Sometimes we know better than to wade into the comment sections on various sites because they are a cesspool of stupidity and ignorance.
Yet I may have ignored my own better judgment and read a few things.
Why?
Because I dug into the news about the terrorist event at CBI in Colleyville so that I could keep myself up to speed on the things I don’t know.
I was on the livestream. I heard the ranting and raving. I heard the threats, the antisemitic comments and tropes.
The shul is close and one I have been to many times. I know the rabbi and many of the congregants and had this not been during our modern plague called Covid19, Omicron variant I cannot guarantee that we would or would not have been there.
Regardless of that any antisemitic event anywhere is personal. If you want to kill Jews and actively work to do so I fit the bill. Don’t take that as an invitation or expressed desire to see such thing first hand.
I have no interest or need to know what that is like or to prove my valor or cowardice.
Better not to know and best to take action to prepare and prevent such things which was ultimately why I waded in.
It Was Antisemitic
The comment that got me was one where someone said this was random because it most certainly wasn’t.
The terrorist flew into town on December 29. Don’t know many details about what he did between then and the events of January 15th.
What I do know is a British citizen found a way to secure a gun and that he drove to a small synagogue that is not off of a main highway.
It is not something that you would see off of a freeway or casually pass by. There were no billboards or ads.
So he managed to find this place and go on the Jewish sabbath.
He used the gun he obtained to threaten the people inside not knowing services were being livestreamed. Tens, then hundreds and then thousands of us heard him make vile antisemitic remarks, say he didn’t care if he lived or died and demand the release of a terrorist being held in a prison in Fort Worth.
Aafia Siddiqui is a not only a terrorist, but a known antisemite. You can find plenty of examples online.
But let’s put that aside and ask why the man who demanded her release would choose a small synagogue. He could have easily picked a courthouse, bank, church or any number of other places.
He didn’t.
He found a small synagogue that he had to work to find and went there on a Saturday during the Jewish sabbath. He made antisemitic remarks, threatened to murder people and said he didn’t care if he died.
Don’t tell me it is not antisemitic.
That is why I wanted to wrap both of my hands upon their head so I could shake the rocks loose and let daylight in.
Hanging With Brother Pablo
Brother Pablo accused me of pushing thoughts and ideas and I shrugged my shoulders at him.
“I am a lover, not a fighter.”
He laughed and said the problem is I’d rather be a lover than a fighter.”
“Can I not be both. I am not so simple and so shallow to only be one thing.”
Brother Pablo said ‘Touche’ and tilted his beer back.
“You are learning. One day you may yet use that knowledge for something.”
I smiled and told him that one kiss of knowledge changes the course of your life.
Once you have been exposed and experienced you seek to see if you can fly yet again or if it is but a single moment.
Brother Pablo smiles and suggests I try to write more poetry, ‘be more like that passionate shepherd than the caveman.’
I tell Brother Pablo that he should do him and I’ll do me.
“Ah, but you’d rather do her,” to which I reply, “now who is the crude one.”
We both laugh and he asks who knows the true intentions of a woman and I share the sacred reply, “certainly not a man.”
Later on we’ll look at each other and say they say the same about us and then lose ourselves in laughter.
“Life is absurd is it not Brother Pablo. Sometimes we want what we can’t have until we get it and then we don’t want it. But sometimes we do get it and find it is all we ever needed. And sometimes none of that happens at all and we wake up having discovered we fell asleep in front of the Hallmark channel.”
Brother Pablo rolls his eyes at me and says to remember life turns on a dime and I tell him it was antisemitism and only the willfully blind, stupid and drunk say otherwise.
Wide Awake At Midnight
I made a point not to drink any coffee past 2:30 just to see what would happen but there seems to have been no impact.
I am still wide awake at midnight. Still consuming vast amounts of information and processing it.
Some is of the utmost importance and some is nothing but trivia.
I should have done more to wear myself out so that it would be easier to sleep.
Not that I am so worried about it, most of the time I can shut things down inside my head and am out pretty quickly.
But there are moments where it takes more time and given my predilection for life as a night owl it is easy to stay up later than I should on a school night.
So I write and see if that provides the release and relief I seek as well as a certain amount of necessary stimulation in other areas.
The kiss of the keyboard is the siren song of the evening and if I don’t pull back hard, well…
