A Season of Loss and Gain: Part I-Losses

I have not written anything at all here since Purim. Part of the reason is that we have been busy with our work on the ranch, and my work with the Gary Johnson campaign, with classes and courses, training and all the business of life. If I had thought that as the children grew up and began leaving home my leisure would increase, I have been shown to be wrong. The days are still just as packed as they ever were, if not more so.  

But another, deeper reason is that I have been challenged and tested this spring of 2012 with losses and gains that I was reluctant to write about because I had not yet resolved some of them in my own head and heart, and in some ways still haven’t.

We lost a total of four animals this past spring. The one calf born so far this year, was taken by coyotes, and a heifer died one night for reasons that we will never know, about two months after we transferred her to our partner’s farm on the Rio Grande. These losses caused momentary anguish and questioning, but not the anguish that two others created.

In late January, while we were away, the eldest of our two house cats died unexpectedly. Cloudy, our most beautiful cat—the one with the unique aquamarine eyes--laid down in his favorite winter sleeping spot and never woke up again. He was found by the CIT, who saw him born 11 years before. It seemed the  circle was closed that night and the next day when we buried him on the sunny south-facing hillside behind the house, under a twisted pinyon tree in view of his favorite window perch.

 

But the hardest loss by far happened on February 8, 2012. It was a sunny, early spring morning, when I fed the dogs, and as was my habit, hugged Umbrae—our big, black Newfie cross hard so that he would “talk” to me. Later that morning, busy with computer work for a class that I was leaving to attend in Albuquerque, I did not notice that he and Lily had gone on walk-about. When he did not return, I drove the county road looking for him, returning empty to the ranch. After Lily returned, I reluctantly left for two days, hoping that he would return that evening. He never did. And I am left with a huge hole in my heart, wondering what happened to him, and thinking about what I could have done differently that morning. He may have been stolen, he may have been attacked by a wild animal. He may be alive still, and he may not. We just don’t know. And that is the hardest loss of all. As I drive around the Red Hill area, I still have one eye on the pastures and roads, the hills and the houses, hoping to catch a glimpse of my big, black dog. In my mind’s eye I see him, in the periphery of my vision, dancing on the big rock on the hill above the house.  

More than any other reason, I  think I have not posted here for so long because on some level, I wanted to wait for good news about Umbrae. Writing about his loss, I knew, would open up the wound of not knowing, to bring that awful sinking feeling in my gut, the pain of loss that seems unendurable even as it must be endured. And it would make his loss seem final and permanent in my mind.

There have been other losses, but they are smaller, less permanent, more reconcilable. There have also been many gains, some wonderful and amazing, and some small and satisfying. The gains, I think, deserve their own entry and their own honors. Tomorrow.

I have undertaken the discipline of blogging again, as we move into the summer and as I embrace more and more fully this life we have chosen, way out here.

Purim: The Diaspora Mentality

 

“It can’t happen here.”  

“Come, let us wipe them out from among the nations so that the name of Israel will not be remembered.”

Psalm 83  

“So many Hamans, only one Purim.”

 

Once again Purim is upon us, a time of spring-fever hilarity and drunken silliness. The only holiday of the Jewish calendar when it is not only permitted, but practically commanded that we drink enough so that we do not know the difference between Mordecai, the hero, and Haman, the villain. And what’s not to celebrate? On the surface, Purim is another one of the quintessential Jewish holidays that can be summarized thus:
They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat.     

But scratch below the surface of the formula, and look again. Purim is antithetical to the joy of Pesach, when we rejoice in our liberation from slavery, and our obligation in every generation to understand that it was we, ourselves, who came forth from Egypt. Rather, Purim is more than slightly hysterical, as we read the Megillah and remember that in the Diaspora, the Eternal G-d of Israel is silent, hidden even in the face of our total annihilation.  Even the circumstance of our peril in Shushan was governed by the capriciousness associated with the false gods of the nations, the date of our destruction—13 Adar—being chosen by the casting of lots, called purim.  And the villains do not have the solemn power of a Pharaoh and his priests, ready to duel, gods against G-d, over the fate of Israel. A drunken king willing to mortgage away his kingdom for the price of a half-year long drinking party and his vain chancellor who struts and fusses his way to the destruction of the Jews of Persia; that’s what we get in this Diaspora tale of precarious redemption. And even that is not accomplished by the strong hand and mighty arm of the Eternal, full of power and glory. No, in our Diaspora redemption, the King is too weak to even rescind the death decree, but the Jews of Persia are granted a special dispensation to defend themselves against those commanded to destroy them.  

Purim is very much a Diaspora tale, and in the Megillah itself we see all of the stereotypical manifestations of what R. Soloveitchik calls “the galut (exile) mentality.” The tale could be pulled right out of a newspaper from Europe today, or any other place and time in which a highly assimilated and comfortable Diaspora Jewish community is suddenly made aware of how small, vulnerable and hated it really is.

Even the heroes are Diaspora heroes. When Hadassah is entered into the “Miss Shushan” contest to get the king a new queen, she goes with a less “Jewish”name, Esther, which means “hidden.” Her uncle, the Court Jew Mordecai, counsels her not to reveal her identity, so that she remains hidden in the court of the King. The attitude of the Jews of Shushan is also typically that of assimilated Jews of the Diaspora. As R. Irving Greenberg puts it, when Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman in the street:

“. . . they were confident they had nothing to do with ‘Mordecai the Jew’ types who would not go along with Persian rules. It was a rude awakening to discover that Haman designated all Jews as his target. Even more shocking was the discovery that the respectable [King] Ahashverosh, who would never kill Jews—some of his best friends were Jews—passed the ring to Haman without hesitation and was ready to stand by indifferently while the mass murder proceeded. The Jews of Shushan discovered the bitter lessons of the Diaspora: It can happen here, and we are one. (The Jewish Way).

