  It is about the nature and function of laughter.  God is playing an eternal game of peek-a-boo with us.  He is here and not here simultaneously.  And this generates laughter.  
(see https://isitjustme-nisan.blogspot.com/2014/07/absurdity-these-and-these-are-both.html)

He writes:

“The moment the existential paradox becomes resolved is when we react to something by laughing.  We can’t explain how a single undifferentiated unity lies at the center of a world of pluralities, being and nothingness.  Existence is comprised of the jarring fusion of singularity and plurality, being and nothingness.  Humor consists of a living example of a single concept imbued with multiple incompatible concepts, the coexistence of opposites.  At the moment of laughter we get it.  We understand not through thought or reason, but our sense of humor is indeed just that, an awareness of the single undifferentiated whole lurking behind our pluralistic existence.  Humor and existence ask and answer the same question in the same way.  ‘Is it, or isn’t it?’  Both!”  

Which is exactly what I did (laugh, that is. Not too loud I hope) in the midst of the shiur.  Because, as Sherlock Holmes would say, “the game is afoot!”

Now, I have to say that I take some exception to the idea, presented by R. Noson, that certain things are simply forbidden to ask questions about.  To my mind, that is a serious error.  Doing so pushes people away.  But perhaps at the time he was writing, the circumstances were so dire that this was prudent.  I do know that in the 12th century, Rambam’s books were burned, by Jews, in France.  I also know that centuries later Rebbe Nachman explicitly lists Rambam’s Guide to the Perlexed as forbidden to read, because of the danger of polluting holy thought with foreign knowledge.  Rebbe Nachman’s own teachings, as well, were considered too dangerous to learn by the Chernobyl chasidim and their offshoots.  So there seems to be enough of this kind of thing to go around.

Peterson constantly uses the analogy of the dragon and his horde of gold.  The unknown is dangerous, but that’s where the gold is.  It's where Bilbo Baggins has to go to fulfill his potential.  As Peterson says, "Don't let what you are stop you from being what you could be".  To my mind, that encounter is what keeps existence afloat.  The dragon, chaos, the unknown and perhaps unknowable, is in Tenenbaum’s terms “the single undifferentiated whole lurking behind our pluralistic existence”.

Is any of this true?  Is this correct?  Or is it just the result of random free associations in the confused mind of a geriatric student of life?

I don’t know.  But if you are ever wondering why I am staring whimsically off into space, or making random puns and associations, uttering non sequiturs, singing obscure songs, or even laughing out loud, you’ll know that chaos is getting the better of me.

Or is it just me?

Where is Captain Kangaroo Now That We Really Need Him?

I know that it’s foolish to wish for the “good old days”.  Makes me feel like Walter Brennan (“Gran-pappy Amos, the head of the clan, roars like a lion but he’s gentle as a lamb”) in the 50’s TV series The Real McCoys, thumping around on his gimpy leg, complaining to Luke about what has changed for the worse down at The Grange meetings.  

Or like someone in the old Broadway show “Flower Drum Song”, complaining about “what’s the matter with kids these days!”.

My childhood memories are just that, the memories of a child, blissfully unaware of the controversies and hostilities of the times in which I grew up.  As an adult, I now know that the 1950’s and 1960’s were hardly a period of “simple peace and harmony”, as they say in Fiddler on the Roof.  

But for me as a kid, it was a time of Captain Kangaroo, Roy Rogers, I Love Lucy, My Three Sons, The Wonderful World of Disney, and the like.  And it wasn’t just entertainment that was different. So was the news. I can’t imagine Walter Cronkite broadcasting the kinds of blatant lies, half truths, and propaganda that pass for news “nowadays”.

I was fortunate to get an outstanding education.  In elementary school, junior high, and high school I learned civics and social studies.  

I learned about the structure of the government at the state and federal levels, the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, American and European History, southeast Asia, even the history of reconstruction in Japan after WWII.  Not to mention the usual math, science, English, French, literature, and music.

I attended an outstanding University, where every Freshman had to take two semesters of P & R - Philosophy, Religion, & Drama.  That’s every Freshman.  A basic background in the cornerstones of Western civilization - thought, faith, and dramatic expression - as well as non-western cultures.  I continued with course work in Philosophy, Religion, History, Literature, Psychology, Biology, and Chemistry.

At all levels, I learned the importance of critical thought, civil discourse, differences of outlook and opinion, and the thoughtful consideration of seemingly conflicting ideas in the pursuit of what is true - or at least what is workably close to truth - even those ideas you might not be inclined to hear or accept.  

That is the magic of America.  That’s how it works.  That is how we can all call ourselves Americans, no matter who we voted for, or where we originated.  That’s how a civilization not only survives, but thrives.  I accepted this perspective as a common understanding which was universally accepted.  

