Category Archives: Judaism

Family, Holidays, Judaism

Grandkids

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Gabe. Hannukah. Presents all round. Positive affirmations. Yule. Winter Solstice. Alan. Joanne. Hummingbird. Mechanical puzzles. Challah. French toast. Donuts. Shadow away. Gabe admitted to Hamline. Joe. His smile. Applications for school. Shadow Mountain Home. Nathan and the Dog run.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Puzzles

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Yirah.    Radical amazement, awe.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
― Albert Einstein

Becoming a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Blue and white Hannukah gift bags assembled on the table when Ruth and Gabe came inside after their drive up the hill from Denver; Gabe got the menorah and a box of Hannukah candles from the Judaica closet, brought them down to the breakfast table where Ruth busied herself lighting each candles base to seat them in the menorah.

 

The best thank you. As soon we’d finishing opening our presents, Gabe had a puzzle in his hands, already determined. Later on, Ruth, too. These aren’t garden variety puzzles. They come from Kubiya games, ranked in level of difficulty, 1-5. After Gabe finished last year’s puzzles pretty fast, this time I got all 5 level.

He asked me if his struggle was making me happy. I said yes. He laughed.

A season pass to A-Basin, Ruth’s big Hannukah present, had a few smaller ones added to it. A wall-size chromatic color chart, a jigsaw puzzle, vintage, of the human skeleton, and a Silence, Please coffee mug from the Bodleian Library. Gabe got a mug, too.

We’ve been doing Hannukah together since Kate and I moved here eleven years ago yesterday. Some of those early years Jen, Jon, Ruth, Gabe, Kate. Apres divorce no Jen. After Kate died no Kate. After Jon died no Jon. Now the three of us carry on, adding memories and time together.

Gabe got admitted to, and wants to attend, Hamline College in St. Paul. Hamline sits on Snelling Avenue which, further south, runs past St. Paul Central High School, Joe’s alma mater.

My old buddy, Howard Vogel, taught Constitutional Law at Hamline’s law school for many years. Jon graduated from Augsburg College not too faraway in Minneapolis. I lived in St. Paul for several years and Kate and I bought our first house together on Edgcumbe Road. A lot of family history in St. Paul.

Both Ruth and Gabe have finished their semesters. Gabe wants out of high school. So bad. High school sucked, he said echoing more than one senior with only one semester, or as he put it, the final eighth to go.

Ruth completed her first year of pre-med, maintaining her 3.9 gpa and earning the opportunity to become a T.A. in her Chemistry class next semester. She holds down two jobs and carries a full class load.

The grandkids are doing ok.

Aging, Cancer, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Humor, Judaism, Mussar, Politics

Humor as Moral Compass

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Samain and the Shadow Moon  (2 sessions to go)

Wednesday gratefuls: Rich. MVP. Shadow away at boarding school. Clement weather. Polska Kielbasa. Bananas. Tangerines. Celery. Baby Potatoes. Andouille sausage. Scallions. Cherry Tomatoes. Pork loin chops. Sheetpan dinners. Nathan and the Dog run. His next summer move to Kalispell, Montana.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rich

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Malchut   Wonder.   A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Made a mistake, went to MVP, my only night out during the month; even though Marilyn drove, a combination of radiation fatigue, head drop, and this damned hernia acting up made me first lie down on a couch, then ask for a ride home. Geez.

 

I knew better. I’m exhausted from driving to radiation and getting radiated. But I love these folks: Jamie, Susan, Joanne, Ron, Marilyn, Laurie, Rich. Missed last month and missed seeing them all. When Marilyn asked to meet at the usual place, I said yes. Should have said no.

Rich drove me to my car, followed me home, shoveled my deck, and saw me into the house. What a kind and loving man.

Not the return to the group I wanted.

This just in. Marilyn texted me, offered to drive me to my radiation today. Rich must have gone back and reported to the MVP group. I feel blessed to have so many who love me, care about me.