When the destruction of the Jews of Shushan is announced, Esther and Mordecai’s responses are echoed down through the whole sorry history of Diaspora Jewry. Mordecai weeps, Esther decides that it is better not to stand out (“Shah! Be shtill!”), and the Jewish community is divided on the seriousness of the peril (“They don’t really mean it.” “This is the land of Schiller and Bach.”) It is only when Mordecai takes action, sending a message to Esther in which he says:

“Do not think that you alone of all the Jews, will escape into the King’s house; for if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, and you and your father’s household will be destroyed. Who knows but that you have come into the King’s Household for just such a time as this?” (Esther 4: 13 – 14)

And so Esther does act, and deliverance comes because of her action. But her actions are not the confident and direct acts of a prophet like Moses, but the careful and hesitant self-abasement of a court Jew in the uncertainty of exile:

“If I have found favor in your eyes, O King, and if it pleases the King, let my life be given to me at my request and my people spared at my pleading . . . If only we had been sold to be slaves, I would have been silent for merely suffering bondage, I would not have wanted to cause damage to my king . . .” (Esther 7:3 – 4).

The hysterical hilarity of Purim is a celebration of the momentary relief of a people who know that evil has been averted but not destroyed; that the wheel is still in spin. Haman hangs today, and the Jews are saved, but tomorrow there could arise another son of Amalek--who embodies the pure, destructive will to annihilate the Jewish people—and genocide come upon them like a bolt out of the blue.

This Purim, as I drown out the name of Haman with a swing of the grogger, and eat my Hamantaschen accompanied by a nice Moscato, I also remember this about Amalek: he is the symbol of idolatry, the claim to an absolute power that is contradicted by the very existence of the Jew. As R. Greenberg puts it:

“Premature messianists. . . are angered by the persistence of the Jew who thereby gives the lie to their presumptions. Idolatry is tempted to make the Jew disappear and thereby clear the way for its own, uncontested dominance. The twentieth century has made the matter even clearer. Whosoever would be God must destroy the Jews totally. As long as one Jew is alive, the Jewish denial of all but God remains . . . the temptation to become God is overwhelming, therefore a plan to murder every last Jew becomes conceivable—and doable.” (The Jewish Way).

And I think about the rising unrest in the world, and the empty promises of Utopia that come from the right, the left, the Islamists, the trade unions, the political personality cultists, the Occupy movement and the idolater in the White House who said: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” Is it no wonder, then, that we are seeing a rise in Jew-hatred all over the world, from Achmadinejad’s call to “wipe Israel off the map, to the Occupy Los Angeles teacher who wants all Jews expelled from the United States. SSDD.

And the Jews of the United States, confronted with a maniacal hatred of ourselves and our country, act just like the Jews of Shushan. So many liberal Jews refuse to see Obama’s hatred of Jews and Israel. So many libertarian Jews help Ron Paul sweep the overt anti-Semitism in his campaign under the rug. Jewish self-hatred abounds in the press, in the media. It is hard to understand. It seems crazy. It seems suicidal. It is irrational.

“Do not think that you alone of the Jews will escape into the King’s house—(the party, the movement, the collective) . . .

Utopia is an idol; beautiful at a distance, but corrupt and deadly close-up. And no matter how much the individual Jew might protest and argue that it is not he who contradicts assimilation, the collective, the perfection of human kind, Amalek sees his very existence as a threat, saying:

 

“Come, let us wipe them out from among the nations . . .”

So many Hamans. Only one Purim.

“Mic-Check”: Verbal Terrorism and Pushback at UNM

Last Thursday evening when my class on Case Study ended, I stuffed my papers in my notebook and hurried across campus to hear Nonie Darwish speak. I expected a good, tightly focused talk by a woman who has experienced the oppression of Sharia Law firsthand. I did wondered briefly as I approached the Anthropology Building from the rear and cut through the side-hallway where the labs are, whether anyone would attempt to block me getting in, but the night was quiet as a brand new moon dropped in the west.

Nonie Darwish is the daughter of Egyptian General, born during the Revolution of 1952, and is now an American by virtue of her passionate love for liberty. She has spoken at many universities, as well as before the United States Congress, the European Union Parliament, and the British House of Lords.

She was brought to the University of New Mexico by two campus groups, the UNM Israel Alliance and the UNM Conservative Republicans, with funding from the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and sponsorships from organizations affiliated with local synagogues and churches. Her talk was entitled Why the Arab Spring is Failing and How Israel is Involved.

I walked past a dessert table set up by the Israel Alliance, and took a bottle of water on the way in. I was just in time for the talk, so I did not linger. As I went by the table I noticed a young man standing holding a sign that read: “Stop Israel Apartheid.” I swept past him and sat down next to fellow members of Congregation Albert with whom I share almost no political views except support of Israel. We greeted one another with Shalom’s and Howdy Do’s and settled in as Nonie was introduced.