Silly me.

Of course, there were things like the Viet Nam War and the battle for Civil Rights.  I marched against the war, and I demonstrated my support for the struggle for Civil Rights.  

But I could never go as far as some did in the rhetoric they used.  I remember being at a rally where the chant was “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”.  This disgusted me.  Did they really think that LBJ sat in the White House gleefully counting the dead?  Disagree, protest, even vehemently, but since when do we demonize?  

No matter how I felt about the War, Johnson was the President of the United States.  Show some respect for the Office, if not the man.  Same thing with Nixon.  Boy, was I glad to see him go, but he was the President - and respect for that Office I considered a civic obligation, no matter how I felt about the occupant, because without that we place the Nation at risk.

Today it seems so different.  

College students, when asked about the Constitution, don’t know what the Bill of Rights is, and express disdain for the right of free speech.  They don’t know what Checks and Balances are, and the responsibilities of the respective branches of government. 

Respect for institutions, people, and different ideas is not considered a virtue.  Speakers are violently driven off campus. and college administrations condone it.  Facts don’t matter.  There are crazies at every extreme and the middle is scattering for cover.  

Both extremes hate lots of people.  Where did these people grow up? Certainly not in the bubble of fairness and brotherhood that I grew up in.  What’s so inspiring about hate, anyway? 

Hate feels horrible.

Whatever happened to working out our differences so that we could find a middle ground that is a better alternative for most people?  

I naively believe that at some point, it did exist.  Perhaps only grudgingly, since many of the Founding Fathers couldn’t stand one another.  They fought, and argued, and debated (and slandered), but somehow they compromised for what they saw as the common good.  Is that even possible in our time?  

Governing has become a pissing contest about who can beat up who without having to take any real responsibility for anything, and blaming the inevitable disaster on the other guy.  Maybe it was always this way, but I don’t think so.  

In our time, nothing seems to be considered too low to say or do in pursuit of “winning”.  Well, maybe it was this bad in the lead-up to the Civil War.  Like Charles Sumner being beaten unconscious with a cane on the floor of the Senate - by another Senator!.  Is that where we’re heading?  If so, I am glad I won’t be in America to see it.

Unless the purveyors of invective get back on their meds, I am honestly afraid that the result will be political violence.  And then where will we be?  Who will be better off?  

When there are political figures and Members of Congress who openly encourage harassment of opponents, and announce an end to civil discourse and debate, what other possible outcome is there? 

As Dorothy observed in The Wizard of Oz, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

Or is it just me?

Political History Statement

I am 66 years old.  In sequential order, I have lived in New York City and its  suburbs, the U.S. Virgin Islands, upstate NY, Virginia, Massachusetts and Maryland.  I have lived in Israel since 2013.

I attended Colgate University in Hamilton, NY.  I originally wanted to study Religion, Philosophy, and History, but ultimately studied Biology.  I studied botany, ornithology, herpetology, entomology, ecology, genetics, and chemistry.  I marched against the Viet Nam war, and I visited the Black Panthers in New York City.  

I worked for three years in the Botany Dept. at the Smithsonian Institution. I completed my Master’s at William and Mary, in Virginia. My Master’s thesis is on Bald Eagle Nest Site Selection and Foraging Behavior.  I sought work in wildlife biology but never found it, except for a brief stint one summer working with Peregrine Falcons.

Most of my professional career has been in data processing, first in the private sector, then in the Federal government at the Social Security Administration.  I also had a parallel career as a Licensed Massage Therapist for 20 years.  I am married, all three of my children are married, and I have six grand-children.  

My “Ethnicity Estimate” from Ancestry.com is: 87% European Jewish, 5% Southern Europe, 2% Caucasus, 2% Middle East, 1% Scotland/Ireland/Wales, <1% Eastern Europe, <1% Scandinavia, 1% East Asia.

My voting record in Presidential elections is as follows:

1972 - McGovern

1976 - Ford

1980- Carter

1984 - Mondale

1988 - Dukakis

1992 - Clinton

1996 - Clinton

2000 - Bush

2004 - Bush

2008 - McCain

2012 - Romney

2016 - write-in: Pence/Weld

One can see the overall trend from liberal to conservative in my voting record.  I had high hopes for Clinton, but in the end, I felt I needed to shower every time I saw his face.  That was the end of the Democrats for me.

In the last election, I certainly wasn’t going to vote for Clinton, but couldn’t bring myself to vote for Trump.  My personal preferences in the Republican field of candidates would have been Kasich or Rubio.  So I wrote-in Pence for President and William Weld (the Libertarian VP candidate) for VP.

I know that a lot of people passionately hate Donald Trump, to the extent that family members won’t talk to each other.  To the point of violence, and character assassination.  To the point of throwing people out of restaurants.