 

Dog journal: Nathan came by from a project just up the road. We discussed the Dog run. He’s built many and has his tricks for working in the Snow on frozen ground. Relieved. Now if that doghouse I want will come back in stock…

 

Just a moment: Sleepy Donald. I can relate. I’ll be 79 in two months and I just had a night. Glad I’m not working hard to cancel the political work of the last century or so. Gotta be tiring, making up enemy lists, figuring which shithole countries to diminish and ban, which cities to occupy, deciding how you can gig the poor yet again. Not to mention acting as warmonger and peace maker in chief. The contradictions alone would level a lesser man.

Don’t know if you watch South Park. Don’t recommend it even though the real South Park lies only an hour’s drive from Shadow Mountain. A former Conifer resident is one of the pair who created it.

It’s gross. Over the top. And, yet. They’re satirizing Trump, Vance, Bondi, Stephen Miller in ways that do make me laugh. Especially Stephen Miller who is portrayed as a creepy, I may lead to your doom, sycophantic butler.

If you can stand it, the satire is spot on.

Humor has always had an uneasy, even dangerous relationship to power. I’m sure more than one court jester lost their head by taking a joke too far.

I admire the South Parks, the Colberts, the Jon Stewarts of our time. Laughing at tyrants exposes them for what they are: weak, petty, cruel leaders who seek power for power’s sake with no moral compass. Humor, oddly enough, is exactly that: a moral compass.

 

 

 

Friends, Health, Judaism, Politics

I Know Which Cup the Coin Is Under

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Luke and Leo. Luke leading the Bagel Table. Shadow and her pleading eyes. I’m hungry, Dad. Rachel, my social worker from Birmingham, Alabama. Alan. The Humming Bird. Challah French Toast. Latkes. Beignets. Having a Creole restaurant in Evergreen. Josh and Sarah. Next week’s pain reduction: hip injection and nerve ablation. Ruth and Gabe, the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Chayei Sarah

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Hakarat Hakov   Gratitude.    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their portion.” Perkei Avot 4:1

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: That place that was the Parkside, then for a minute a Mexican Cantina, has become the Hummingbird, a Creole restaurant owned by Josh and Sarah Hess, members of Beth Evergreen, New Orleans natives, where Alan and I had breakfast, his Eggs Benedict on layered biscuits with a side of latke, mine Challah French Toast with a side of bacon, Chicory Coffee French Press with milk, while we discussed his gracious offer to chaffeur (his word) me to my nerve ablations next Friday, for which I will take, forty minutes in advance, two valiums, one Lyrica and a partridge in a pear tree.

I promised to be an amusing ride. Alan took me to my first PET scan in far away Aurora, where Jon lived. Since I’d never had a PET scan, I worried about claustrophobia. I took a single valium. According to Alan, I was an amusing passenger on the way home. Loose lips.

Turns out I don’t need anything for CT scans or PET scans, as I’ve learned over the years since then. MRI’s of the kind I had recently require anesthesia. The Lyrica and valium for the ablations though is anesthesia for this forty minute procedure and I have to take them forty minutes in advance. Which means the ride to the procedure should be amusing this trip. Looking forward to it.

My medical October will climax this month with a neck brace, a steroid injection in my hip, nerve ablations on my lumbar spine, and 10 sessions of radiation on my T4 vertebrae. I will be glad to put all of these in the finished category. For now. All of them, including the neck brace may require further attention in the future.

 

Just a moment: Red Tie Guy reminds me of those street hustlers with three card monte or the coin under the cup. Follow my hands. Democrats in Epstein’s files. Liberating Venezuela. Solving rising food prices by reducing tariffs he imposed, then claiming credit. Shooting cigarette boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific as though they were an arcade game.

Perhaps we could discuss those blue tinted election results, especially the surge of young women voting Democrat. Or, the Latino vote shifting blue as well. Even in precincts that had gone heavily red tie guy just last year.