Nonie came on stage, a small, round woman dressed in slacks and a simple red top, full of energy and passion. From the moment she launched into it, her talk was not disappointing. Her thesis was that no Muslim country can expect anything from revolution other than more tyranny because of the structure of Sharia Law, which dictates all aspects of life for Muslims, including the structure and practices of the Islamic state. Throughout her talk, she reiterated that her hatred was not for Muslim people as individuals, but rather for the Sharia Law that keeps them enslaved to a brutal system, one that openly preaches violence against women and non-Muslims.

At the point where Nonie began speaking about the duties and responsibilities of a Muslim dictator under Sharia, there erupted from the back of the room a chant: “Mic Check!” a small group yelled, “Israel is an apartheid state!” I stood up to get a better idea of who was doing what, and I had a terrible sinking feeling that we, the people who had come to hear Nonie Darwish speak, would see her silenced. This initiation of force against those they wish to silence is a favorite tactic of the left. The call for “mic check!” became a favorite method of the Occupy Wall Street “movement”, who have such a sense of entitlement that they act on the belief that only they have freedom of speech because only they have something to say.

So as the disruptors continued their chant, I began chanting: “USA! USA!” I had learned this tactic to counter disruptions when I was trained to monitor Tea Party rallies. But New Mexicans are so generally laid back that we never had occasion to use our training at the Tea Parties. Other audience members had the same idea, and it seemed like many of us started chanting back at the same time, turning to face the disruptive element at the back of the room.

As we stood there chanting, I looked around for security or the UNM police, but neither were anywhere in evidence. (Apparently no one thought it was needed, because those with opposite views in the past had politely tolerated each other’s events). Instead several older men approached the disruptors in a businesslike fashion, and it looked like they were going to force them from the room. One man tried to grab the script from the hands of the leader, but failed. Another seemed to trip over feet or a chair and landed on some of the disruptors. I saw one female disruptor shout “No violence! No violence!”, as these men forced them whole lot of them out of the room. I remember thinking to myself: Sweetie, you asked for it when you used violence against Nonie’s freedom of speech and our right to hear the talk we came to hear.” She looked like one of the (un)Occupy Wall Street chics I had seen last fall, the one who thought it was not okay to occupy except when she was the one doing the occupying.

As soon as the little barbarians were out of the room, people settled down, and Nonie commented: You must feel sorry for them. They cannot stand to have their prejudices confounded by the truth. They hate anyone who disagrees with them, and call them vile names, but they call me the hate monger.” She then continued her speech.

There was one other disruption that came when the President of the Faculty Senate got up and first accused Nonie of hate speech, citing a You Tube video of her speech at a rally honoring an honor killing victim. As Nonie responded that the video had been edited, the dimwit professor went on to interrupt her, and then began to make a speech. The audience was once again on edge, and angry at this professor who had apparently forgotten that the floor was his only to ask a question. There was some booing, but he went on in his ignorant arrogance, until I called out: “What’s you question, sir?” Then another audience member took the microphone from him, and handed it to the next questioner in line.

From that point on, there were no further disruptions, although many questioners disputed Nonie’s talk, and one called her a “bigot.”

Later I learned that the disruptive element came from a campus group, Students for Justice in Palestine, and the (un)Occupy Albuquerque movement. (That familiar looking chic was exactly who I thought she was). Both groups have a very privileged view of rights, believing that they have them because they are right about everything, and nobody else has rights. Therefore, they believe that they have a right to occupy a lecture sponsored and paid for by someone else, and try to shut the speaker down. Of course, the Heckler’s Veto*, as it is popularly called is the initiation of force against the speaker and those who came to hear her. It is violation of the rights of everyone else in the room. As a UC Irvine law professor states:

“You have the right – if you disagree with me – to go outside and perform your protest. But you don’t get the right to come in when I’m talking and shout me down. Otherwise people can always silence a speaker by heckler’s veto, and Babel results.”

Babel did result, but only until the entitled barbarians were forced from the room. No one was hurt, and the men who removed them used only as much force as was necessary to remove them. That force was invited by the disruptive ones themselves, when they initiated force against the speaker the audience came to hear.

This incident leads me to believe that taxpayer money is being wasted at the University of New Mexico. Students there clearly have no idea what rights mean, and believe that they are entitled to shut down a speaker invited and paid for by a campus group because they happen to disagree with her. Others claimed that: “This is OUR university”, to which the audience rightly replied: “No. It is our university. Our tax money built it and funds it.” I would suggest to the dimwit professor who believes he has the right to turn a question into a speech that perhaps he ought to spend his time learning what his contractual responsibilities are, and what the definition of a public lecture is. The event was not a public forum. But even in a public forum, individuals must follow the rules of decorum, taking the floor only when it is yielded and for the purposes defined by the speaker or moderator.

I will be voting no on every bond issue or other allocation of money to UNM until the New Mexico Legislature gets control of the place, and requires all students and faculty to take courses and demonstrate competence in respect for rights, the understanding the difference between rights and privileges (hint: attending university at public expense is not a right, it is a privilege), and in the manners and mores required at public lectures, forums and other events.

I’d say that these kinds of events definitely turn the Town against the Gown. Taxpayers begin to understand why in days of old, the town used to lock the barbarians inside the gates of the University each night at sundown, letting them out on rare occasions and only when they minded their manners and respected their betters—the ones paying for it all.

Hmmm. Maybe we should build a wall around Redondo Drive. A cast-iron gate decorated with gargoyles would be fitting right in front of Sholes Hall.

But until then, I am glad that pushback has started against these barbarian tactics aimed at quashing speech that certain elitist academics have decided must not be heard. And in the process, they demonstrated quite well the truth that Nonie Darwish came to speak.