There are many things that bother me about President Trump.  He is inarticulate.  He is unable to express himself except in the simplest words.  He isn’t slick; he’s as blunt as a spoon. He relies on Twitter, of all things, to express opinions, to berate and deride his opponents.  He shoots from the hip too often.  His hair is stupid.  He always has this smug expression on his face, that reminds me of Mussolini.  I’ll bet that he talks with his mouth full, burps at the table, and farts in public.

I had a short but interesting conversation with an Aunt of mine, who had just turned 90.  I called to wish her happy birthday.  Then she started in about how I must be happy with Trump.  I indicated to her that he is great for Israel, compared to Obama.  She grudgingly acknowledged that, while at the same time saying he is ruining America, he is separating children and parents at the border, and that  “Obama was a gentleman”.

I hadn’t called to get into a pointless political discussion.  I just wanted to tell my Aunt that I loved her.  So that’s what I did, and we parted with affection.  What I thought of saying to her was “Neville Chamberlain was a gentleman, too”. 

Does anyone reading this know who Neville Chamberlain was?  The state of education is such that I’d be happy if 50% know anything about the Prime Minister of Great Britain who appeased Hitler rather than opposing him.  He was gentleman enough to resign once the spot-on predictions of the decidedly un-gentlemanly Winston Churchill came to pass.  But he wasn’t gentleman enough not to continue to undercut Churchill’s efforts to fight Germany, rather than capitulate.  So much for “gentlemen”.  I suppose Trump would call Chamberlain a “loser”.

My goal is not to compare Churchill to Trump.  My point is that someone who is slick and smooth, articulate, well educated, intelligent, and able to soothe you with sweet words and utopian views of “peace in our time” is not necessarily worth listening to.  The snake in the Garden of Eden was also a smooth talker, and possibly even a gentleman.  My take on Obama is that he looks fair, and feels foul.

When I attempt to look objectively at what President Trump is actually doing, I find it hard to find much that I would disagree with.  He is playing hardball with the tyrants of the world. He is making it possible to do business, find a job and make a living in America.  He is defending American industry from unbalanced foreign trade.  He is attacking violent gangs.  He is not following the European model (and the Obama model) of hating your own history, and committing cultural suicide in order to do penance.  He is showing up the UN for the fraud that it is.  Fix what’s wrong, but keep what’s strong.

Americans as a whole do not know how their own government works.  No one learns civics or history anymore.  It is up to the Congress to pass laws.  It is up to the President to enforce laws.  If Congress passes a law, it is incumbent upon the Executive Branch to enforce that law.  That’s how it is supposed to work.  So, getting back to my Aunt’s reference to separating children of illegal immigrants from their parents at the border - this is a law passed by Congress and signed by a previous President, that every following President is supposed to enforce.  At one point even Obama enforced this.  

The purpose is to protect children from being incarcerated with adults.  Not every immigrant is a “poster” immigrant, not every parent is a “poster” parent, not every child is a “poster” child, not everyone who claims to be a parent is a parent.  Yes, the President somehow has the option not to do so, but the alternative has been “catch and release”.  Proven to be a very dangerous choice, with some disastrous, even fatal, consequences.

There is no question about the humanitarian issues involved.  But I have seen very little written about what is going on in those Latin American countries.  What is it that causes people to choose such a life-threatening option; to trek thousands of miles, to a country they’ve never seen, for a life that may be an illusion, and the real possibility of death along the way and deportation upon arrival?  

Why aren’t those countries held responsible for this humanitarian disaster they have created?  Why aren’t they working for the betterment of their own people?  What is the so-called United Nations doing about it?  Who is holding these governments responsible?  Why are there no consequences for these regimes?  

Better yet, why isn’t this being debated by the so-called UN Commission on Human Rights?  Refugees are pouring out of Syria as well.  Now that Jordan has closed it’s doors, they are running - of all places - to Israel.  Currently 60,000 are reported on their way to the hated Zionist Entity.  Thousands of Syrian wounded have already been treated in Israeli hospitals.   After recovery, they are returned to Syria.  What is the UNHRC doing about this exodus and the situation that is causing it?  Isn’t it the responsibility of the UN to provide safe haven for refugees?  Will refugees from Syrian, Iranian, ISIS, and Russian atrocities become eternal refugees for generations?  Will they have the “right of return”?  Or will they be assimilated into neighboring countries? 

Aside from Syria and Jordan, there are 20 other Arab states.  There are a total of 50 Muslim-majority states.  How many refugees are they taking in?  How many are they treating in hospitals?  Why should they be Israel’s responsibility, why should they be Europe’s responsibility, and why should it be America’s responsibility to allow unrestricted and illegal immigration from Latin American tyrannies?  Why aren’t Latin American countries coming to the rescue?  What has Mexico done for anyone lately?

