9-11: She Stands

 

 

I will never forget that day. It marked me just as surely as Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg and Valley Forge have marked previous generations of Americans.

 

I close my eyes and I see the images: 
A tower burning in a clear, blue September sky.
An airplane flying into a building.
People falling along the side of a building.
Towers falling, one floor into another.
People running through what were once streets.  
Papers falling from the clear blue September sky.
All in silence. Like a dream.

 

And out of the dust and ashes, I see the image: 
She stands.
“Just when you think it might be over
Just when you think the fight is gone
Someone will risk his life to raise her
There she stands  . . .” (10
I remember this as if I had been there.

 

Twelve years. And the tears still come. 
We are wounded in spirit. 
For a clear September sky still evokes
the frozen images as if no time had passed. 
But through the tears we see another rising
to a new and taller stand.
For Americans still rise to greatness, and there she stands. . . (2)

 

There she stands.
It took longer than expected.
And we look back and count the cost.
1776 feet she rises,
There she stands. (2)
The greatest monument to American dead
is to rebuild the alabaster cities of their dreams.
Out of the rubble, we raise them up:
higher, prouder, stronger than before.
She stands.

When evil calls itself a martyr
When all your hopes come crashing down
Someone will pull her from the rubble
There she stands. (1)
Both of them--
the flag and the Freedom Tower (3)
we raise to remind ourselves of
who we are
and to what we commit ourselves.

 

 

“Oh, beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years.
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
undimmed by human tears. . .” (4)

Click through to see a time-lapse video of the rise of the Freedom Tower. (3)

NOTES:
1. There She Stands by Michael W. Smith
2. My words in the spirit of There She Stands, with apologies to Michael W. Smith.
3. I know they changed the name, but for me, it is and will always be Freedom Tower.
4. America the Beautiful by Katherine Lee Bates.

Technorati Tags: 9-11,Memory,American Exceptionalism,Times and Seasons

Israel: In Which I Do Not Know What to Say

I have been working on a blog entry in my head, and gathering together sundry comments that I have made here and there, but the POTUS announcement inviting Israel to just commit suicide already, and spare the world the need to destroy her, threw me into a sea of emotions that I have not yet traveled through. The situation seems so dire to me that I cannot find the issue I was preparing important. It is, and I know that; but for the nonce, it seems that I must let it go.

And although I have a number of ideas about the O-chamberlain's new version of "peace in our time", I am not at all ready to settle on one, and I find myself obsessively visiting blogs and news stories hoping to find a word of encouragement. I know they are out there, and I just must work through the obsessive moments of early mourning, and come out to a place where I can find some internal balance once again.

One of the very difficult things about being Jewish, loving my people and our homeland, Israel, is that it is impossible to go anywhere on the internet be it You Tube, blogs, news stories, and discussion groups, and not see the blinding hatred for us and for the Jewish state that appears to be everywhere. Even for posts that are supportive of Israel, I have learned to discipline myself against taking a look at the comments, for the vitriol is real and frightening, and so irrational as to be unanswerable. Everybody has an opinion, and most are based on misconceptions and a terrible ignorance of history.

Today, though, I am not prepared to discuss any of the issues, as the shock of what POTUS did is still fresh. And even though I expected it, it was still a shock. All I can say at this moment is this:
The O-dolater--O, he who presented himself as a Greek god at his nomination--does not speak for me. He never really did, and he never really can. I have never had much respect for him, and now all I feel is a sick contempt. By his actions and words, he is--as Craig Biddle of the Objective Standard noted--"giving the green light to a second Holocaust."

So, since I cannot write rationally at the moment, in mourning as I am for the government of my country that has made itself the enemy of my people, I will post a portion of a letter I wrote to Russ Roberts of Cafe Hayek, and some links of people who have a stake in the survival of Israel. The letter to Roberts expresses my thoughts on his second Israel post, one in which he laments the inability of people to discuss the issue without vitriol. I wrote, in part:

