yes ... i remembered to write .. but i have nothing to write about... except -- well finished Huckleberry Finn... didn't much like Tom Sawyer character. Gamey and not honest/open.... Caused delays and trouble.
Eh....
Thursday, August 28, 2025
2025 Daily - 08/27/2025 - more reading on repentance
Ahh... free will... and two kinds of repentance .... and Kol Israel.... forever!
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
2025 Daily - 08/26/2025 - CERTAINTY!!!
(his was started last night... as I could not get to sleep worrying I would forget this....)
SO:
I want peace ... in the world. I am pretty certain I want peace... for myself and for others and for all. A prayer will say is translated to ask G-d to "grant universal peace". There are other ways to translate it .. but I have often thought -- WOW - might that mean a end to all life as life is never? generally -- at peace. There is always a fight... a struggle..
So - certainty is something many want... I'm pretty certain. But where in this wide world will we ever find certainty? Some say - the only things that are certain is death and taxes. Others will note that there are many people who evade taxes and as for death - many believe in life after death or resurrection or rebirth, etc... So - what is certain?
The only thing that is certain is CHANGE... and even change is challanged by the idea there is nothing new under the sun... However - cycles do recur throughout history and so change seems to certainly happen. And sometimes there is peace and sometimes taxes get paid... and sometimes ????
SO - no absolute certainty .... EXCEPT??? - momentary certainty about what is here and now for me. Simple and fleeting. The moment passes and is gone. Plans made in the moment for the future are changeable by us and by others. NOW, for the moment is what is most real. The past does feed the present and the present feeds the future. AND then there is the idea that such linear thinking about time is not the only way to view time.
So - I say - Aaahhhh... and OY!
It is 8:45am -- and I wonder about the rest of my day. Breakfast now. Then piano. Then Rachel. Then workout. Then zoom w/Portugese fellow travelors/FRIENDS. And then ????
Monday, August 25, 2025
2025 Daily - 08/25/2025 - When all Jews loved Israel
I wonder when was a time all Jews loved Israel?
In the 19th Century there were the first Zionists. Before then -- Jews dreamed of Israel and Jerusalem but rare was the pilgrim or emi/imigrant. In the 20th Century some Jews were Internationalists or somesuch and were not for nation-states. At these times deeply observant/Orthodox Jews were more for the establishment of Israel IF/When the Messiah arrived and absent the Messiah they did not support Zionism. I think Reform Jews were indifferent. Conservative Jews probably followed the Orthodox. The general population of Jews dreamed but did not act. Then there was the Holocaust and things changed in most/all movements as a HAVEN was needed... And today - that haven is a mighty stronghold with diverse opinions about what should be included, land-wise, as the State of Israel along with other issues such as Jewish State vs Democracy or a Jewish Democracy (whatever that might be) or something!!??
Outside of Israel there is much fragmentation. There is also today, almost two years after the horrow of Oct. 7, 2023 - or simply October Seventh ... there is fragmentation in Israel, too. SO - who is the good Jew? The right Jew? Who is wrong? Who is bad?
There is not easy answer or answers. In addition to anything authentic about Israel there is Anti-Semetism and/or anti-Judaism. It is impossible to escape anti-semetism and converts out of Judaism may think the problem is anti-Judaism BUT then - where is G-d?
G-d is essential to Israel and Jews everywhere. I think we must accept and deal with G-d always and if that means arguing vigorously with G-d's representatives and directly with G-d - LETS DO THAT.. Fight with the almighty. I think a case can be made that G-d really likes a GOOD FIGHT!!!! A fight about how to best treat our planet and how best to be human and how to be compassionate to all that lives is the fight to have with our selves, with the G-od within us, and with G-d!
On the way, during the fight ... we live, we build, we work, we create, we have families, we amass wealth, we carry on, we have fun, we suffer, we die.... BUT FIGHTING is essential as long as there are imperfections to be fixed in this world. IT is all not FAIR ... but before we die -- lets do what we can to make things fair, come close to fairness for all... DO WHAT IS RIGHT!!!!
Israel is an example for all. Israel really tries to do what is right... The people mean to do what is right. Power is a problem that too often stands in the way of the Right Way... However - the people really do have the power - when united around truths and good will and love and compassion.
