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Yearly Archives: 2016
Remember their sacrifice
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
Is it too late to let freedom ring once more?
Facebook has confessed that stories appearing on its supposedly-unbiased “Trending Topics” were manipulated. Rather than risk allowing its one billion active users exposure to the corrosive influence of conservative commentators, Facebook’s “news curators” decided to doctor the list of headline stories to favor left-wing political leanings.
In other breaking news, the sky is still blue, the grass is still green, and the loudest proponents of freedom are still laboring mightily to impose their vision of freedom on others.
Freedom of speech has been on life-support for decades already, wracked by the infectious scourge of groupthink, political correctness, and moral equivalence. College newspapers have routinely been stolen by students and even administrators for espousing politically incorrect views. Speakers of all ideological stripes have been shouted down, sometimes even by groups they support. Recently, a petition circulated among Yale students to repeal the First Amendment (including, ironically, the right to petition) collected 50 signatures in one hour.
The real death of free speech stems from the death of credibility. News organizations have abandoned even the pretense of objectivity or accuracy. The line between reporting and editorializing is consciously and persistently blurred. Elected officials and presidential candidates show such utter disregard for the truth that they don’t even attempt to disguise their prevarications, much less apologize when caught in the act.
But it’s the corruption of language itself that may pose the greatest danger to what remains of the institution once called Truth.
Congratulations, Dr. Schreiber
After graduates from MIT and the University of California, lawyers, businessmen, teachers, a concert violinist, and a rabbi, we have our first doctor in the family.
May you hear nothing but the sounds of success and happiness.
So proud!
Profile of Terror
Whether or not the cause of the EgyptAir disaster turns out to be terrorism — and regardless of whether Donald Trump was right or wrong to call it terrorism before any information was in — that was and is everyone’s first thought in these dangerous times. We don’t believe in accidents anymore; experience has been too stern a teacher and the lessons of fanaticism have been too painful.
Presumably, such incidents will only make TSA lines move slower and slower. Which wouldn’t matter if that actually made us safer and safer.
My neighbor told me recently that his son flew to Australia by way of Istanbul and Qatar. Changing planes in Qatar’s Hamad International Airport, he was ushered through customs without even breaking stride — along with every other Caucasian on his flight — while every single Middle-Easterner was detained, searched, and questioned at length.
Interesting that the Qataris have no qualms about profiling their own people, while here in the open-minded West cling desperately to the illusion that every passenger poses an equal threat to our security.
Is it possible that the Qataris know something we haven’t figured out yet?
If terrorists were dressing up as Orthodox rabbis, I would want TSA to profile me and those who look like me. Instead of taking it personally, I would be grateful for their common sense and conscientiousness.
But I guess that’s just me.
The Danger of Democracy
The prospect of a presidential race between the two most unpopular candidates in American electoral history should give us serious pause to reflect upon the inherent precariousness of any democratic system.
On the one hand, democracy protects a people from the whims and excesses of despotism by creating a system of accountability and popular will. On the other, it places power in the hands of the masses, who may be uninformed and easily manipulated; as Robert A. Heinlein once wrote, does history record any case in which the majority was right?
A lot of people seem to agree. Even now that the outcome appears inevitable in both primary races , opposition to the status quo has grown so intense that, in both parties, the voices of pragmatism are being drowned out by the battle cry of revolution.
Each rebel camp is a bizarre mirror-image of the other. On the Republican side, the party orthodoxy is rejecting the presumptive nominee for being indifferent to its values and unfit to lead. On the Democratic side, a surging upstart movement rallies around an untethered independent while decrying the corruption of the party orthodoxy itself.
Both insurgent groups are threatening to turn to third-party candidates. Leaders on both sides are warning that such a move would be political suicide, and history supports their fears. Third-party campaigns backfired for Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, Strom Thurmond (nearly) in 1948, Ross Perot in 1992, and Ralph Nader in 2000. So isn’t it better to vote for the lesser of two evils than to give away the election by grasping at straws?
That’s a good question.
Spitting Image 3:3 — Never having to say you’re sorry
I can almost feel sorry for J. K. Rowling. By age 40 she had published the most successful literature series in history, become the richest woman in England and, according to Forbes, was the first person ever to become a billionaire by writing books.
By any accounts, 40 is too young to retire. So what does one do for a second act?
Ms. Rowling tried turning her hand to crime novel writing, but the glare of Harry Potter washes out anything else connected with her name. After claiming she would never add to the series, now it seems that she is doing precisely that with a forthcoming sequel.
And why not? Better than the sad attempts to stir up controversy with her post-publication commentaries, which seem aimed at no goal other that remaining relevant after her book sales ceased to make headlines. First she told us that Albus Dumbledore is gay, an assessment that cooled the enthusiasm of many fans and met with incredulity from many others.