*This popular notion of the Heckler’s Veto is different than the legal definition, which is the unconstitutional silencing of speech by the government because of a threat of violence on the part of the speaker’s opposition.

____________

A video of Nonie Darwish’s entire speech at UNM may be found here.

The Tea Set Has an Heiress

 

In my china cabinet, on the  top  shelf sits an antique Polish tea set. It consists of a small tea pot, a cream pitcher and a sugar bowl. It is very old, and somewhat battered, having been passed from oldest daughter to oldest daughter, down to me—the 7th in my female line.

It does not belong to me, although I am its current keeper. When I used to gaze at it, in the built-in china cabinet of my grandmother’s craftsman home in northern Illinois, it did belong to me, having passed into my ownership on the day of my birth. And it passed on to my firstborn daughter on the day of her birth, even though at that time it resided on my mother’s display case in her home in Central Illinois, far from the duplex where the Chemistry Geek Princess was born. 

The CGP became the eighth in the line of oldest daughters to whom the tea set passed. It was brought from the old country, one of the few things of beauty and value to survive the misfortunes of the old country, and the slow building of new lives and fortunes here, in the Golden Land. I can imagine my great-grandmother lovingly and carefully placing it on the shelf behind the square-cut craftsman leaded glass doors of the dark china cabinet in the corner of her dining room. Anna was her name, but I don’t know the name of her mother, the woman who carefully packed it for the journey across the Atlantic in days long ago. Mara, perhaps? I never knew her and I may be getting her name mixed up with the name of my mother’s father’s mother. And before her, three other women, oldest daughter to oldest daughter to oldest daughter, back to the one who acquired it, the circumstances of which are shrouded in the silence of the long past. But from Anna it went to Esther, and from Esther to Madeline, and from Madeline to me. And then it belonged to my daughter for twenty-six years, most of which passed while it stood on my mother’s shelf.

It came to me about seven years ago, when I got a china cabinet and my mother decided to send it back with me, after a visit we made to Illinois.

And now it no longer belongs to my daughter, even though she will one day become its keeper and carefully unwrap it and put it in her own Italian cherry wood china cabinet.

Last week, the tea set got a new owner when the 9th in the line of oldest daughters arrived, although we knew on her mother’s birthday last fall that the tea set was going to have an heiress. She is indeed the Princess Heiress, a tiny little thing compared to her mother, with dark hair and a sweet disposition.

And I gaze at it now in wonder, amazed that somehow the golden-haired little girl in the pink sailor dress got big enough bring a new little girl into the world. There it sits, the Princess Heiress’ tea set, right next to my Bumpa’s Birthday Angel, who bears a bouquet of snowdrops and has a garnet set into her skirt, for she is the January angel. She shows that I share my birth month with the husband of Anna, even though he was gone when I was a little girl. Behind the tea set is a “Welcome, Baby!” card, in the distinctive style that marked the middle of last century, a card from my grandma Esther’s neighbor, one Gal Mignone, who brought it over along with baked goods upon the occasion of my birth.

Generations come and generations go. The tea set is a visible sign of the more mysterious unbroken chain of mitochondrial DNA passed on for at least nine generations, mother to daughter. Nine generations, about 200 years. As as I look at it’s beauty and marvel at its age, I wonder what the life of the new Princess Heiress of the Tea Set will bring. I can expect to see her daughter, the 10th heiress born to the Tea Set sometime around 2035, but it would to take great luck to see that woman’s daughter born to it somewhere around my 100th birthday. And beyond that, I will not have even a glimpse of those girls.

I wonder, though, what perils and wonders will the keepers of the tea set see beyond my lifetime, in the generations of the tea set, the 11th, the 12th and the luck 13th, who will be born somewhere around the turn of the 22nd century.

In the meantime, I am the keeper of the tea set, holding it in trust not only for my daughter, but for my granddaughter, who sleeps contentedly in her mother’s arms, protected under the roof of her doting father’s house. She is such a tiny little girl, but she bears a big name and an even bigger inheritance.

May this little one grow great! May she in her time bequeath life and beauty to the generations who will come after her. And may she in her turn relinquish the tea set to her daughter, and her daughter’s daughter, in the great chain of life.

Ron Paul and His Personality Cultists

In the past few days, we have seen another go around with the Ron Paul Cultists at a New Mexico FB page for libertarian discussion. On this page as elsewhere, posts and discussions about Ron Paul’s candidacy for the GOP nomination, and the recently rediscovered baggage he has have been topics for discussion. There are those libertarians who have decided to support Ron Paul despite the anti-libertarian claims made by a ghostwriter in his newsletters and reports, because of his libertarian stance on economic issues. Others won’t touch him with a ten-foot pole because they don’t like the moral and character implications of the openly anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric of some of his followers, as well as the weak excuses given for the newsletter debacle.

For the record, I do not and will never support a candidate who tolerates the kind of ubiquitous and open anti-Semitism that can be found on every Ron Paul chat, discussion board and forum that I have seen. The ideology to be found there is profoundly anti-libertarian in its nature, and reveals a darkness that surrounds the Ron Paul Campaign. That Ron Paul has not had the political acumen nor the moral decency to confront the vocal anti-Semites and racists among his followers does not speak well for his leadership ability and makes me wonder about what he really believes. Since he has been recorded saying that “Israel is more trouble than it is worth” and that Gaza is one big “concentration camp”, I have good reason to suspect that Ron Paul agrees with his followers’ anti-Semitic ideology in substance, even if he does not match them in meanness of spirit.