We didn't get here by following the Yetzer Hara (the evil inclination). We got here by fighting our Yetzer Hara and bringing forth the Yetzer Hatov (the good incliniation). Who amongst us really wants to do evil? Who amongst us really wants to do good? We are inclined in many ways for many reasons... but ultimately I hope, think, pray we all want to do good!
Israel now more than ever is struggling with how to do good and that path includes destruction and construction. Life and dealth. It is as is said in the Book of Ecclesiastes: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to ..."
Another contemporary poet/singer, Joni Mitchell wrote in 1966:
"the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of timeWe can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game"
For a very long time things have cycled up and down, to good and then to evil, and then back...I would like all to always be up and good, etc.. Reality may simply be chaotic and changing and uncertain! We can hope. We can pray. We can work at the good. And we can only do what we can and leave for those who follow to do more!
Sunday, August 24, 2025
2025 Daily - 08/24/2025 - a people apart?
We Jews have long been a people distinct, separate, special, different from the peoples around us. In part it is we are Chosen. In part we have asserted our separatness and in part we have been made separate - excluded, hated, oppressed, even preserved! And our own choices to be separate have fostered our preservation.
What then about our In-House separation? The In-House separation of which I speak is Matrilineal Descent, the idea that to be born Jewish a person must be born to a Jewish woman. A Jew needs to have a Jewish mother.... and if converted to be a daughter of Sarah and Abraham - our first matriarch and patriarch. This doctrine separates Reform Jews from Orthodox Jews and also from Conservative Jews. In a world full of divisions this concept is divisive and its primary merit is Custom. I think it is hard to find Torah or Talmud support for this but it IS INGRAINED.... while flaunting the question of "what are the people doing?" What is happening on the street/in the market place?
If we ended our In-House separation might we thrive, expand, grow!? How? Is our In-House separation shackling ourselves, demeaning ourselves, reducing/shrinking ourselves? What purposes is it serving and what purposes is it preventing? AND how can change happen in this currently well/clearly divided world?
Into this discussion has to come the subject of conversion and the Jewish soul. I wonder if consideration has been given to the adult or even yourg children of women who have converted in their adulthood? Is there a retroactive granting of Jewishness to their children? IF it is a matter of a Jewish soul -- than I would think - yes? If it is personal and not genetic or soul-based - then - no. BUT I am not sure of either answer!
It is a wonderful thing, the non-Jewish prophet Baalam said to be a people apart. Being chosen, being special - seems good and that designation is/can be/should be applicable to a diverse people we call Jews. We ARE diverse. European, Middle Eastern, Asian, African, and others. Lets unite - that is best! IMHO!
Saturday, August 23, 2025
2025 Daily - 08/23/2025 - pilgraimage and my personal trip... SOON!!!
very tired today... and even tired now at 10:20pm and I had a nap for about an hour in mid-afternoon. Maybe it is the black russian drinks?
Well... off to bed soon. Just watched to Brokenwoods - 5th season. Read some Huckleberry Finn. Tomorrow reading will be devoted to Solieveichick.... And to sleeping in, a zoom program from Mosaic Law, workout, chorus, and picking up Ellen at airport. I hope I can stay the night and from her place go to CBS for service and then meet up w/Sarah for lunch and/or museum. I need to call Jim and change out meet to another day.
Today's talk by R. Stein -- interesting ... about pilgimages... Durkheim and Turners ... See some notes from google searches I did... AND CONSIDER/REMEMBER --- I personally need to go on a pilgrimage .. that is what was the core of my thinking about a trip, retreat, etc.... now that I have lost my sister, mother, and father... I NEEED TO DO THIS SOON!!!!!! Maybe start with train segments --- with an interlude between Mississippi and Florida - followed by another interlude up to NYC... and then train across...?? Or something like that.... With times for writing, thinking, writing, thinking, meditating!!!!
