It's Been Quite a Week
Saturday–Jeff
I
am a firm believer in facing up to reality and finding a way for making it work
for you when things don’t go as you’d like.
This
week has tested my faith in that philosophy.
First,
on Sunday my friend lost the election for mayor of Mykonos. But that was a week ago, and Greeks are
largely practical people, so by today all but the most vendetta-laden partisan
fires have cooled. Now it’s a matter of finding a way to keep the ship of state
on course to the promised land—as in election promises––while its new crew
members jockey for prime positions aboard the upcoming sail of the new
government (hopefully not a phonetic pun).
While
back in the United States, the Senate and House of Representatives allow a
tyranny of the few to paralyze Congress as our democracy battles existential
threats nigh as hellish as any the country has faced before.
But
above all else, my mind is caught up in an endless loop playing out thoughts
and images of what happened last Saturday, continues today, and no doubt will
intensify for the foreseeable future. I
have no words to describe what happened in Israel. Nor do I need any, for they have all been
said by world leaders and the suffering victims and families caught up in it
all.
Nor
do I need to curse those responsible, for they have cursed themselves…whether
they appreciate that yet or not, they have.
On
a purely personal and selfish level, I thank God for the role the Almighty
played in keeping my son-the-rabbi out of harm’s way.
For
you see, last Monday he was scheduled to leave the US as the co-leader on a trip
to Israel for two dozen elderly congregants. Had the trip begun a few days
before, or the massacre launched a few days later… I dare not wish to think
about it.
There
is no moral equivalency between Greece’s local elections, America’s Congressional
melt down, and Hamas’ cowardly brutal pogrom other than that they all happened
in the same week, and may the good Lord help us through each challenge to a
better place.
Yair Lapid That
said, here is an extraordinary
speech given some years back by Yair Lapid, a former journalist and the current
head of Israel’s centrist party, that is as powerful an explanation of why Israel
is as it is…and shall not change…as I’ve ever heard.
–Jeff
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