Sorry, dude. But I know which cup the coin is under.

 

Closing note: I know. It’s bad. It really is. And, three more long years. Even so. Love. Action. Home. Friends. Family. Dogs. A good book. A good movie. A good meal. The Arapaho National Forest. Lake Superior. Grizzlies and Wolves. Wildlands and Wild Neighbors. The Night Sky. Great Sol each morning.

 

Family, Judaism, Mountains, Paganism, Plants, Reimaging revelation, Wild Neighbors

All Sacred, All One, For All Time

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Alan. Ablations scheduled. Radiation approved, but not scheduled. Hip injection scheduled. Soft collar orthotics in. My medical October has bled far into November. Tom and his telehealth today. Shadow. Her vitality. Sheet pan meals. Cooking again. Canceling Cook Unity. Tara. Aurora Borealis in Colorado. The Edmund Fitzgerald. Lake Superior. Wolf 21.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: a day of rest

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Chesed.  Loving Kindness.        “Kindness is the language the deaf can hear and the blind see.”  Mark Twain

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: The Aurora, shining shimmering curtains of green and red that dance, flow, shift, grow and fade, took them for granted in Andover where for most of the twenty years, I could go out on our front porch and watch them, that placed against the wonder of Coloradans seeing them, many for the first time after these latest, massive coronal ejections.

 

Mother Earth, Great Sol. Yin and yang. Visible when the protective magnetic field of our Mother receives bursts of highly charged particles released during a coronal mass ejection.

Awe. Wonder. Desire. That is, desire to remain here, by this Pond, clothed in the majesty of existence by all that’s holy and sacred.

Another moment, in looking back, when the sacred oneness revealed itself, said look here, can you not understand that the Largemouth Bass, the Goats on the farm, the Trees in the wood lot, Judy, yourself also dance, whirling like dervishes endowed with the holy, connected and interdependent for all time?

Each time I drive home from Evergreen, I drive by Kate’s Valley and her Stream, and further on, past the Upper Maxwell Falls trailhead, the spot where the Elk Bull appeared to me drenched in the Rainy Night, standing on the Forest’s edge. In both places I nod, see them in their apparently mundane clothing, the light of Day suggesting nothing special to see here. A small Mountain Valley, a stand of Aspens along Black Mountain Drive.

Yet. I know. These places revealed their sacred nature to me when I turned over the Bresnahan urn with its flame signatures glazed in earthy, russet colors and spilled into the clear Mountain Stream the final remains of my love, my wife, my soulmate. As that Bull Elk did on a Rainy May night.

They have taught me, in their every day appearance, that no the sacred is not only there in moments of heightened emotion or sudden clarity. Rather, her Stream runs sacred in the light of a November morning, no more and no less sacred than the White Pines and Lodgepoles that line its banks along with the holy Wild Strawberries, the sacred Raspberry. The Water. The Rocks. And the Sky above them. All sacred, all one, for all time.

 

Cooking, Judaism, Torah

A Comedian God?

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Friday gratefuls: Morning kisses from Shadow. Her vitality. Joanne. Tara. Alan. Sarah and Josh, their new restaurant. Newalins style. Dandelion. Deeper darkness. Orion, my Winter friend. Whom I have neglected. Pregnant Cows, Does, Black Bears, and Mountain Lions. Among many others. CBE. Its origin and its present. The Trail. The Ancientrail.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Sheet Pan Meals

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Histapkot.  Contentment. Acceptance.                       I’m comfortable with who I am and with what I have.

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Filled up my copper watering can, picked up a handful of dog treats, went outside into a Mountain late Fall day where the difference between sombre et sol could be fifteen degrees or more;  I watered my brave Carrots, their delicate, frond-like Leaves swaying back and forth in a light morning Breeze, then turned to play with Shadow, following the Sunlight to stay warm while I put treats on the ground or asked her to sit, down, or touch. She smiled, tail wagging.