For these reasons, I dropped any support of Ron Paul and any organization—such as Campaign for Liberty—as soon as I became concerned about what I was reading and found the newsletter story and other corroborating evidence both on and off the internet. My letter withdrawing from Campaign for Liberty can be found here. In it, I detail my concern about the anti-Semitism, the fallacies of thinking that it reveals, and the fact that Ron Paul has never meaningfully addressed the issue with his supporters and followers or those of us who had supported him until we found this darkness in the middle of his campaign.

Since that day in 2010 when I formally renounced any connection to Ron Paul and his associates, I have also stated my concerns about his Presidential Campaign, because I don’t think that a man who cannot—at minimum—confront the brownshirts among his followers should be elected President of the United States. That certain of his followers behave like brownshirts is painfully obvious to anyone who frequents Ron Paul Meet-Ups, message boards and chatrooms. For those who do not, the C-PAC 2011 conference was a major wake-up call. Although Ron Paul did not participate in the thuggery that included shouting down scheduled speakers and the anti-Semitic harassment of David Horowitz’s Freedom Center displays, neither did he censure the behavior or admonish those over whom he has a tremendous amount of influence for their behavior.

Yesterday, in response to a post at the libertarian FB site by a conservative who is equally dismayed by the tactics of these Ron Paul followers, I posted a short essay explaining the reasons that I do not think Ron Paul will win the GOP nomination. Those reasons include the way the GOP establishment has worked to disenfranchise the conservatives and tea-party voters, as well as the fact that the largest opposition block to the GOP establishment are conservatives who do not like Ron Paul’s foreign policy stands and his abandonment of Israel. The whole post with comments can be found here, for those who wish to see the whole argument.

Although my post dealt with a political argument, and only mentioned the issue of the newsletters and the rampant anti-Semitism of many Paul followers in that context, I was immediately called a “bigot” by another commenter who is a Ron Paul follower, and has made outright anti-Semitic claims on the same forum. This man, who writes on this public forum as Gene Crouch (which I believe is his real name) has stated that he believes that “the Jews control the media” in the US, and that “the Jews” control the banks. When challenged on this, he maintained his statement, claiming that his “research” had shown this to be true, although he provided no evidence at all. Gene almost immediately altered his comment, taking out the line “bigot” and replacing it with “negative and close-minded (sic)”, which does not substantially change anything.

What I find most interesting about Gene’s approach is that it is similar in both form and substance to the way that a great number of Ron Paul fans respond to any criticism of their hero. Whether on an internet forum or chat, or calling in to a live radio talk show, certain phrases and accusations have become so common as to identify the source as a Ron Paul follower (Listen, for example, to this caller accusing Glenn Beck of being in the pay of Israel). It is almost as if, when they hear or read a certain phrase opposing Ron Paul, they immediately stop thinking and pull out Talking Point No. 3. Or No. 5 or No.7.

Further, few of them know or understand anything about the origin of the ideologies they are espousing, and insist on calling themselves ‘libertarians’ while spouting on cue extremely anti-libertarian positions. To state that “the Jews” control the banks and the media is not only anti-Semitic, but it is deeply anti-Capitalist, indicating that the intellectual fathers of what many have taken to calling the “Paul-bots”, are not particularly libertarian in their thought. Capitalism demands that individuals be treated as individuals, relying as it does on the Enlightenment values of individual rights and personal responsibility.

This ideology that “the Jews” want to control the world is the classic European anti-Semitic trope, straight out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian forgery that was extensively used by the Nazis. (Show me your intellectual roots and I will show you your future). The Nazis were, in turn, the intellectual mentors to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and these libels and their unforgettably anti-Capitalist images spread into and were then fused with a more traditional Islamic Jew-hate taught in the Koran and Hadiths. Further, the use of collective language (esp.'the Jews') by Paul followers like Gene, also demonstrates a collectivist world-view in which individuals are characterized and made responsible for the purported actions of others who happen to share the same religion or race.

Modern anti-Semitism is itself racist, implying that all Jews have certain ethical and moral characteristics that are unique to them as a group, a "taint in the blood" as it were. This predates the Nazis, but not by much, and does come out of a peculiar race theory that has no scientific basis. (The genetic differences among the so-called “races” are miniscule and the phenotypes vary as much, if not more, within each population as they do across them). We are seeing similar attacks on the religion of the Catholic Rick Santorum and the Mormon Mitt Romney. Both are accused of belonging to religious organizations that are claimed to have conspired to achieve world domination. However, there is no racist implication in these religious prejudices. (That anti-Semitism, among all of the hatreds based on religion, is uniquely based on racist ideology may be because there is no central Jewish organization that can be pointed to in the way that the Catholic and Mormon churches have been. So for the tin-foil-hat and black-helicopter set, it’s got to be “them Joos” who aspire to dominate them, because they certainly cannot be responsible for their own predicaments). Regardless, both ideologies— whether race or religious affiliation based—are nefarious, focusing as they do on collectives and prejudging individuals based on the standard creed (and often a twisted version thereof) of their religion and on family histories instead of on their ideas and positions. And religious anti-Catholicism/anti-Mormonism, and racist anti-Semitism are often found espoused by the same people.

What is really indicative that Ron Paul has inspired a personality cult, however, is the knee-jerk response of personal attack against anyone who puts out an argument about the political fortunes and future of their hero. Such an argument is not a personal attack, and in fact, invites a discussion of argument/counter-argument. Such a discussion can result in winning friends and influencing people to vote for one’s chosen candidate. But that does not seem to be the desire of the Ron Paul true-believers: their first response is almost always a personal attack, which will do the opposite, whether that is their calculated intent or not.

