Sukkot: The Liberating Insecurity of Freedom

The most important part of the Sukkah . . . is the s'khakh,
materials of vegetative origin such as evergreen branches
or marsh rushes that form the roof. . . Though completely
covering the top, the s'khakh should be loosely spread so as
to be open to the heavens, with the stars visible through it.
Thus, the s'khakh is the perfect expression of Divine Protection.
G-d is not a mechanical shield that protects from all evil; G-d
is the Presence who gives strength to persevere, to overcome."
--Rabbi Irving Greenberg, The Jewish Way

As surely as the harvest moon waxes from new to first quarter to full, so too does the month of Tishrei grow from celebrating the Birthday of the World on Rosh Hashannah, to returning again from the death of idolatry to life renewed at Yom Kippur, and growing full at Sukkot, the Ingathering Harvest, the Season of our Joy.

Picture: The CIT and friend throw hay from the trailer into the hayloft at Freedom Ridge Ranch, Catron County, NM; October 2011. EHL

At this season, we recount the harvest of the previous spring and summer, gathering the hay into barns, animal feed for the winter; the cans and jars and bottles into the pantry, food for our bodies; and we bask in the sweet and fleeting warmth of Indian Summer, taking rest and pleasure, experiencing joy to fuel our spirits through the dark and cold of winter.

Although the Sukkah--the harvest booth--that we are commanded to dwell in for the seven days of the Festival originated in agricultural practices of the ancient Near East, it has come to mean far more than that. It symbolizes the temporary shelters that our ancestors used on the long and arduous journey in the wilderness that marked their transition from slavery to freedom.

If at Pesach we celebrate the high of the liberating moment, at Sukkot we remember the first uncertain steps made in freedom. At Pesach we remember that our ancestors served idols, and at Sukkot we recognize the shaky sense of vulnerability that accompanies the refusal to worship that which was made by our own hands. The Sukkah itself is designed to be a symbol of that shakiness, of the impermanent nature of much of what we believe or fervently hope is permanent.

This year, thanks to my summer spent unpacking the library, we rediscovered an old friend, Rabbi Irving Greenberg and his book on living the Jewish holidays. In the way that the turning of the Torah year by year causes us to reveal and rediscover new meanings, so, too, does the turning of the seasons of the year, year by year, cause us to recognize and see anew the meanings of the Holy times and seasons, and how they relate to our lives in the world as it turns and changes. During the somnolent warmth of an Indian Summer Shabbat afternoon, as the dogs dozed and insects hummed, we read:

"The move into the sukkah is a movement from the certainty of fixed position toward the liberating insecurity of freedom. [Those who dwell in the sukkah] open up to the world, to the unexpected winds, to the surprise setback as well as the planned gain. The joy of Sukkot is a celebration of the privilege of starting on the road to freedom, knowing that to finish the task is not as decisive as the failure to start is."

At the table in the Sukkah, we looked at each other, and smiled over the sweet Sabbath wine in recognition of the reality of those words; the recognition that this entire year has been exactly that for us: a year of unexpected winds (and rain and mud!) and surprises, a year in which we have made the choice to start out on a new road to freedom in our lives, even as the world turns into the saecular winter, a season of uncertainty and crisis.

Moving into the Sukkah, even to celebrate Ha-chag, THE Holiday, the one in which we celebrate the joy of the harvest, is also to move into the recognition that nothing much in life is permanent, and that to attach our hearts too securely to the idea that what is now is what will always be is dangerous idolatry, bound to fail us. That is why the Sukkah is constructed to shake in the wind--it is to remind us that most of what we believe protects us is in fact, ephemeral. As Rabbi Greenberg writes:

"The sukkah . . . instructs Jews not to become overly rooted, particularly not in the exile. For thousands of years, Jews built homes in the Diaspora. Civilizations of extraordinary richness--culturally, religiously, economically and socially-- we created. But all such Jewish homes and civilizations have proven thus far to be temporary ones, blown away when the turn of the wheel brought new forces to power. Often, self-deception and the desire to claim permanent roots led Jews to deny what was happening until it was too late to escape."

Picture: The Engineering Geek in the Sukkah after Havdalah ended Shabbat Chol-ha Moed Sukkot 5772, Freedom Ridge Ranch, Catron County, NM; October 2011 EHL

Indeed. One need only to think of those Jews who believed that they were too assimilated, too German; that the high civilization of Germany would protect them, and that they had acquired too much to give it up , to flee with nothing, leaving everything, in the middle of the night. I remember wondering--as I studied the early days of the Shoah and the fall European civilization into darkness; as I read Hersey's The Wall, and as I watched Defiance--I remember asking myself, could I do it? Would I be able to leave everything for the sake of my life and those of my children? I would look around at my beautiful home, at the wealth bound up in fine furniture, at the Polish tea set passed down from oldest daughter to oldest daughter, at my mother-in-law's Passover china, and I would know how hard that choice would be.

But during the past year and a half, as we watched the world teeter once again on the brink of financial ruin and moral darkness, as we listened to the rising voices of antisemitism, and heard the voices of collectivism blaming the Jews, and talking of "eating the rich", we made a decision. We recognized that all of the things we value can be built again by those who place the highest value not the things themselves, but on the lives of those who made them. And so we chose to plan prudently, to remove our work from those who believe they own us, to "go Galt" and preserve ourselves and our values for a new turning of the wheel. And I left the home I loved for a new and more rugged place; and we left the retirement we planned for new challenges in self-sufficiency, in order to provide for ourselves and those we value a shelter in case of trouble. We cannot know the whole of what is coming, and we cannot guarantee for ourselves and those we love perfect protection from all evil. But we can find for ourselves and offer to others, a place to stand; one rooted not in a place and possessions, but one rooted in a Presence identified by the spirit of freedom and adventure, that One who gives us the "courage and strength to persevere."