I am a frequent reader of Cafe Hayek, and I comment infrequently. I I did read your first post on Israel, and followed the link and found the Harsanyi's post to be thought provoking. I appreciate that you posted it, and I shared your post on my Facebook Wall in order to give it wider coverage.
I support Israel, and I agree with you that foreign aid is a bad thing altogether. I believe that the United States needs to stop supporting wars by providing funds to all sides in all areas of the world. I think that forcing people to support causes they oppose through their tax dollars will always lead to vitriol. But the vitriol and hatred aimed at the tiny state of Israel has a special and extremely nasty quality all of its own, and some of it crosses the boundary into outright antisemitism. Although antisemitism is almost universal on the political left, it does appear on the right. Growing up in a libertarian household, with a parent who helped found my birth state's Libertarian Party, however, I hardly saw it among Libertarians. But since the Ron Paul R3VOLUTION, I have seen it rear its ugly head to a startling degree, especially among those who substitute a good deal of anger and passion for strong and solid libertarian values. I have, for the most part, given up on commenting on any blog, news story or You Tube post about Israel, because the comments become so vicious and irrational that they are unanswerable. For this reason I did not even look at the comments on your first post when I cross-posted the link.
I want you to know that I do not think you have betrayed your principles and values, and it is my suspicion that those who have accused you of this have minimal education in the basics of libertarian thought and the major arguments within thoughtful libertarian circles.

Here are Russ's two posts about which I was writing: Israel and Israel II . "Israel" contains Robert's link to David Harsanyi's comments on the O-amalek's speech.

Here is what the Jerusalem Post columnist and Center for Security Policy member Caroline Glick's column: Obama's Abandonment of America .
Isn't interesting, that even though what is preying on the mind of every Israeli is dismay that the United States has abandoned our treaty with Israel, commingled with the relief that now at least Israel does not need to concern itself with pleasing the United States, this Israeli's realization is that in this speech Obama has made it clear that he is abandoning America and her citizens first and foremost.

Just a few thoughts, while I consider whether I want to pray: "Pour out your wrath, O G-d" or "Extend the wings of your protection over the land of Israel and all of its people". Maybe both.

The Mark of Cain

"It was after the passing of days that Kayin brought

from the fruits of the soil, a gift to YHWH,

and as for Hevel, he too brought--from the first-

born of his flock, from their fat parts.

YHWH had regard for Hevel and his gift,

for Kayin and his gift he had no regard.

Kayin became exceedingly upset and his face fell.

YHWH said to Kayin: Why are you so upset?

And why has your face fallen? Is it not thus:

If you intend good, bear-it-aloft, but

if what you intend is not good,

at your door is sin, crouching,

towards you he lusts--but you can rule over him.

Kayin said to Hevel his brother . . .

But then it was, when they were out in the field

that Kayin rose up against his brother

and he killed him. . .

YHWH said to [Kayin]:

No, therefore, whoever kills Kayin, sevenfold

will it be avenged. So YHWH set a sign for Kayin

so that whoever came upon him would not strike

him down. Kayin went out from the face of YHWH

and settled in the land of Wandering, east of Eden.

Genesis 4:3 - 8, 15 - 16; The Shochen Bible,

(translated by Everett Fox)

It is hard to understand why a man might rise up and murder one he calls his brother, his friend and companion. Even when both men are flawed, having had run-ins with the law, it is hard to imagine what would impel a man to such anger that he would not stop, that he would beat his friend to death and leave him lying in a pool of blood by the side of the road..

This is the same primeval story that was told first in Genesis, and in its aftermath, the question of what is in those ellipses--what happened that one man would rise up and kill a man that he loved as a brother--this same question haunts me today. It has haunted me since I found out Friday night that the Professional Revolutionary, a man that I knew, worked with, and ultimately had to distance myself from, had killed another young man that I know, the Virtual Artist, who was just pulling his life together after his own troubles with the law.

Nobody knows what Kayin/Cain said to his brother, Hevel/Abel. Nobody knows what Hevel said or did in reply, if anything. The context of the story makes it clear that it is mythos, a story that introduces the meaning of choosing evil over good into the context of a primeval setting after the birth of man as a moral being. No explanations are given, for no rational reason for the murder, the first fratricide, are possible.

What we do know is that a human being can be waylaid by passion, but that the human being can master it. For even though Cain felt the need to compare himself to his brother, and to believe that his brother received favor that he did not, the issue is not that. In the story, G-d makes no mention of that feeling, but tells Cain that the passion he feels can be mastered. This is the difference between an animal and a human being. An animal does what it does based on instinct and not thought. A human being, endowed with the ability to differentiate between good (life), and evil (death), can and must choose actions compatible with life and avoid death. That passion is an animal spirit, "crouching at the door" like a predator, but that the human being can be its master.