In this example, by putting forth a strictly political argument, which is well in the mainstream of normal discourse and was not in any way an attack, I was called a bigot. My guess is that if I had put forth that same argument about one of the other GOP candidates, Paul-bots would not protest, and would in fact pile-on, reviling those candidates beyond what is necessary in a political discussion. In fact, I have seen Ron Paul followers do exactly that. But in any discussion in which someone does indicate a shared true-believer-in-Ron-Paul status, they revel in baseless conspiracy theories used to demonize Ron Paul's political opponents. At the same time, though, they ignore and/or excuse any flaw in Ron Paul himself.

Rational Ron Paul supporters do not act this way. Rather, they indicate by their arguments that they recognize Ron Paul as a human being who is not the perfect answer to their concerns, but who addresses the majority of them or the most important among them. They do notice the areas where they do not agree, but they do not think they are as important as those with which they do agree.

Unfortunately, the number of rational Ron Paul supporters that I know and have experienced is small. In my circles, it appears to be growing smaller as more and more people discover for themselves how ubiquitous and nasty the racist/anti-Semitic rhetoric in the Paul movement has become, and how divorced from reality the conspiracy mongering is. The intellectual bankruptcy of the Ron Paul Cult makes it difficult to have any honest discussion about Ron Paul’s qualifications to be President of the United States, and still come away differing on the issues, but with a sense of perspective and respect. (I find this similar to the rhetoric among certain left-leaning Democrats, but they elevate the whole socialist/collectivist ideology to messiah status, rather than a person).

I think Ron Paul’s unwillingness to address his cultists and their libels is the greatest reason why, in the end, there can be no discussion or dialogue. I cannot respect or tolerate the kind of discourse that is common in the Paul camp, and my respect for those who continue to support him is diminishing rapidly, as I watch them excuse outright racism and anti-Semitism, twisting their own values into pretzels in order to refrain from directly confronting it. I cannot understand it. Rational people ought to be able to disagree, and Americans who want to restore our liberty ought to put values and principles above personalities.

Ron Paul could have chosen to nip this all in the bud without making any excuses, by simply disavowing the ideologies and confronting his personality cultist followers. But he did not.

That Ron Paul has not done so is a massive character flaw. Apparently, he likes the role of "messiah." That he excuses such behavior rather than calling it into account indicates a lack of leadership ability, if not something worse. After four years of a personality-cultist Chief Executive who is long on rhetoric and short on the ability to execute, I think the last thing the United States needs is another of the same from a different party.

Hanukkah: For the Miracles

“For the miracles, for the times we were saved, for the mighty acts, for the victories, and for the battles you waged, for our ancestors in those days at this season . . .”

Al Ha-Nissim for Hanukkah

 

This little statement is sung each night of Hanukkah, following the blessings for the lighting of the Hanukkiyah, the eight branched menorah that we use to celebrate the minor Festival of Rededication, the Festival of Lights. At this time each year, we light the lights to advertise the miracle, to remember what it was like when our right to exist was denied us by rulers and powers, and what it was like to fight for our right to our unique identity among all the peoples of the earth.

 

It is easy on those nights, as we sing the happy childhood songs about latkes and dreidls, to remember the story about the miracle of the oil and it is easy to forget the reason why we light our lights and sing our songs each year at this season. It is every so easy to sing the Al Ha-Nissim in Hebrew while not thinking about the meaning of the words in Hebrew, and what memories they are intended to bring up for us.

 

Al ha-Nissim— for the miracles—in the Hebrew do not require a willing suspension of disbelief for our modern sensibilities, because they are not suspensions of natural law. Our G-d does not work that way, rather the Eternal renews the Work of Creation each day, which is a lawful work. A miracle is what human beings can accomplish through the illumination of the fire of the soul, entirely within the bounds of the Universe we know. The miracle that we advertise each year as we light the flames in our windows is the miracle of the flame of the Jewish soul, the continued existence of Jews as Jews against the darkness brought by those who would see it extinguished.

. . . v’al ha-purkan—for the times we were saved—the times that a hero or sage came to our aid, bringing to us a fiery reminder of the passion of our spirit; the strong arm brought to our defense by the passionate love of life and of the way we live it. We have been saved time and again, enduring and thriving in the face of certain destruction. The Hebrew understanding of salvation is not some metaphysical redemption, rather it is a very real and sometimes messy saving of flesh and blood from bondage and destruction.

 

. . . v’al ha-gevurot—for the mighty deeds—the acts of power and courage that come from the absolute conviction that our unique identity is precious and worth risking our lives to preserve for ourselves and for our children. Every time that we have been pushed up against the wall, we are inspired by the Eternal to resist the darkness and protect the light. That inspiration is the flame that burns small and strong against the cold and dark nothing that seeks to consume it.

 

. . . v’al ha-nifla-ot—for the victories—the wonder of winning over our foes, the wonder of once again being free to light up our lights against the darkness.

 

v’al ha-milchamot—for the battles that you fought for us . . . Make no mistake, miracles and salvation, mighty deeds and wonders do not come without a price. That price is the willingness to resist evil no matter the cost. It is the price paid by Judah son of Mattiyahu and his brothers, who resisted

. . . when the wicked Hellenic government rose up against your people Israel, to make them forget Torah and violate your law. You waged their battles, defended their rights and avenged the wrongs done to them. . . .