Thinking of all of this, recognizing who we are are and why we are here, we held hands as we made Havdalah in the Sukkah, tasting the sweet wine, smelling the spices, and holding our hands out to the light of the twisted candle, we sang of our longing for redemption and of the sweetness of joy in the coming week, knowing that whatever may come, we will face it as free individuals who have chosen this path. This ability to choose and to act in the face of the uncertainties of life is the very thing by which we find happiness and fulfillment. In this way, freedom and openness to the world of unexpected winds and surprise setbacks still brings joy. At Sukkot we are commanded to enjoy ourselves, to take pleasure in the fruits of our action and in the harvest of our choices.

Picture: Setting the Table for Kiddush in the Sukkah, Freedom Ridge Ranch, Catron County, NM; October 2011 EHL

"One fundamental criterion of a life well lived is love of life. It is terribly important, therefore, to enjoy life as it goes along. Joy cannot be postponed. Life as it is, is of infinite value . . .The joy of Sukkot represents maturity. It is the happiness of a free person who chooses to live this way, who chooses this mission above all alternatives."

The openness of the Sukkah, the frailty of it before strong winds, the beauty of the sun and the stars shining through the s'khakh, all of these things reminded us again this year that the Journey to Freedom that Sukkot commemorates is long and difficult; that our recognition of the temporary nature of most of our experiences is part of the journey; and that the very insecurity of freedom itself fills our lives and choices with meaning. Happiness comes of our choosing freedom over the enslavement of idolatry, and it is in the choosing to love our lives as they are, with all of their challenges and adventures, that we find joy.

This is what we learned anew this year, in the midst of all the adventures here at Freedom Ridge Ranch, during this Harvest Festival, the Season of Our Joy.

Eliyahu's Cup: Why Utopia is Always 'Not Yet'

This week is Pesach, and last Monday evening, Jews worldwide gathered to usher in the "Season of our Freedom" by participating in the annual ritual of the Seder, a meal surrounded by the telling of our redemption from slavery. And through telling the story, the Haggadah takes us each year through the journey from slavery to freedom.

The Seder has a prescribed order, and the ritual is set up to tell the story four times and in four different ways, corresponding to the four promises made by G-d during the going forth from Egypt. Each promise is linked to one of the four glasses of wine that is drunk during the Seder, and each telling is linked to a particular type of bondage. The tellings address what it means to be so enslaved, and why the Eternal demands freedom from every bondage not only for our ancestors but for us, so that the by the end of the Seder each year, we have progressed through tellings of physical and mental and spiritual servitude and into freedom.

But there is also a fifth cup representing a fifth promise: 'I will bring you into the land.' The fifth cup is set out for Eliyahu ha-Navi (Elijah the prophet), a mythic, apocalyptic figure whose coming foreshadows the coming of the Messiah. During the ritual for the fifth cup, we read From Malachi, who wrote:

"Behold, I shall send to you Eliyahu ha-Navi before (in the face of) the great and awesome day of Adonai; and he shall return the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the parents lest I shall come and strike the land with cherem (war of total destruction)." (My translation: many Haggadot leave out the phrase starting with "lest" at the end of verse).

After these words are read, Eliyahu's cup is set down untasted, for this is the only promise of the Seder that is left unfilled, as Eliyahu's time is not yet. After the promise is pronounced and the cup set down still full, and the door opened for Eliyahu is shut, then the assembly joins hands and sings Eliyahu ha-Navi, expressing the unfulfilled and unfulfillable longing for the coming of Utopia, a time that is always not yet.

Human beings have been dreaming of Utopia--the perfect world--since we achieved an understanding of linear time. What was cannot be changed, and what is will pass away, and there is no going back, only forward. But with this understanding came the idea that at some point that is entirely unknown and unutterable, time could come to an end. And so after--if the word has any meaning--the world as we know it will become unknown, and what is will be static and perfect. And dead. So dreadful and so terrifying to contemplate is this vision, not only one's own death, but of total non-existence and non-order. So terrible and dreadful it is, that people substituted the idea of perfection attained while still living, Utopia, a time/place where "everywhere will be called Eden once again", according to Judy Chicago.

But perfection is the enemy of the growing and changing that is always in the living. Biological beings, full of life, can never be perfect. There is always the movement, the exchange of molecules, the division of a cell, the dying and the coming to be. Eden was, if it ever was, and can never be again. Eden was not perfect, it was full of life; it was innocent of choice and therefore, of any knowledge of good and evil. It is a restoration of innocence that is longed for in Utopian visions, that is what perfection is understood to be, in that elusive Utopia.

Utopia, is innocence imposed, and it is therefore the opposite of freedom. For freedom requires consciousness and choice, which means an understanding of life and death, of goodness and evil. Utopia is cosmic equality imposed, and is therefore the opposite of the fullness of of life and freedom. For as soon as life exists, differences among individuals are introduced and differences are inherently unequal in the cosmic sense. For human beings, choice brings the inequalities to our conscious awareness, for choice by its very definition implies different possibilities of action, which creates differences in outcomes, inherently unequal.

In the Passover Seder, we tell the story of going from the slavery of physical bondage to freedom, from the degradation of idolatry and dependence to liberty. Each step of our liberation requires choice, and differences among us evolve with our freedom. Elijah's cup goes untasted, because as much as we may long for perfection,it is goodness we are after, and goodness requires the freedom to choose. Freedom is inherent to the nature of the human being, and necessary for the fullness of life.