One of Trump’s advantages is that he really doesn’t care what you think of him.  He just wants results.  And he knows how to play to his opponents’ - and even his erstwhile supporters’ - personal interests.  He is a Capitalist.  He knows that ultimately Congress acts when it is in their self-interest to do so.  He wants immigration reform.  Congress has failed to do so since the Bush years.  So he simply enforces the law in order to cause a hue and cry from both sides of the aisle.  Everyone is ticked off because “how will this play out on election day?”.

Say what you want, but he is a genius.  The cards are still on the table, and no one has cashed in their chips yet, but North Korea comes to a summit, Iran is coming apart at the seams with domestic unrest, and, miracle of miracles, Congress is finally talking immigration reform.  Jerusalem is now recognized as the Capital of Israel, the PA is becoming recognized as a sham, even Hamas is occasionally being criticized, and Prince William makes the first official trip to Israel by a member of the British Royal family.  Not bad for just two years in.  

The opposite of hate is not love.  The opposite of hate is sanity.  Hate is, essentially, a form of insanity.  If you find yourself full of hate, you should realize that you are, at best, temporarily insane.  So these people running around foaming at the mouth with hate for Trump are no better than Palestinians screaming “Death to America, Death to Israel” (or even “Death to Palestine” as we have recently heard in Iran, which shouldn’t warm my heart, but it does.  I am working on myself.)  Why death? Why hate? Is that the best alternative you have to offer?

No one knows what rules Trump is playing by, and that is his brilliance.  He catches everyone by surprise, and keeps everyone off balance.  But the results seem to speak for themselves.   It simply doesn’t matter what I think of him.  And he doesn’t care what I think of him, anyway.  If he needs to bypass the mainstream media and make news by Twitter, then so be it.  Let the media change itself in response.  It’s a free market place, and you have to change to compete.

This is the stuff that swirls through my mind at 3 AM after I wake up from some weird dream or, as happens more and more frequently, my bladder and I float to the bathroom.

So I ask you, is it just me?

What Matters the Most

בס׳ד

Remembering is a large part of what it means to be a Jew.

There’s nothing very novel about this statement.  This is not something that I just realized or became aware of.  But lately it has become very clear to me just how much time, energy, and expense so many of us put into memorializing loved ones and friends who are no longer with us.  

This is especially true when it comes to tragic losses.  Tragedies occur everywhere, but certainly, here in Israel, we have more than our share of tragic loss.

Just this month, I have seen announcements and reminders for memorial events - azkarot in Hebrew - for young people lost through accidents, terror attacks, and acts of heroism.  People organize and attend to these gatherings year after year.  

I receive facebook posts, emails, essays that memorialize and extol loved ones, and mourn their loss and the empty place that their departure has left behind, that can never again be truly filled.

Comforting is also a part of what it means to be part of a Jewish community.

The one who mourns gives each of us the opportunity to be one who comforts.  We join them in their mourning, so that they should not mourn alone.  People travel to practically anywhere in Israel to go to the shiva house of an individual or family that is mourning the loss of a loved one through terror and murder.  Complete strangers, but brethren nevertheless. I have done so myself. 

We bond together through our common suffering, and consolation.  We also bond with each other through our celebrations of life in births, marriages, and our various rites of passage.

My father, A”H, used to go out of his way to attend every simcha he could.  And I mean “out of his way”.  For 10 years of his life, my parents lived in the Virgin Islands. But you could be sure if there was a simcha in New York, or Chicago, or Florida, my Dad and Mom would be there.

As for me, I remember once that there was a family simcha that I just felt it wasn’t truly necessary for me to go to.  In speaking with an acquaintance, she made the point that if, Gd forbid, it was something other than a simcha, would I think twice about not going?

So why is it that times of mourning, or remembrance, seem to be more compelling to us than times of celebration?  Why are we more likely to skip a bris milah than, Gd forbid, the shiva house of one who has lost a child?

One thing I hear a great deal, are regrets for not having taken the opportunity to spend more time with someone.  We have all too many demands on our limited time.  It’s understandable.  But it also contributes to our regret when this is no longer possible.

How can we avoid this trap?  How can we put as much emphasis on spending normal time with family and friends, as we would on accompanying them to the chupa - or, chas v’shalom, to the kever?

Here is my suggestion: estimate the number of hours you took to prepare for, travel to, attend, and return home from every event of this nature in the past year.  Then commit to spend at least that amount of time this year just being with the people to whose mourners you would travel to comfort.  Or whose simchas you would most certainly attend.

That, in my opinion, is the time that matters the most.

Or is it just me?