When I am uncertain of what to write I will dive in and see where the tapping on the keyboard takes me. It is a hard time for so many of us because it feels like a tsunami of hate and misinformation is rising in front of us.
We can feel it growing and wonder will happen if it doesn’t dissipate and instead washes over us. What will the outcome be? Will we have done all we could to help prevent it from striking a full blow or will we collectively find a way to stop it?
It is hard to see and many of those who offer suggestions are hard to take seriously.
Why?
Because it’s easy for people to tell you what to do when they don’t face the consequences of those actions.
I think of the responsibilities I have and the choices I have made or chosen not to.
“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.
Or you don’t.”
― Stephen King, The Stand
Jerusalem Is Burning
We’re on the verge of Tisha B’Av and as usual my mind goes back in time to sitting outside of Jerusalem in the Judean hills while Eicha is being chanted.
I went looking for words I once shared and found A Ghost You Can’t See and it took me back to several different moments in time.
One moment in the hills forty years ago jumps out and I remember being drawn from my present into the past. It was magical and mystical, I know no other way to describe it.
What I wrote then about July of ’85 sticks out in my head, almost like a constant that connects me to what my soul was thousands of years ago and what it is today
“Jerusalem burns, soldiers run through the streets killing and burning but there is no warmth in this fire.
It happened long before I was born. It was ancient when my great-great-great grandfather was a baby but something about this telling captures me like no time before.
She weeps, yea, she weeps in the night, and her tears are on her cheek; she has no comforter among all her lovers; all her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.
When Did You Learn Those Words?
Someone asked me how old I was when I learned the phrase above but I couldn’t give them a specific answer. Could have been 5 or could have been 7,8 or 9.
Easier to ask when it sunk in as being important and I would say probably in my twenties but without question on October 7, 2023 and every day since.
Some misunderstand and some try to twist it to suggest there is something cultish or clannish about it. I don’t worry much about most of that because those that hate us have a 1000 different excuses.
Those that judge people based upon actions and not upon what they think they know are different. Those I am happy to engage with.
What I know now is the tsunami I feel building is felt by not just by me but Jews all over. I know from conversations in person, online and elsewhere the hair on our collective necks is sticking up.
I know many of us have experienced, seen or heard about things we might have thought had stopped when our families left elsewhere to go other places.
Some of us have learned how to armor up and stand in the storm. Some of us have intentionally wandered into the midst to push back against it.
Is it the impact of generational trauma or collective memory that moves to act or to hide?
I don’t know. I can’t speak for all.
Many of us are warriors but the arenas we choose to battle in are not all the same and that is ok for many different skills are required.
I think often of the hard lessons we have learned, are learning and are yet to learn. I think of how to best help to care for and protect family and friends.
I think about how much humanity must be shorn by some to protect others and the cost to them, to us and to others.
It is not simple regardless of what others may claim. I wish it were, but it is not. Hard choices are made and you cannot always pick out the right or best path in advance.
There is lots of pivoting to be made.
Epilogue
If you are among the long time readers you know my output has slowed down dramatically. My attention has been required in other places.
But if you want to read the past you can find some of those listed below while I consider what words I ought to use here and elsewhere.
If things hold true to form figure it won’t be long before a torrent of new content is unleashed, but only after I finish a few other things. Change isn’t coming, it is happening now.
- You Didn’t Unfriend Me, I Let You Go
- Remember Me?
- I Never Did Sail Wawasee
- The Importance Of Clean Underwear
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