Eliyahu does not bring the "great and awesome", terrifying nothingness of Utopia. Instead he turns parents and their children toward one another; their differences not erased, but understood, in order to reach fullness of life and prevent total destruction.

Our Rabbis were wise, they understood the human longing for perfection, and they understood that perfection is another idolatry. Therefore, although they recognized our desire for it and accommodated it, they also understood that it is freedom that we need in order to live and live well. And they put it all in the Seder.

Bread, Circuses and the Danger of Reading Science Fiction

The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be

like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty

-first century will be like. I don't recommend that you turn to

thewriters of fiction for such information. It's none of their

business. All they're trying to do is tell you what they're
like, and what you are like -- what's going on -- what the

weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight,

look! Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists

say. But they don't tell you what what you will see and hear.

All they can tell you is what they have seen and
heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent

in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent telling lies.

--Ursula K. LeGuin, Introduction to

The Left Hand of Darkness

I have been engaging in the dangerous and subversive activity of reading science fiction.

As Ursula K. LeGuin tells us above, Science Fiction is never about the future, and it makes no predictions. Science Fiction is, she says--though far more poetically--always about us, now.

This is why when reading a particularly good Sci-Fi novel, one is apt to see truth within the lies so convincingly spun by a master in genre. And this is why one walks away from reading a well-crafted Sci-Fi story or novel with new insight into who we are at this moment in time.

An awareness of this can a little scary--when it's not downright terrifying.

I have been reading the Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay. The story, for young adults, is the tale of Katniss Everdeen, a young woman who grows up in the country of Panem, which exist(s)(ed) in what used to be North America. In this alternate future/world-- the people of12 districts are enslaved by a city known only as the Capitol, and in order to maintain their slave status of crafty obedience, the Capitol forces them each to send a boy and a girl to compete in the "Hunger Games", a fight to the death on national television. The people are told that these Games--and the need to send their children to almost certain death--is in punishment for a rebellion that took place almost a century before, so that the children are sacrifices--called "Tributes"--and their deaths are punishment for a crime that happened before any of them had ever been born.

There are many realities about us, now, that are reflected in these books: the sacrafice of innocent lives to sustain political power and the cynical use of the real aspirations of individuals for life and freedom to consolidate that power; the blurring of television and reality to the point where the misery of others becomes entertainment for the some and a cruel reminder of servility to others; the acquiescence of many to servitude for the sake, not of great riches and power, but merely for enough to (barely) survive another day; the spark of freedom and rebellion that dwells within the hearts of even the meekest of slaves.

In this story there is also the theme of the disconnect between the privileged Capitol Dwellers--one can certainly not call them free!-- and those born to the Districts, whose lot in life is to toil and to starve; and the work of their hands is taken from them, tribute to a class of political royalty who party and play in the Capitol, while the people of the Districts learn subtle disobedience to their masters in order to survive. Thus, while the people in the Districts understand that they are slaves, that the government owns everything, the support staff of that government do not. Rather, they primp and party and bet on the deaths of children in the Hunger Games each year, and within them there is no thought, only the constant distraction.

Katniss sees this stark contrast after she has won the Hunger Games through an act of rebellion. As she is being dressed and fussed over by her "prep" team for a televised appearance, she thinks:

"It's funny, because even though they are rattling on about the Games, it's all about where they were or what they were doing or how they felt when a specific event occurred. "I was in bed!" "I had just had my eyebrows dyed!" "I swear I nearly fainted!" Everything is about them, not the dying boys and girls in the arena." (The Hunger Games, p. 354).

For the people of the Capitol, the Games are a gruesome reality show through which they live a life and death adventure vicariously, and without thought, whereas for the people of the districts it is a grim reality to be endured, like all of the other privations forced upon them because of their status as the children and grandchildren of traitors:

"We don't wallow around the Games this way in District 12. We grit our teeth and watch because we must, and try to get back to business as soon as possible when they're over." (ibid.)

Thus, any child of the Districts of Panem learns that he or she is a slave, whose life and work belong to the government in the Capitol, whereas the people who do the mundane work of the government are adults in name only, acting like thoughtless children, their lives governed by the latest fashion, their heads full of the latest gossip about others. Not the power brokers, these people live silly, second hand lives.

The children who are forced into the arena each year come to understand that they are pawns, pampered and fed for a little while before their almost certain deaths in the arena; they are game pieces for the entertainment of the Capitol citizens, used to distract the privileged from the reality of serfdom. For the children, 'winning' means surviving by killing other innocent children, and their pampered future back in their districts is a life of nightmares and deceit, a damaged life sustained only by finding ways to evade the terrible knowledge that their lives are not their own, ever. Those "winners" who do not have a talent for that evasion live out their lives in madness. As another "winner", Peeta, says in a televised interview to a glittering talk-show host called Ceasar:

" 'Once you're in the arena,the rest of the world becomes very distant,' he continues. 'All of the people, the things you really cared about almost cease to exist. The pink sky and the monsters in the jungle and the tributes who want your blood become your final reality, the only one that ever mattered. As bad as it makes you feel, you know you're going to have to do some killing because in the arena you only get one wish. And it's very costly.'

'It costs your life,' says Ceasar.

'Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?' says Peeta. 'It costs everything you are.' " (Mockinjay , p. 23).

And so, within such a reality, there are those like the heroine, Katniss, who survive the Games through an irrepressible act of rebellion, a free act that may indeed cost her life, an act that demonstrates to those in power that physical chains cannot entirely supress the memory of freedom. Such an act is not consciously contemplated but arises out of the knowledge of the nature of human freedom that burns, unquenchable in the soul. And once such an action is taken, the person is changed, and one such act leads to another and another, until the reality of freedom bubbles into consciousness thought:

"As I drift off, I try to imagine that world, somewhere in the future, with no Games, no Capitol. A place like the meadow in the song I sang to Rue as she died. Where Peeta's child could be safe." (Catching Fire, p. 354).