 

Two Nordicware half sheet pans came yesterday, making my old docent colleague, Linda Jefferies, a few cents richer. Linda’s grandfather invented the bundt cake pan.

Though once a cake baker myself at the Party Cake Bakery in Appleton, Wisconsin, I no longer delight in mixing huge bowls of cake batter and squeezing precisely one pound of it into cake pans sitting on a small scale.

These sheet pans are for my new cooking venture, sheet pan meals. First will be Cabbage and Butter Beans followed by a Shrimp broil. Gradually closing the book on Cook Unity. At least for a while. Either today or tomorrow.

 

Parashat Vayera for tomorrow morning’s bagel table. This important segment of Bereshit (Genesis) has the prophecy to Sarah, at which she laughs. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The exile of Hagar and Ishmael. And, the Akedah, the binding of Isaac.

Not sure which direction Luke will take the morning since it’s impossible to cover a whole parsha in one hour and a half session. Lots of wonderful mythic tales. Sarah, in her late nineties, is told her barrenness will come to an end. She laughs as Abraham did in the previous parsha at the same news. God as the first borscht belt comedian? I love that those sages who stitched together all these different stories included a couple that feature laughter. A pregnant near centenarian? What’s not to laugh at?

But poor Isaac. Sarah’s only son. Whom God instructs Abraham to sacrifice. The Akedah. A test of Abraham’s faith? Therefore our faith in ourselves to handle even the most demanding expectations with which life presents us? I like this idea that each of us may have an Akedah which asks us  to sacrifice what is most dear to us in the name of love.

The midrash. One says the Ram that appears in the bush as an alternative sacrifice for Isaac gives its two horns as the first shofars, one blown at the foot of Mt. Sinai when the wandering Jews receive the Torah and one blown for the coming of the messiah.

Another suggests Satan told Sarah who died of shock and grief.

Yet others see Isaac as older, some see him as old as 37, and a willing participant who tells Abraham to bind him tightly so he won’t struggle and invalidate the offering.

What kind of midrash could you offer?

 

Friends, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

Topophilia

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Mabon and the Samain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Rich and Kim. Her delightful vegetarian soup and Rich’s delivery. Dodgers win game two. Shadow and her snuggles. Artemis laughing at the cold nights. Hip and back pain. Red Tie Guy in Korea. My son, his Korean life. Murdoch, sleeping. Cherry Tomato sheet pan recipes. Ruby’s Snow shoes, tomorrow. Joanne.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kim’s soup

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hochmah.  Wisdom.   “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.”  Perkei Avot: 4:1  Making medical decisions this week.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Rich sat down yesterday after delivering Kim’s soup and we had a philosophical conversation about the difference between discoveries like Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and creativity that results in patents since Rich will teach, for the first time at Mines, a class he and another professor are developing on intellectual property. Fun.

 

Rich: A dear friend who volunteered to be my medical emergency contact and my Colorado medical power of attorney since Joseph’s in Korea. Also a very bright guy who’s taught at the Colorado School of Mines for many years. First constitutional law, then an honor’s class, and now will co-develop the new class on intellectual property.

To give you a sense of Rich’s approach, the first place he took students who will be in this class? A company run by two CSU-Boulder engineers, a couple, who develop open source software (her) and open source hardware (her). He’s also reading a lot of Karl Marx.

Also, a bee keeper. Glad to have him as a friend.

 

Oddity: So I’ve told Rich, Tara, and Ruth about my as yet unscheduled MRI. All three want to take me, be there with me. Geez. I admit I don’t know how to handle this generosity. But. I do appreciate it.

 

Artemis: Didn’t get around to harvesting Kale, Spinach, Beets, planting Garlic. Too focused on finding a new fan, one that won’t wake Shadow and me up at night with sudden illumination. Found a fan with no light. Should work.