In the story, we do not know how that passion was inflamed to the point that Cain could take the life of his brother.That part has been left out, replaced only with the silent ellipses that remind us that there were words between the passion and the action. Although the text is silent on how Cain killed his brother, the midrash and commentary tell us of violent murder: Cain bashed in his brother's head with a stone.

So it is with the death of the Virtual Artist at the hands of the Professional Revolutionary. What words passed between them when the Revolutionary went to visit the Artist? We don't know. Who said what, who did what, and who threw the first punch? We don't know. Only one man is left to speak, and we are not privy to what he has said. We only know the consequences of what was transacted between them: the brutal murder of the Artist in what appears to be the result of passion unbridled by any thought; of rage so great that even after the Artist must have been down, the Revolutionary continued to hit him until near death, the Artist was left alone by the side of the road, awash in his life's blood. Left alone, to be found by a passer-by, he died en route to the hospital.

Even though I hate the sin, the action of a man I know that destroyed the life of another man I knew, I remain haunted. My anger at what happened to the Artist makes me loath the man who did it. My horror at the violence of the death makes me wish that I had never had a conversation or shared a meal with the murderer. I feel tainted.

And yet, as surely as I mourn the death of the Artist, so I find myself filled with sorrow at the unforgivable nature of the act of murder the Revolutionary committed. For in that moment, at that stark point of choice, he gave up his humanity. I am haunted by the unchangable direction of time, by a deed so final that no mending of it is possible. I am haunted because there is no reconciliation possible between the man and the friend he killed. And I mourn for the loss of the Revolutionary, too, and for the loss of any hope of an understanding between us in the fullness of time; I mourn for him as I would for a child of my own, lost to the land of wandering, east of Eden.

For the other part of the story is the confrontation of Cain with the finality of his action. His brother's blood cries out from the ground, and is consumed by the soil. And so the soil will no longer sustain the murderer. He is no longer of the earth, to live among his fellow human beings in peace. Instead, he will wander, an exile homeless to the end of his days, marked by the sign that he has murdered his brother.

The mark of Cain. It is not the punishment for murder. That is the exile and the wandering. But the mark is a sign meant to set Cain apart for all time. The mark is the memory of what he has done, a memory known to himself and to others, so that he wanders restlessly outside the good will one human being has toward another; the murderer wanders outside the very presence of human regard. The mark of Cain is the mark of exile not from the very soil of the earth, but from the regard of every other human being.

When I learned of the Artist's death by the hand of his friend, closer than a brother, I tore at my clothes in anger and cried out: Baruch Dayan Emet! Blessed is the Judge of Truth! And we will mourn for him, and cry out at the horror of his death. We will gather to remember his short life, and to express our unfathomed sorrow that he no longer shares the earth with us, his life untimely taken.

But there will be no such cry, no such mourning together, no such remembering and sending forth for the Revolutionary. My sorrow for him will be expressed in silence, his loss from among us deemed necessary and right. Because he has taken upon himself the Mark of Cain in that one aweful moment of choice, a moment about which the story is silent.

And so in silence will each of those of us who knew him mourn his loss from among human kind.

A Black Day

Where were you when you heard about the black day at Virginia Tech?

I was sitting in the SUB (Student Union Building) at The University of New Mexico. I had just completed a test and I was feeling pretty satisfied with it. I was setting up my computer to read my e-mail and check the blogs I follow. Then I heard the sound of shooting.

It was coming from the giant flat-screen in the corner near where I was sitting. And as I listened to the eye-witness accounts, I was thinking that I was seated in front of a floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window. If someone with a gun were to decide the shoot at the SUB..... well, I would be in harm's way. I didn't move.

As one does, at times like this, I was thinking that the peaceful scene outside the window--newly leafed-out trees swaying in the wind, undergraduates going by in flip-flops with eighty pound backpacks, a couple holding hands at a table outside--felt like it was not in the same world where this tragedy happened.

Thirty-three lives. Gone. Just...like...that.

It was hard to come back to my world...the one on a campus where such a thing would never happen. Would it?

There will be much to say in the coming days about the how's and the why's. I am sure there will be finger-pointing, calls for legislation, hand-wringing and lawsuits. I may even have an opinion or two. Maybe. Next week.

But for now, it is a time to think about the loss of 33 individuals--people with dreams, goals, joys and sorrows. Gone. Just. Like. That.