Al ha-Nissim for Hannukah

The price for their freedom to exist was to take up the sword against the oppressor, to wage war against a larger and better equipped professional army, and to win that war against all odds. This price has been paid again and again, by the men and women of the People Israel, from Devorah to Tania Chernova, and from Joshua to Yoni Netanyahu. Some of those who knew they had to fight lived to see the fruit of their courage, and some gave their lives.

Each night, when we light those small and flickering flames that shine against the darkness of winter, we remember them all, the heroes inspired by sages, those who lived and those who died, and those who died only because they were Jews. Against the bright lights of those more numerous and powerful than we, our flames seem small and weak; against those bright lights that last the night, ours waver and go out after a brief time burning. But we light them year after year, because they represent how:

you delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, and the wicked into the hands of the righteous . . .

Al ha-Nissim for Hanukkah

In our own time, a time I thought would never be seen again, the darkness grows against us once again. We see and hear of innocent Jewish children being attacked while the governments of the world are silent. We hear of our laws and customs forbidden in the lands of Europe, while the Islamists riot in the very same streets to demand their law replace the European enlightenment. We hear of a presidential candidate in the United States who has remained silent in the face of the virulent anti-Semitism among his inner circle and his supporters. We hear the Iranian president preach against us war and death and destruction to the sound of thundering applause. And as in the days of the Maccabees, we watch as some of our own people support our enemies and mouth their accusations against us.

The flame of one small candle flickers against the night, and goes out. But the next night it is two, and then again, three, and up to seven the number of Divine completion of Creation; and beyond to eight, the number of human fulfillment of tikkun olam, the Repair of the World. Year after year, lighting light against the darkness, counting up from a single flickering light to an abundance of light is re-enacted, always using small and single flames. They represent the miracles and redemptions, the mighty acts and victories, the battles that the Spirit of G-d that burns within, won for us in those days at this season. And particularly in this time of growing darkness in this time and season, the flames illumine our souls and ignite our courage and warm our hands and faces, preparing us for the time when the few will once again prevail against the many, and the weak against the strong. Not by might, and not by power, but by spirit alone will this once again be accomplished. Another one in the eternal chain of remembrance for which we sing:

You Shall Live by Them

  וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת-חֻקֹּתַי וְאֶת-מִשְׁפָּטַי, אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה אֹתָם הָאָדָם וָחַי בָּהֶם

“You shall keep them, my commandments and my laws;  which if a man does them, he shall live by them.” (my translation)

Va-Yikra (Lev.) 18:5 (The Holiness Code)

“The commandments were given for no other purpose than to help men to live because of them, and not to die.”

Tosefta Shabbat 16-17 (Supplement to the Mishnah in the Babylonian Talmud)

“Judaism alone was primarily preoccupied with life. The Torah is called Torat Chayim, a Torah [teaching] for life, not for “eternal life” but simply for this life . . . the laws of the Torah are a preparation for life—the full life of the affections and senses, as well as of the mind and the spirit—‘which if a man do, he shall live by them’ (Lev. 18:5).”

Abba Hillel Silver, Where Judaism Differed: An Inquiry into the Distinctiveness of Judaism, 1956

 

Oftentimes I have been brought up short in a discussion or argument by the sudden realization that my partner in the debate and I have a completely different, and often irreconcilable world view. In these cases, much can be learned from continuing the discussion and I can pinpoint the consequences of each world view in the ensuing conclusions, but there can be no fundamental agreement reached.

I have been having some very intense and fruitful discussions with a friend whose world view, I am discovering, differs substantially from my own. This should not be surprising, given this man’s educated Protestant Christian background, but I have found it so because he has rejected Christianity its own-self. However, unlike so many of the adult children of Christianity that I know, he has not given up a primarily mystical world-view, instead replacing the Christian version with something else. Although I tend to think of this  as  “new age” kind of thinking, that label may in itself be problematic because it is used so glibly by religious and non-religious people in order to put  a premature closure on understanding of it, whatever it may be.

In the discussion we had last Sunday evening, two basic ideas over which we differ became stumbling blocks to any resolution between us about what is moral and what is not. One is the idea that this life is a kind of proving ground or antechamber for some form of existence after death. Or not. The other idea is the necessity to resist evil. Or not. Whether one accepts the second idea is actually related to one’s position on the first.

As those who have been reading this blog already surmise, I do not see life on earth as anything other than an end in itself. It is my identity as a Jew—and an educated one, that fundamentally makes this so. During the evolution from the Biblical Israelite religion to modern Rabbinic Judaism, one of the ideas that did not substantially change was the idea that life is for the living, and that physical existence is very good. Although Judaism has been infiltrated at the fringes by ideas about life after death, normative Rabbinic Judaism has rejected them, firmly insisting that it is what we do here and now that matters. If there is something more after death’s finality, then we do not know anything about it, and it is best to keep our feet firmly planted on the ground, because our actions here are what count for our weal and our woe.

The idea that death is not the end, that there is some utopia to be had after death, whether it be quasi-material or wholly spiritual, is related to apocalyptic thinking—the idea that what is, as it is, shall be completely remade into something better by a power that is generally conceived of as wholly good. These ideas (there are two of them, related but distinct) necessarily imply that things as they are now are not good, that human nature is fundamentally flawed, that physical existence and the material world are at least second best, if not downright evil.