Thus, reading a good Sci-Fi novel is dangerous. For as Ursula K. LeGuin says:

"In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find -- if it's a good novel -- that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it's very hard to _say_ just what we learned, how we were changed. " (Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness).

Oh, yes, reading Sci-Fi can be a subversive act. Sometimes, if it is good Sci-Fi, we see a truth that the author is telling us about our world, about our selves. And we cannot unsee it . Good Sci-Fi it is not about geeking out on the future or vegging out on technology. Good Sci-Fi is about us. Now. And once we have seen the particular truth about our condition, we cannot unsee it.

Reading science fiction is a dangerous thing. For a good science fiction novel strips away the evasions and the confusions, making stark the reality of our own lives within the text. In our real lives we often go about like Katniss's prep team, wrapped in the mundane and necessary routines that make up daily life. But in the dialogue between the reader and the text, the reader's reality is stripped of the little things, and the meaning of it, illuminated. We are made uncomfortable. Are we really like the citizens of the Capitol, living vicariously through others? Do we see revolution as a Google-made game, created for our entertainment, returning to our own fleshpots, making a pun of the crack-down that we ignore afterwards? Are we more like the people of the Districts, afraid to step out of line for fear of losing what little they have? Is there perhaps, something of Katniss hidden deep within us, something that drives us to act--albeit uncounsciously--in defiance of our own slavery?

No wonder, then, that unfree societies take up the time of the individuals that they enslave with bread and circuses, in order to distract. But even in the real world, bread and circuses are in themselves dangerous to the regime that uses them. For while they lull the "citizens" who are fed bread they did not earn into somnolence, they eventually remind the circus "performers" that their lives are not their own, that they are living for the purposes of others. But in real life, this may take generations. In the story of the Israelites in Egypt, it took 400 years for the Israelites to realize that they had allowed themselves to become enslaved, the lives of their children at stake to prop up the power of Pharaoh.

But in Sci-Fi novels like the Hunger Games Trilogy, the story begins at the place where the reality of the consequences of second-hand lives, and of enslavement is no longer obscured; in the stripped down version of a story about us, now, we the truth of who we are now, and what we are doing now. And what it means. Really.

Oh, reading Sci-Fi can be a dangerous, dangerous act. For by paring down what is, and placing it in another place and time, it can cut through the bread and circuses, and bring the reader into an uncomfortable confrontation with reality.

And that changes a person, until with that internal dialogue, and then another and another, the unconscious understanding of what human freedom entails bubbles dangerously up, irrepressible, and the undercurrent becomes a mighty stream that wakes us up and forces us to confront the reality that all is not as we thought it was. And that understanding leads us into a confrontation with those who wish to keep us asleep and compliant to the thousands of little slaveries that keep us in bondage to their wills.

And so the subversive act of reading Sci-Fi can enventually provoke us to recognize who we are, to break our bonds, and lead us out of our second hand lives into the liberty of who knows where?

The Gift of the Wicked Child

"Behold I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming

of the great and awesome day of the L-rd.

And he shall shall turn the hearts of the parents to their children,

and the hearts of the children to their parents;

lest I come and smite the earth with utter destruction."

--Malachi 3:23 - 24 (quoted from the Haggadah)

"Four times the Torah instructs us " and you shall tell your child on that day . . ."

From this we may infer that there are four kinds of children--

the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who does not know how to ask."

--Hagaddah

It's amazing that a week has passed since I last posted. Much has happened, but despite a totaled car (no one seriously hurt), cleaning for Passover, and other happenings, Pesach came and we had a beautiful Seder. It was small this year--ten people gathered around our table--and we engaged the Hagaddah (The Telling) together, having in-depth discussions at several places. This is important, for each one of us has the obligation to leave the Seder with the understanding that "in every generation each one of us must feel as if we had personally come forth from Egypt."

As always, familiar words that form the background year after year, can suddenly leap off the page as we fulfil the mitzvah to tell our children "on that day" the every absorbing story of redemption and freedom. Several passages in the Hagaddah did fair leap out at me this year, and one was the story of the Four Children and it danced in my head throughout, until late in the Seder, after the Afikomen and Birchat ha-Mazon, became linked to a passage from Malachi about the shadowly Elijah the Prophet.

"The wise child asks: 'What are the laws, precepts,

and observances that G-d has commanded us?'

In response we should explain the observances

of Passover thoroughly, the very last one of which

is after the Afikomen, we do not turn to other

kinds of entertainment."

The wise child is the easy one. This is the teacher-pleaser, the delight of every parent; the child who is interested in observing Pesach (and doing everything else) the right way the first time. This is a kid who learns from the experience of others, and so does not have to bang his head away on the hard stones of the wall of personal experience. Not much of challenge, this one!

"The wicked child asks: 'What does this service mean to you?' He says

'to you' and not 'to us', placing himself outside of the People Israel.

Therefore we should blunt his teeth, saying: 'It is because of what G-d did

for me when I went forth from Egypt'--that is for me and not for

you--for had you been there, you would not have been redeemed."

Now this child is the real challenge. For whatever reason, he is the one who does not want to be at the Seder, the one who believes that redemption from slavery does not apply to him. Which of us can say that we have never been this child? Which of us would admit that we have never thought about it in such a way? In many ways, this child is my favorite, for he has excluded himself and yet is there at the Seder nevertheless, asking questions, wanting to be part of it. This child presents us not only with a challenge, but with a gift.