Maybe today.

 

Place: The Ancient Brothers topic for this morning.

I always referred to Andover, Minnesota as a place with no there there. From Hwy. 10, up Round Lake Boulevard to 153rd Ave. it was an unbroken chain of franchise restaurants, local businesses in malls, a Walmart, and a grocery store. Once I got home though, to 3122 153rd Avenue, there was a there there.

Partly horticultural artifice with Prairie Grass, Flower beds, Vegetable gardens, an Orchard, and a Fire-pit. Partly a Woods filled with Ash, Elm, Cottonwood, Iron Wood, Oak, thick vines and ground covers.

We created a place with a sense of place. The Prairie Grass harkened back to the original Oak Savannah. The Woods were a remnant of a larger Forest. Our various gardens flourished in the Great Anoka Sand Plain, a geological feature of the Glacial River Warren which drained the formerly vast Lake Winnipeg.

When the time came to move to Colorado, there was no question about where to go. The Mountains were calling. This Winter Solstice will mark my eleventh year on Shadow Mountain, a favorite place.

 

 

Judaism, Torah

Talmud Torah

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Mother Earth. Talmud Torah. Bagels. Cream Cheese. Rosemary bagels. The Morning Service. Kabbalah. Nefesh. Ruach. Neshama. Robbintson, Maine. Shorewood. The Twin Cities. Homes of the Ancient Brothers. Rocky Mountains. Wild Neighbors. The Bears in hyperphagia, getting fat. Elk Bulls, rutting and locking horns. Mule Deer Bucks, too. All timing for optimal Spring time emergence. Clear Colorado Blue Skies. Puffy Cumuli.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Clouds and the Water Cycle

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ometz Lev. Courage of the heart.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Steve Horowitz worked the bagel slicer, sesame seeds dropping to the table, while others passed out paper plates, napkins, and a kitchen knife for the schmear; Cassie reached up behind her and pulled maroon Tanakhs and Siddurs to pass around while Jamie fiddled with his computer so our Canadian friend Bev could join for our study of Bereshit, the first parsha in the Torah cycle.

 

Torah study (Talmud Torah): Since seminary, I’ve loved serious study of the Bible, both what I once knew as the Old and New Testaments, and now Tanakh, which contains the Torah (which means learnings), the Prophets, and the Writings.

Why do I love this? Not always sure. I used to enjoy the exegetical methods of higher criticism which used language (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic), textual analysis, understanding of traditional forms like the blessing and the curse, historical background, and even how a text had been understood in the past to reach a best sense of what a text meant to the people who wrote it. The real “meaning” of the text. As close to the presumed true understanding of the text as we could get.

Now though in study of the Torah I have encountered a more ancient way of using the biblical text. Jews do not hunt for the real meaning of a text, do not seek a singular truth as it must  have been understood, rather we seek a particular understanding for this day, this moment.

We read the Torah in parshas, often several chapters long and divided so the whole Torah can be read in one year, parshas that have been read and reread for over three thousand years, so many truths.

Jews view the Torah through the prism of language, sure, but they also view it through the prism of interpretations called midrash, the understandings of Rabbis collected throughout the centuries. And midrash is not finished. Each Jew is expected to bring their own mind and heart to understanding the text.

Different ways of reading a text are not only expected, but celebrated. Two Jews, three opinions. There is no truth, no fixed meaning to be found, only encounters with the text on a particular day, by particular people seeking their truth, for that day, for that text. And when the creation story(s) come up again, as they do right now in the Jewish liturgical year we may understand the majestic and orderly first creation story, “In the beginning…” (bereshit), in a way very different from the way we understood it last year.