Even within its creation stories, the Israelite religion rejected these ideas. The first creation story in Genesis uses words and phrases that, to the eye of those who know the Akkadian creation myth Enumah Elish, sets itself in opposition to it. Enumah Elish is a story of how there is a war in heaven, and the physical universe is created from the killed body of the loser, Tiamat. The implication is that the spiritual gods, disinterested and unpredictable, rule over the physical world, wreaking havoc as they will. The classic Hebrew creation story in Genesis 1:1 –2:1a in contrast posits an ordered universe brought into being through the spoken word, and declared to be “good” at each step. With the introduction of human beings, who have free will, the creation is pronounced “very good.” (The Hebrew word “meod” corresponding to the English “very” is a play on the Hebrew spelling of “Adam”, which means human being).

Throughout Torah (the canonical Five Books of Moses), there is no mention of afterlife or of apocalypse. Rather, law is presented as having real-world consequences: keep Torah and have life and the blessing of your children, discard it and experience death and the curses of those who follow. Life is good, death is evil. Body and spirit are intertwined and inseparable.

Later in Jewish history, even as ideas from Babylon and the Greeks brought into the culture notions of life after death, separation of body and soul (in which the body was presented as inferior) and apocalypse, the same circumstances also created the need to keep them firmly controlled. Particularly during the first war with Rome (60 – 65 CE), apocalyptic thinking influenced both the Sicarii (those sects fomenting rebellion against Rome for religious and political reasons) and the Essenes, a collection of sects that withdrew from an “impure world.”  The Rabbis understood that in those circumstances, both rebellion and ascetic withdrawal would result in the destruction of the Jewish people and its loss to the future. They therefore carefully confined any apocalyptic messianic ideation to ritual supplication and focused Jewish law and life upon living in the here and now.  

Although stories and ideas about ghosts and demons, judgment of the disembodied soul and life after death have flourished in Jewish superstition , incorporating customs such as lighting a candle for the dead, they are not normative, and tend to take on the flavor of the surrounding dominant culture. Jewish traditions surrounding dying and the dead forbid all of the displays that encourage such thoughts. It is forbidden to pray to the dead, to build them altars, to give them gifts for the journey, to mutilate one’s body or in any other way display excess grief. Life must go on, and as sad and sorry as we are at our loss, our duty is to life and to the living. This is illustrated in the Midrash on a verse in Kohelet (Ecclesiastes):

 It was said that when David died, Solomon sent to the Bet Midrash (House of Study) to enquire: ‘My father lies dead before me,and his body is lying in the sun. The dogs of my father’s household are howling for hunger. What shall I do?’ The Sages answered : ‘Feed the dogs first and then attend to the body of your father, for even a living dog takes precedence over a dead king.’ This is the origin of the verse: “For a living dog is better than a dead lion.” (Kohelet 9:4)

As a Jew, therefore, my allegiance is entirely to this life, the only one that I know, and I do not concern myself with “things far beyond it”, as the Psalmist says. When I weigh moral questions, I weigh them against the standard of life, this life. For Jews, there is no moral calculus that places some posited afterlife against life in the here in now. From the writing of the Talmud until now, no Jew can morally justify an action that places spiritual existence against physical life in the here and now. For example, the witch test--binding a woman hand and foot and throwing her in the water and if she drowns her soul is safe and if she does not drown then kill her—would be entirely immoral and forbidden. (Jews, being Jews, were more likely to be the victims of such acts than the perpetrators).

Many decisions are not moral decisions at all in this sense. For example, the decision to light candles on Shabbat is not an ethical consideration, it is a question of ritual, of custom and tradition. The decision to eat chocolate ice cream as opposed to vanilla is not a moral one either, it is one of simple preference. The obligation to preserve human life and to minimize suffering takes precedence over any ritual obligation or simple preference. One may not ignore a danger presented to human life by observation of a ritual or by preference. For example, a Jewish doctor is not only allowed but is obligated to attend emergencies on the Sabbath—when he or she would ordinarily not do any work—in order to save a life and minimize suffering. Any Jew would be obligated even to rescue an animal that has fallen into a well on Sabbath for that matter, in order to minimize its suffering because an animal cannot possibly understand a need to wait until sunset.

This way of thinking is foreign to my friend and debate partner. Because he believes with certitude that there is some preservation of the soul, some better life beyond this universe, questions of morality are informed differently. Since we did not explore these differences at great length, I cannot say with any certainty how they are informed. However, the preservation of one’s own life and the lives of others is apparently not primary to his moral calculus, and I am not sure how much weight it gets at all.

Further, he believes that this after-life or ongoing spiritual life has great influence on the physical world, and that humankind collectively is to make progress toward a “better way.” This points to utopian/apocalyptic ideation that assumes that the way in which human beings make moral decisions in this world is defective. This seems to be tied up with the conception that pacifism is morally superior to self-defense.

However, I have not gotten an answer to the question of whether my friend identifies himself as a pacifist or not, or what that word even means to him. After an hour or so of questioning and answering, mostly in order to clarify the assumptions he had about how I view life and death and heaven and hell, we called it quits. It was late. There was no resolution to agreement in this discussion anyway. There could not be as we start from very different concepts of life and its importance.

I think the conversation was fruitful for me, however, because it got me thinking about how this one basic idea—that of life after death—has consequences that extend to those who do agree with it.

As I said at the beginning of this entry, the idea of a life after death that is more valuable (better)than this life is bound up not only with the idea that human beings are defective in some way, but also with the idea that it is not necessary or even wrong to resist evil. That idea has grave consequences for the world here and now. That will be the topic of another blog entry.