Samain Thanksgiving Moon
I’m at Dino’s on far west Colfax, near Kipling. This is an Italian place that my friend Alan Rubin used to visit when he grew up on west Colfax, further east, into Denver. The old orthodox neighborhood. Much like, I guess, the northside of Minneapolis at about the same time. His dad was a brilliant immigrant who ended up running a string of dry cleaners, doing very well. Dino’s, founded in 1963, hasn’t changed its decor since then, we both guessed. Great pizza.
Kate calls. “SeoAh and I are sick.” OMG. Both had a stomach bug. Something neither one needed, Kate least of all. “Can you come home and take care of the dogs?” Sure. “Alan, this seems to be my life right now.” “That’s because it is your life right now.” I missed packing Thanksgiving dinner boxes at the Jefferson County Action Center, something Kate and I did last year. This time though Alan and mines religious school class was there.
Alan and I went at Dino’s, close to the Action Center, to plan for next week’s class. We’ll be using a wonderful graphic rendition of the Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers*. Each student will pair up with another and we’ll give them a copied page. They’ll help each other learn about the text, then color them. This paired learning is called havruta.** After they’ve studied and argued over their page, they’ll teach the class. At least that’s the plan.
After we finished our sausage and mushroom pizza, I got in the Rav4 and headed back to Shadow Mountain. 6 pm. The heart of rush hour. Fortunately I only had to travel a small chunk of 470 with all the folks going back to the southern burbs from downtown Denver. At this hour it can be stop and go past 285. Which is where I turn west into the mountains.
*”Pirkei Avot (literally, “Chapters of the Fathers,” but generally translated as “Ethics of Our Fathers”) is one of the best-known and most-cited of Jewish texts. Even those who claim to know little about Jewish literature are familiar with maxims such as “If I am only for myself, who am I? (1:14)” and “Say little and do much (1:15).” Popular Hebrew songs take as their lyrics lines such as “The world stands on three things: Torah, service, and acts of loving kindness (1:2)” and “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it (2:21).”” My Jewish Learning
**”Jews seldom study alone; the study of Torah is, more often than not, a social and even communal activity. Most commonly, Jews study Jewish texts in pairs, a method known as (“fellowship”). In havruta, the pair struggles to understand the meaning of each passage and discusses how to apply it to the larger issues addressed and even to their own lives.” My Jewish Learning
Claim a victory. An old political maxim and one I’m going to use this morning. It wasn’t a cleansing victory, not a whole field, run the bastards out victory, but a win. Yes. Control of at least one house of Congress. Yes. 22 governorships. Yes. Reduction in Senate margin. Sigh. Hands over head. Trump still in office. Duck and cover. Here in Colorado we elected the first openly gay Governor, Jared Polis. Looks like Democrats will have control of the state house and senate, too. Minnesota elected Democrats in key races. And Indiana. Well. And Oklahoma. Not much better.
Just a quick note about election day. I’m holding my psychic breath, not giving in to watching returns, following exit polls. I’ve peeked a bit on the NYT and Real Clear Politics, but when I feel myself drawn in, I move on. Perhaps it’s a very mild from of post-traumatic stress. Not the disorder, but a real aversive conditioning based on 2016. My understanding of American politics betrayed me that day. And the reality and depth of that betrayal has morphed into the lived reality of Trump’s awful Presidency. So, a trauma based stress reinforced daily in ways I still cannot believe.
Of course there was always the KKK. The Minutemen. The Posse Comitatus. Waco. Ruby Ridge. But they were fringe actors, limning the boundaries of decency by their cross burnings, cult indoctrination, creation of strange understandings of the law. Now these fringe actors have moved center stage. Their abhorrent doctrines have currency, no longer defining boundaries decent folk will not cross, but helping define policy emanating from the White House. Build that wall. Send troops to “defend” America against poor people fleeing their homes, families with children just hoping to live out their days in peace. Give aid to our enemies and the finger to our allies. This is way, way beyond anything I ever imagined.
What will I do if it’s not repudiated at the polls today? I really don’t know. Perhaps retreat into isolation, even though the idea would close off a long dedication to social change. Perhaps recommit to some kind of radical vision. Don’t know. And in not knowing I do not know myself, do not know the one who feels that way. That scares me, BTW.
“While laying over in the Detroit airport today I saw a fellow wearing a T-shirt with a caricature of an alien on it with the text: “Please don’t take me to your leader” ” Friend Tom Crane
My gut tells me that if a blue wave sweeps the country, perhaps especially if it’s a tsunami, we’ll have an even more divided nation afterward. I read an essay that suggested a win by the Democrats, taking the House back for example, might help Trump in 2020. Gag.
The last years of my third phase will, it seems, be lived in a world riven by the politics of fear and baked by a climate heated by our own stupidity. Not exactly a rosy picture. And, not one that can be ignored. In one sense our generation, the oft derided baby boom, is now a deposit of memory, memory of a time when politics, while far from perfect, were not ruled by disinformation and a heightened sense that the other was about to steal your job and your life.