Then she began apologizing for killing off her characters, first Remus Lupin then, most recently, Fred Weasely.
If Leo Tolstoy were still alive, would we expect him to apologize for killing off Anna Karenina? Did William Shakespeare go too far by killing off Romeo and Juliet? Should Arthur Miller have re-imagined the saga of Willy Loman as Life of a Salesman? And is there anybody with more blood on his hands than Nicholas Sparks?
Ms. Rowling’s gift for making the fantastic seem believable depended upon lacing her stories with the kind of harsh and painful twists that are inevitable in the real world. Without these, her novels would never have struck such a resonant chord with readers who could be captivated by impossible flights of fancy while finding within the narrative a wealth of down-to-earth lessons and insights for every day living.
Of course, maybe Ms. Rowling didn’t mean any of it, like the April Fool’s joke of Harry being a figment of Ron’s imagination.
We can hope, while suggesting that the author remember the words of King Solomon: Do not say, “How is it that times gone by were better than these?” For that is not a question prompted by wisdom.
With a talent for storytelling like yours, Ms. Rowling, no apologies are necessary.
Spitting Image 3:2 — Wood nymph with flowers
It’s always an auspicious omen when a wood nymph shows up with a gift of fresh-cut flowers on Sabbath eve.
A Day of Remembrance Soon Forgotten
So what was the point of last week’s Holocaust Memorial Day?
Once upon a time, the commemoration served as a warning against the consequences of unbridled nationalism. But in this generation, the memory of Nazi atrocities has mutated into a political football tossed about to score points for one ideological cause or against another.
IDF Major General Yair Golan made the most egregious fumble when he suggested last Wednesday that events in pre-war Germany are repeating themselves in modern-day Israel. Like all public figures who talk first and think later, the deputy chief of staff was soon scurrying to revise his comments, pleading that he hadn’t meant what he said and hadn’t said what he meant.
More likely, General Golan meant exactly what he said. And it’s likely that his heart was in the right place, even if his brain was out to lunch.
One step closer to Eden
Awake from the north and come from the south! Blow upon My garden and let its spices flow. Let My beloved come to his garden and partake of its precious fruit.
— Song of Songs 4:16
Would the world be better off without mankind?
Many environmentalists think so. It’s hard to deny that, from a purely ecological point of view, life on earth would do much better without human beings around to interfere with the natural order.
But without mankind, there would be no point and, ultimately, no reason for the world to exist at all. Only Man seeks to create; only Man strives to become more than he is; and only Man directs his efforts toward ideals that transcend mere survival and procreation.
If we are to act as responsible custodians of the world, however, we have to stop from time to time and let the world remind us what those ideals are.
In the late 1800s, the great Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch announced his plan to travel from Germany to see the storied mountain ranges of Switzerland. This was entirely in keeping with Rabbi Hirsch’s philosophy of integrating worldly knowledge and experience into his religious outlook. That being said, the incomparable leader of Orthodox Jewry was well into his seventies, seemingly much too old to undertake such an adventure.
Some of the rabbi’s closets acolytes questioned the wisdom of embarking on such a strenuous journey at his advanced age. The rabbi replied that it was precisely because of his age that he felt it necessary to go.
“I may not have much longer to live,” explained Rabbi Hirsch. “And when I stand in judgment upon my arrival in the World to Come, what will I say when the Almighty asks me, “Samson, why did you not see My Alps?”
Rabbi Hirsch understood what we too easily forget: That the wonder and beauty of the world are here for us to experience, for us to enjoy, and for us to find inspiration in the masterful Hand that fashioned all of Creation.
But North Americans need not travel to Switzerland to find their inspiration. Within our own borders we have the “American Alps.” That’s what Louis Hill, president of the Great Northern Railway, called the mountains of Glacier National Park. It was Hill who found the region so extraordinary that he lobbied congress to designate Glacier as a national park in 1910. And it was Hill who influenced the Alpine design of the park’s hotels and facilities to echo the mountains’ namesake across the sea.
Even from the same continent, getting to the park in northern Montana is no simple matter. My wife and I flew into Spokane, Washington, then rented a car and began to drive, first across the Washington border, then through Idaho, and ultimately into Montana. The roads were mostly straight and flat as the miles sped by; it took us six hours just to reach the outskirts of 1,583 square-mile wilderness. But as my own rabbi likes to say, the best things in life are rarely found on the beaten path.
Click here to read the whole article from this month’s Wagon Magazine.
Don’t count down — count up
Between Passover and the festival of Shavuos (Pentacost, celebrating the Almighty’s revelation at Sinai), tradition calls for every Jew to count the days and the weeks connecting the freedom of the exodus from Egypt with the responsible application of that freedom.
These seven weeks are a time filled with opportunity for personal growth, beginning with the awareness that little changes can add up to extraordinary transformation.
Yonason Goldson 