To appreciate the gift of the "wicked" child, we must dig deep and realize that no one is free unless all are free--even those whose ideas and questions rock our worlds, disturbing our complacency. Liberty means that we cannot violate the rights of those who live differently and who challenge our beliefs. The "wicked" child is the one who in refusing to march to our tune, brings us to new insight into the awesome gift of freedom. The "wicked" children are those nails that stick up, begging to be hammered down. And the enslaved often do just that, destroying the precious spark of an independent mind. The 'wicked' children are already living liberty; they are outside of Mitzrayim --(the narrow places of slavery)--and are capable of teaching those who would consider their question at each year's Seder.

Many of our teachers have understood the 'wicked child' in a positive light, seeing him as the sensitive and idealistic child in search of the meaning at the core of the stories we tell. In various ways they suggest that the wicked child is really asking: Here you stand at the shores of the sea, having come through the birth waters into freedom, and yet your service is as vacuous as the slave-labor of Egypt. Where is your Kavanah (the understanding, the intention of your action)? Or is freedom really so meaningless to you that you remain enslaved in the face of miracles?

The wicked children are the challengers of slavery to unthinking routine and drugery; they insist that we open our eyes and see that with freedom, the boundaries of our world expand to the horizon and beyond, to notice that daily we walk sightless among miracles*. And that the greatest miracle of all is the human gift of freedom that challenges us to live up to our greatest abilities.

*The Jewish concept of 'miracle' does not entail the suspension of natural law. Rather, miracles are insight into the workings of natural law to further the life and happiness of those who notice them.

"The simple child asks: "What is this?"

And we say: "With a strong hand and a mighty arm,

were we redeemed from the bondage of the Egyptians."

To the person of open simplicity, give a straightforward answer."

The simple child is the young and happy child, who asks simply and trusts a simple answer. There is no need to belabor the details, nor to challenge such a child. For he did not challenge you.

"With the child unable to ask, you must begin yourself, saying:

'This is because of what G-d did for me, when I went free out of Egypt.' "

If a child does not ask, we must begin ourselves to awaken their curiousity about why we celebrate the great festival of our freedom, in order to gently lead them to wonder about why this freedom is so important.

The Four Children remind us that people deal differently with ideas, and that we all find ourselves in the four different roles during our lives, and with respect to different challenges and events. There are those who are awake and want to be told what to do; there are those who are awake and want to understand the ideas behind what we do; there are those who are just waking up and wondering what we are doing; and there are those who are still sleeping and might need to be prodded to notice what we are doing.

And still, my favorite is the "wicked" child. And maybe it's because I often find myself in the role of the wicked child. Still. At my age, I have not yet developed the desire to do what I am told simply because I am told to do it.

There is a place in the world for the wicked child.

The wicked child may not have been redeemed because he was already free.

Perhaps it is he (or she, or me) who forces the turning of the hearts of the parents, and the hearts of the child, in order to prevent utter destruction.

What Must a Free People Do?

Yesterday, the Engineering Geek and I attended a public meeting about the We the People Organization's 2009 Continental Congress.

At the meeting, we met Bob Schulz, the founder of the We the People Organization, who is traveling to cities in every state of the union in order to develop a mass movement to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Bob Schulz is a man with a gift and a passion. An engineer by training and trade, he is thorough in his analysis of problems, and he has a passion for Liberty, and thus for the Constitution, which was written to restrain our government and protect our unalienable rights.

The road to the We the People Continental Congress began when Bob went to a municipal public meeting at a firehouse in upstate New York. The public meeting was about an upcoming public works project, and Bob rose to ask a few questions, since the project concerned a discipline he knew well. Evidently, his questions were a little too incisive, because the pols involved refused to answer them publically, and instead wanted to discuss the matter privately. But Bob wanted his questions aired and answered before the town meeting. The incident eventually led to a lawsuit, because the project was not beneficial to the town, but was intended to line the pockets of a few of the pols in charge. Bob won. And the town retaliated against him when he went to subdivide his property to fund his nascent government watchdog group, We the People. He accepted a gig as an afternoon drive talkshow host on his local radio station, and from talking to callers, Bob began to realize the extent of corruption in state and national politics as well. When he realized that the Federal government is in violation of nearly every article of the United States Constitution, Bob began to study that document.

The moral of the story: Politicians! Beware an engineer who develops a passion for a problem. Bob consulted Constitutional scholars, and his organization went national. Bob developed a particular passion for what he calls "the capstone right of the First Amendment": the right of the people to petition their government for redress of grievances. In his presentation to the concerned citizens of New Mexico yesterday, Bob traced the history of this right from the Magna Carta to the Constitution and beyond.

The Magna Carta, which was signed by King John at Runnymeade, England, in 1290 (at the point of a sword), was the document that forced the king to share power and recognize the rights of Englishmen as understood by English Common Law. The English were not about to accept an absolute monarchy which was a violation of their customs and traditions. In the Magna Carta, the redress of grievances is guaranteed thus:

“If we, our chief justice, our officials, or any of our servants offend in any respect against any man, or transgress any of the articles of the peace or of this security, and the offence is made known to four of the said twenty-five barons, they shall come to us - or in our absence from the kingdom to the chief justice - to declare it and claim immediate redress.
If we, or in our absence abroad the chief justice, make no redress within forty days, reckoning from the day on which the offence was declared to us or to him, the four barons shall refer the matter to the rest of the twenty-five barons, who may distrain upon and assail us in every way possible, with the support of the whole community of the land, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, or anything else saving only our own person and those of the queen and our children, until they have secured such redress as they have determined upon. Having secured the redress, they may then resume their normal obedience to us.” Magna Carta, 1290

(The Royal "WE" is employed here to mean the monarch).