Dogs, Health, Judaism

Tzelem Elohim

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Dr. Vu. Tara. The Grateful Dead. Ablation #1. Feeling sore, but better. Ablation #2 today. Shadow. Who missed me. Darkness increasing. Back to Standard Time. Oh, joy. Carl Hiaasen. Israel. Gaza. Vincent. Rich. DJT at home divider and vengeance seeker. A cool Breeze. A long Fall.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ablation #1

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei and my trainer, Shadow

Week Kavannah: Simcha. Joy.    The Grateful Dead.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Once again face down, shirt and pants scooched up, numbing shot you’ll feel a pinch, ouch, moments later, with Sugaree playing in the background, you’re all done, and my first ablation had ended, belt back on, out to sit in the waiting room, no fainting, and I’m off for home.

 

Health: My good friend Tara picked me up and drove me to Lone Tree. Dr. Vu worked his needle magic on the left side of my spine, sending radiofrequency energy at various nerves heating the nerves to around 176 degrees, and creating a tiny lesion which blocks the pain signal to the brain.

I’ve bonded with Dr. Vu and his med tech over the Grateful Dead, so they played Sugaree while doing my procedure. When they come to call on you, take your poor body down, Sugaree, just one thing I ask of you, please forget you knew my name, my darling Sugaree.

Tara took me home. Still sore from my needle pokes, but that will abate. Hoping for significant relief that may last 6 to 18 months, maybe more. May take one stressor off the table for quite a while.

Still no word on my PET scan results. Last couple of times they’ve been read within a day. I image the fact that I had this in the mobile unit has somehow delayed things. I see Buphati, medical oncologist, on Monday so I’ll know by then.

 

Dog Journal: When I came back from the procedure, Shadow jumped up on me, communicating, I thought, that she wanted  outside. She ran out, but then came right back in. Jumping up on me again. She wanted to me sit down. I did. Then she hugged me, wagged her tail, leaned in closer. She had missed me. Almost made me cry.

 

Life purpose: Been struggling with this a bit lately. In my next to last appointment with Caroline Merz, the Sloan-Kettering trial for psychology support of cancer patients over 70, she reminded me that meeting with friends and family, whether in person or over zoom, involves giving of myself.

And, she added, even having people give me rides to my procedures affords them the satisfaction of helping me. Not an easy thing for me, asking for help, yet this past year and my friends more than willingness, even eagerness, to help suggests that’s true as well.

I suppose that means I could consider my life purpose just being who I am. That requires a leap in my sense of self-worthiness. Even writing about it makes me feel sheepish.

Yet. Tzelem elohim. Often translated as made in the image of God, I would translate it as being made as God. If God and the universe are one, each thing, each distant galaxy and each rock on Shadow Mountain is God. And, so am I. And, you too. Own it. Embrace it. Become sacred for yourself and for others. Just by being yourself.   Amen.

Judaism, Politics, World History

May It Be So

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon (for me and my gal, Shadow)

Tuesday gratefuls: Everwood. Treat Williams. The Morning Show. Reese Witherspoon. Jennifer Aniston. Steve Carrel. Ginny and Janice. Annie and Luna. Coming today. Cool morning. Tramadol plus acetaminophen. Nerve ablations. Coming soon. Shadow of the morning. Showers. Fresh Tomatoes. Garlic. Artemis. Simcha.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing Ginny and Janice

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei and my trainer, Shadow

Week Kavannah: Simcha. Joy. Shadow of the morning.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Bought a small crystal ball with a stand that illuminates it, the Milky Way Galaxy embedded, so when I turn it on with a press of my finger, the awe and wonder of the universe pops immediately in front of me; I look for a moment at the small (oh, so relative) Orion Arm about half way from the galactic center and imagine that I see us, twirling around the center of the Milky Way at 500,000 miles per hour, this orbit finishing up in another 200 to 250 million years.

Just a moment: All the living hostages have come home. Israel sighs. At a celebration in Hostage Square on Saturday night the crowd booed at the first mention of Netanyahu’s name. (reported by Noa Limone, Haaretz, 10/13/25.) Of course Israel has to heal. Of course. So do the remaining inhabitants of Gaza. Healing in Israel can come only  if a full reckoning of Netanyahu’s lack of leadership and his collusion with far right Orthodoxy occurs.