Thus, the great tradition of Court Days, upon which the monarch sat outside in the courtyard and heard the petitions of even the most humble of subjects was born. The American colonists brought that tradition across the Atlantic, and continued to insist upon their right to petition for redress and be answered. In the Declaration of Independence, the Founders justified their separation from England and their right to form a new government upon the fact that King George III and Parliament answered repeated petitions for redress only with repeated injury:

“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by with repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is thus unfit to be the ruler of a free people….” Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

(The capitalizations here are not just quaint colonial fashion, the mark specific concepts coming from the English Common Law).

In the Constitution, the right for Redress of Grievances is the capstone of the First Amendment, a right from which the other First Amendment rights are derived:

“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, freedom of the press; or the Right of the People peaceably to assemble, and to Petition the government for a Redress of Grievances.” First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, 1791.

This right was cherished by the People of the United States up until 1830. Every Monday, petitioners came before the relevant committees of the United States Congress to air their grievances and receive an answer or the promise of a written response. In 1830, the southern states forced a "gag rule" to shut down the abolitionists, and the use of this right faded. . .

. . . Until 1995. In that year, Bob Schulz and his We the People Congress began a series of Petitions for the Redress of Grievances to all three branches of the Federal Government. These petitions all addressed grievances caused by the violation of the United States Constitution. Such petitions included:

• the violation of the monetary clause by bailing out the Mexican Peso (1995)
• the violation of the Constitutional ban on the direct unapportioned tax on labor (the income tax) (1999, 2000, 2001)
• the violation of Article 4 by use of the USA Patriot Act (2002)

There were many more, and a complete list can be found here.

Although the topics of the peoples petitions are interesting documentation of percieved injury, the content of the answers are not at issue; what is most important is that the government is required to respond, just as the King of England was. And none of the petitions thus far have received a response. No. Response. At. All.

What is a free people to do? As Bob says, "The Constitution does not defend itself." The Federal system of government is not Sovereign; As Alexander Hamilton put it, "Here, Sir, the People govern." It is the people who are Sovereign. And our rights are individual. Every individual has the right to petition and must be answered.

According to the Declaration of Independence, if the government instituted by the people at the consent of governed becomes tyrannical, the people have the right, derived from the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to dissovle that government and institute a new one that will protect their rights. The rights belong to the individual. They are inherent in the nature of human beings; they are not a gift of government. The government exists only to protect those rights.

What must a free people do? This is the question that the 2009 Continental Congress is intended to answer. It will be a gathering of three delegates from every state in the United States. It is not a Constitutional Convention; it is a Congress at which the delegates, will consider the violations to the constitution by our government, ennumerate them, take note of the efforts of the People to Petition for the Redress of Grievances, and then consider and determine what the next step must be.

At this point, the People must take action to secure their Liberty once again. Taking a page from Ghandi, and Martin Luther King, Bob Schulz and the We the People Organization believes that three things are needed for successful action: it must be proactive, non-violent, and come from a mass movement. Thus the Mission of the 2009 Continental Congress is:

"The Mission of the Continental Congress is to end and reverse violations of the Constitution of the United States of America by educating Americans on the issue of petitions for redress. We will do this by acting in a proactive, non-violent, constitutionally based course of action to restore the original intent of our Founding Fathers for the free people of our Constitutional Republic." (WTPCC Powerpoint, e-mailed from Bob Schulz on March 21, 2009).

Although there will only be three delegates from each state, this movement will need local and state support, because the acts of civil disobedience that will be required as the course of action, can only be successful if a sizeable minority of citizens engage in them.

At our meeting, there came a moment when those who are willing to act to protect and defend the Constitution were asked to stand. The Engineering Geek and I, along with a sizeable majority in the room, did stand. We were mindful of the words of Thomas Paine:

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated." (The Crisis, December 23, 1776).

Our founders pledged to one another "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor" in the cause of Liberty. If we want our children to receive their inheritance of Liberty, the time has come to act. For otherwise, in our old age, we will watch them toiling as indentured servants to the National Debt. It will take generations to pay for the pork and the earmarks, the acts of an irresponsible government at war with reality.

Going Galt?

Last night, her Knight Errant out of town on business, the Chemistry Geek Princess came home for Shabbat dinner. She did not bring the granddog this time because our new girl, Shayna is extremely timid, and Ruby the Granddog's very extraverted, puppy ways would have sent Shayna Sunshine to her corner for a week

We lit candles, we sang Shalom Aleichem, Malachei ha-Malakim, we blessed the children--including the 23 year old--the Engineering Geek read Eyshet Chayil (A Woman of Valor), we made Kidush over the wine, we made the blessing for bread.


It was all very pleasant, but as we began the main course, the talk turned to literature which turned quickly to the state of the Republic.


The Chem Geek Princess began by saying: "I am re-reading Atlas Shrugged, and this time through I am noticing that the words on the page reflect reality even more starkly than they did last summer." She went on to talk about the Bank President with a Heart in the book, who loaned money to people who needed it even though they could not afford the loans, and who was thereby responsible for bringing down the economy of Wisconsin, making it a blighted area with no industry and no future. Then she said, "You know, that is a literary version of what actually happened when the Community Reinvestment Act forced the financials to lend money for people to buy houses, people who could not afford those houses and those loans. Then the banks failed and . . . well, here we are."


We went on talking seriously about the economy, the stimulus that isn't one, and the fact that it won't work and that it cannot work. The CGP went on to talk about the Laffer Curve, and how she sees it's basic truth because she knows a lot of people in small businesses that will make more than $250,000, and they are already finding many ways to either cut that down to $249,000 (at least on paper) or are looking to shelter their money in other ways, so that they don't have to start producing less or laying off workers.


The talk turned to the galloping socialism that the Obama adminstration wants to introduce to our country, in the middle of the night. The CGP is very angry because, as she puts it, this administration is selling her future and children's future to his "utopian nightmare." They will be paying a tax rate of 60 -80 percent, just to pay off what Obama and Bush have borrowed in the past six months for the bailouts and the stimuli. She pointed out that she, a mortgage holder for a a very small house in an older neighborhood of Albuquerque, is going to have to pay off the mortgages of people who foolishly bought houses they could not afford. She and others like her, will have the crushing debt of the irresponsible to deal with, making it impossible to ever get ahead. "It's tax slavery, Mom!" she said indignantly. "Why should I bother to work hard and be responsible when the sweat of my brow will be taken by force to pay mortgages for those people who were not so responsible and who are likely to lose those houses anyway? Why should I have to pay to keep the financials that made the bad loans in the business of paying huge bonuses to failing CEOs?"


Why should she indeed? Soon, it's not going to be worth it for her to earn more, to create more, to work harder, because the harder she works, the more the fruit of her efforts will be taken from her by force to support nameless others who do not work as hard as she does. She will not reap the rewards of her effort, she will not be able to put by money for her children's future (as we did for her).


This is what Santelli meant when he said, "The government is promoting bad behavior!" And the nameless trader said, "It's a moral hazard." (See the Shout Heard 'Round the World if you haven't already).


We then began to discuss the story of Twentieth Century Motors as told by the tramp who had worked there, a key piece of plot in Atlas Shrugged. The story illustrates the inevitable result of forcing the Marxist principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" on free human beings. What happened in the factory is that when the old man died, his heirs got the workers to vote in the use of this principle for the factory and its workers. They were to be all one big family, they thought. And the workers voted for it, because, in the words of the tramp who'd once been a skilled worker:


"There wasn't a man among us who didn't think that under a setup of this kind he 'd muscle in on the profits of the men abler than himself. There wasn't a man who . . . didn't think that somebody wasn't richer or smarter, and this plan wouldn't give him a share of his better's wealth and brains. But while he was thinking that he'd get unearned benefits from the men above, he forgot about the men below who would get unearned benefits from him . . .The worker who liked the idea that his need entitled him to a limousine like his boss's, forgot that every bum and beggar on earth would come howling that their need entitled them to an icebox like his own . . ." (Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged, Centennial Edition, p. 666, italics in the original).


So the workers who "played it straight" and put forth their best efforts soon found out that they would not be able to have butter on their bread until everybody else had bread; that their children could not go to college until everybody else sent their children to high school. And of course, there were those that gamed the system and brought in every "worthless relative from all over the country, every unmarried pregnant sister, for the extra disability allowance." And since ability and need were decided by a vote, there was an endless drain on those who were responsible. Those who worked hard were forced to work harder, in order to provide for the endlessly growing need of those who did not. And since human beings do not like to be slaves, what happened next was predictable:


"We began to hide what ability we had, to slow down and watch like hawks that we never worked any better or faster than the next fellow. . . We knew that for every stinker who'd ruin a batch of motors and cost the company money . . . it's we who'd pay with our nights and our Sundays . . . What was it they told us about the vicious competition of the profit system where men had to compete for who'd do a better job than his fellows? Vicious, was it? Well, they should have seen what it was like when we all had to compete with one another for who'd do the worst job possible . . . Ability was like a mortgage on you that you could never pay off . . ." (Ibid. p. 662-663).


The story of the factory in Atlas Shrugged is not real, but is an illustration of the consequences of the idea placed in closed system. But this kind of behavior is the consequence of the redistribution of wealth writ large or small, wherever it has been tried. When Stalin starved the peasants off their land, the result was famine for all, because the peasants weren't willing to work hard and well to benefit others when they received no benefit from their work themselves. And in the United States, at the height of the Great Society, when the marginal tax rate (defined as the tax on every dollar over a set amount) became greater than 90%, people began making sure that they did not earn a dollar more than that margin. Ronald Reagan did just this, and stopped working as an actor mid-year when he reached the marginal limit. This caused him to change his party affiliation and work for the Goldwater campaign. The Beatles protested the same kind of "tax-the-rich" scheme in their song The Taxman, and then moved their business to Holland.


President Obama's plans to "spread the wealth around" (as he put it to Joe the Plumber) will not result in stimulating the economy. It will result in tax slavery for generations of Americans who work and pay taxes. And don't think that everybody who works will have their wealth confiscated equally. Remember, those will pull in Washington don't have to pay their taxes. (Think of the tax cheats now in Obama's cabinet). No, it will be ordinary, ambitious Americans who will see their dreams stifled and their savings taken from them as they are condemned to work and leave it up to the Obamas of the world "to decide whose stomach will consume the effort, the dreams and the days of your life." (Atlas Shrugged, p. 670).


There comes a point when it is not worth it work to earn beyond one's subsistence; a point when the tax rate makes a rising income and rising productivity a liability. This is where our children may well find themselves due to the spending without reason or end, as the federal government spends trillions that it does not have to prop up industries and businesses that cannot succeed.


And this is why many hard-working young Americans are thinking of Going Galt.

The Chem Geek Princess is one of them.
Oh, she is not thinking of trying to find the mythical Galt's Gulch in a valley in Colorado.
She is trying to figure out how not to earn past the margin, where the fruit of the days of her work will be taken from her to pay for Peggy Joseph's mortgage and gasoline.