This might be hard. Calls for unity, for looking across differences may suggest a soft approach to what needs to be a searing look at the immorality of Israeli leaders at every step in this war, including how the IDF could have allowed such an attack as October 7th. That is no small element for had the vigilance of the IDF on the Gaza been what it should have been this war could have been avoided.

But. It was not avoided. In its wake the limits of violence as a political solution got laid bare over weeks that turned into months, months into two full years of bombing and killing civilians. Enough. We need, Israel needs, the Palestinians deserve a two-state solution. If this can happen, then this tragedy may not have been in vain.

Yes, if you’re an Israeli, the thought of an independent Palestinian state may loom as a breeding ground for future attacks. And it may. Yet the pressure will be on all parties, Arab and Israeli, American and European, to create a lasting peace. None of the parties want everlasting war. Only the river to the sea militants and they will not get their way.

Israel, this strong, vibrant economic power house and refuge of last resort for a minority too often treated as the other, will remain. As will all the Arab states. Only peace can create a dynamic and flourishing Middle East. The time to build that reality starts now.

May it be so.

Health, Judaism, Politics, World History

The Knight Errant of Peace

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: Shadow and her lobster. Made of heavy duty stuff for aggressive chewers. Frost. 32 degrees. Cold frames at work. Tomatoes still yielding. Beets and Spinach and Kale ready for the final harvest before the Garlic comes. Carrots still growing. The Ancient Brothers on war. Hostages released. Trump does good. Cease fire holding.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hostages released

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Simcha. Joy.   Cease fire.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: First average frost up here comes in early September; but, not this year-October 13th-after I pulled down the cold frame covers over Artemis’ outside raised beds, forty-eight degrees in the greenhouse itself, trying to extend an already extended growing season and succeeding, more vegetables to harvest.

 

Just a moment: Props, red tie guy. Donald J. Trump has brought the hostages home. I hereby dub thee Knight of Peace Errant and beloved of all Israel. Of course this should have not needed to happen, or should have happened months ago, but I will praise him for being instrumental in making it happen now.

So much suffering. Hamas won this war. Yes, quite a while ago. They calculated Israel would over react if they were horrible in every way on October 7th. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition with segments of Israeli society who never fight for it ensured a long, brutal campaign to totally eliminate an idea.

That idea, Palestinian release from their long captivity to Jewish constrictions, cannot be eliminated. Should not be eliminated. Hamas reasoned that Israel’s reaction would raise the plight of Palestinians to world attention once again. And, if Israel over reacted, they could achieve a secondary aim of damaging Israel’s reputation among the world’s nations. Accomplished.

Israel, specifically Netanyahu and his ruling coalition, driven by a toxic mix of xenophobia and religious triumphalism wedded to the need of a corrupt leader to avoid prosecution, kept killing Palestinians long after their point had been made. Turning away aid from starving Gazans, bombing their hospitals, driving deeper and deeper into the constricted space which gave civilians no room to flee. Oh, Israel.

Like so many of my fellow Jews I support the existence of Israel, of a safe haven for Jews who need it. I do not and have not since early in the war supported the war aims of its blinkered and racist ruling coalition. Can we help a broken and self-terrorized country find a way toward peaceful coexistence? I see that as the major role for the diaspora now. Use our influence, our wealth and power, to help Israelis and Palestinians build a common, abundant life as neighbors. May it be so.

 

This week: Nerve ablations. Oddly this, the week when I might get relief from the pain I’ve experienced every day since September of 2023, my hip has chosen to worsen.

When I got back from seeing Gabe in Lakewood, my hip nearly drove me to the ground on the return home. Pain at 11 on the Richter scale. I see an orthopedist on November 11th. Might be difficult decisions ahead.