And many of the rest of us are "going Galt" too. We are doing it by planting gardens, trading favors among neighbors, becoming frugal. Paying fewer taxes by making less money and buying fewer things. We are doing it by taking our money out of the stock market, not counting on that 401K cum 201K, refusing to invest in bonds and currencies that will soon have no value. This is why every time Paulsen opened his mouth, and every time Geithner opens his, the stock market falls. A whole lot of us know that we are being scammed into tax slavery.


The press elites call us wingnuts, but we are the ones paying their salaries, and those of the pols and bureaucrats, too.


The press elites may sneer, but many of us are preparing ourselves and our children to be able to ride out the storm and we are working to protect our rights. We are organizing ourselves to demand a redress of our grievances from our government by having Tea Parties and the 2009 Continental Congress. We are gathering to remind our servant government that We Surround Them. We are gathering at the Campaign for Liberty to remind our public servants that they are elected at our pleasure for the purpose of protecting our Liberty. This is what happens when you try to foist "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" on a free people.


Are you listening, Mr. President? We're going Galt.

BO! The Slave Mentality and Freedom

Often, as I study the weekly parashah, the Torah portion, it seems that myth and reality, fact and legend, and past and present become woven together as I struggle with the text on many levels: the plain meaning, hints of something deeper, allergory and myth, and maybe twice a year, transcendance.

This week's portion, Bo! (Go!) is one that I struggle with every year, twice a year.
And, no, there is no exclamation point in the original. The word Bo begins a sentence: "Go to Pharoah." But I see it with an exclamation every time I hear the parashah read.

This portion picks up in the midst of the ten plagues upon Egypt.
And, although the plain meaning of the text is clear, the plagues are a contest between Pharoah and G-d, I still feel the sting of injustice every time I read that "every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharoah to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstone." (Shemot 11:4-5). This is myth, of course, and it is the meaning that we draw from myth that teaches something.

But yesterday, as I sat listening to the portion as it was read in Women's Torah Study, I heard a different piece. One that I have heard every year, of course, but one that my mind had not highlighted. (This is the reason that we tell and re-tell the great stories).

First I noted, as I do every year, when I read the Hebrew text, that when Moses and Aaron go before Pharoah, Moses says:

"Thus says YHVH, the G-d of the Hebrews . . . Send my people forth that they may serve me."

This brought my mind to a demonstration of idolatry that I saw on the internet the other day in which various actors and musicians take a pledge to do good in the name of the great and powerful Obama. (One wonders why these people did not until now do good in the name of their own free will.)

The part that I heard again in my head was toward the end of the video, when one of them says: "I pledge to serve Barack Obama . . ." and then they all say together, "I pledge to be a servant of Our President and all Mankind . . ." (you can hear the capital letters in their voices) as their individual likenesses all fade into the Che Guevara kitsch poster of Barack Obama's face.

Then I heard this part of the parashah:

"Pharoah's servants said to him: '. . . Send out the men that they may serve their god, YHVH. Do you not know that Egypt is lost? So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharoah and he said to them: ' Go, worship your god, YHVH! Who will go forth?" And Moses said: "We will all go, with our underlings and our elders,, we will go with our sons and daughters, with our flocks and our herds . . ." (Shemot 11: 7-9).

But Pharoah says no, that he would be a fool to let them all leave, when if this is just about a religious observance, then only the princes and elders should go. And he sends Moses and Aaron away.

And I began to think about the slave mentality. It is a way of thinking in which the slave's self is divided; someone else stands between a human being and her ultimate purpose. Someone else takes responsibility for the slave's will and being, making him less than a person.

Torah does not say, "Let my people go!" It says, "Send my people forth that they may serve me!"
Why?
Because in Egypt the people are servants to a man. They must worship his every whim. And by accepting their service, Pharoah commits the idolatry of seeing himself as above them in the eyes of heaven. He sees himself as a god. Thus the servant and the master both sacrifice to idols by the act of placing something lesser in front of their freedom.

And what is the sense of the "we will go . . ." piece? If the people are divided, so that some may leave to perform a religious duty permitted by Pharoah, they will retain the slave mentality. They will return to serve Pharoah. There is no half-slave and half-free. Freedom is all or nothing. People cannot choose the nice things about slavery, and refuse the hard choices that make up freedom and expect to remain free.

But if they all go forth, after seeing the signs and wonders, then in the wilderness, they will no longer be servants of Pharoah. And at Sinai, they can choose to make a covenant and accept Torah, placing themselves as servants of the Law of the Eternal.

And what of those signs? They are the plagues.
The plagues are a metaphor in this story for what happens to a land when people accept the slave mentality and must worship at the feet of a king, a master, an idol.
Then, even the innocent son of the slave girl behind the millstone will suffer. As will the mothers of Mitzrayim (the straits), who will mourn the destruction of the future generation in the name of the power of Pharoah and his priests and courtiers.

Free people do not place a person between themselves and the Eternal Law.
They choose to do what is right out of a whole self, not out of the half-being of servitude to others, be those others presidents or "all humankind."
A free human being may not worship at the altar of any man.

Thus I cannot, I must not, pledge to be a servant to Barack Obama or to all humankind.
To do so would be idolatry.
I serve a different covenant.
As an American, I pledge to uphold the Constitution.
As a Jew, I serve only the great I AM.*

*YHVH, the unprouncible Tetragrammaton, is a symbol for the root that conveys the meaning of being. It is a combination of three verb forms: I was, I am, I will be. The Name is unpronouncible because it is both infinite and incomplete. It comes from Moses question: "Who are you?" To which the Eternal replies something like: "Wait and see what I will do. Then you will know who I was, who I am, and what I will be."