ONE:
Durkheim did not write extensively on "pilgrimage" directly, but his concepts of collective consciousness, collective effervescence, and the sacred and profane provide a strong theoretical framework for understanding why pilgrims gather and what happens when they do. He viewed religion as a force that creates social solidarity by generating intense emotional experiences in group rituals, a phenomenon he termed collective effervescence, and he saw the sacred objects and sites that pilgrims visit as symbols of this shared social reality. Therefore, pilgrimage can be understood as a ritualistic practice
TWO:
2025 Daily - 08/22/2025
(prepped on the 21st ... at least the title which I have gotten mis-dated a few time and fixed... anyway - IF I write something on the 21st -- I will note that... otherwise -- )
Well it is the 22nd .. .almost noon... been to rotary, sang, etc.. then went to ecology committee meeting at Upper Crust... and then gathered some stuff for contributing to Goodwill. No Steve this morning. Then - to Safeway for a sandwich, cheese, and cole slaw.... Looking forward to lunch!! AND - re-filled hummingbird feeders. NOW this writing. Soon reading Soloveichick .. then lunch... more reading, piano, then workout... and then dinner w/Neal... and finally? - Kaddish at CBH.
Feeling pretty good. Weight holding ... and stock market shot up today... What a rollercoaster.
And blood pressure: 156/79 on retake... orange!
As for profundity today ... maybe later.... before I close this note and after my reading.
Profound? -- A confession/admission I've made before in various venues... I AM NOT CREATIVE... or so I say and think. Not artistic. Not artistically creative. SO - am I/can I be personally creative? Inventing or reinventing myself? OR finally - CREATING MYSELF..... as a Repentant Man as per Sloveitchick... at least the intro section. To come close to G-d it says there - we create a more aware self -- believing and knowing G-d! And G-d's ways. SO to that end I gave away a non-kosher sandwich I bought earlier and which I have been wanting/craving for a while.. waiting for it to come on sale for 5 dollars at Safeway. BUT I have to change NOW!!! If not now - when? Also - I WILL (probably) have a cheeseburger tonight AND I will have with me and say a prayer acknowledging G-d and hoping I do not offend the Torah invocation!!! And here is that prayer:
Baruch atah hashem
Blessed art though Lord G-d.
I partake of this cheeseburger hoping cows from which the meat and the cheese came were not related or even close which is likely. It is possible they were one and the same and I am going against the Talmudic fence around the Law but I do hope and pray there was separation and I will be understood to not wanting to be cruel to the animals nor disobediant to you G-d. I am trying to take the road of awareness and truth in our 21st Century modern world. I hope to be doing your will. Amen.
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Thursday, August 21, 2025
2025 Daily - 08/21/2025 - Fire, Firestein???!!
from Chabad site today, 8/21/25 -
"Daily Thought
Fire Burning Fire
Life is fire. It can burn with the angst of survival in a hostile world. Or it can be harnessed to consume all fear.
Stop, contemplate, meditate and pray. Fan a fire of love and awe for the One that transcends this world.
One fire swallows another and you are set free. Liberated from your fears, you face the world no longer as its slave, but as its master.
Tanya, chapter 3. Bati Legani 5710:2."
AND SO ... for me ???
I am a FIREstein... and also a Leo (the fire sign) ... so - clearly I need to burn away my fears and fan that fire of love! Get FREE... What a great message.
I will write more... today... now - back to the book On Repentance by Soloveitchik.... or at least, at this point --- the intro.
.......
and Huckleberry Finn ANd piano... Well not Finn, yet... But I did do a late afternoon hour on the eliptical... Good for me!!! Later I may attend one of Shmary's classes... just to listen.
AND READ... read... read....!!!!
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personal worth/value:
what we contribute, share.... not what we have., The more we give the happier we are!!!! It is how we CONNECT to others...
Wednesday, August 20, 2025
2025 Daily - 08/20/2025 - Sister - and me and future service
Getting a beer w/Arnie Wolf soon... and probably will be asked... how am I relative to my sister dieing.... SO - here is something .... again... and maybe expanded on from other responses:
Debra will be missed... and I will miss her. I am happy for her relief and release ... from the pain and battle w/cancer. She was strong and did well for a longer time than her doc first expected. Instead of 6 months -- about 2 and a half years.... maybe three years.
I do miss her and I also miss the many years I was estranged from her and from my parents. It was not all my fault with any of them and relative to my sister -- neither she nor I reached out to each other for 30 or more years.
I used to think and say -- she was attached at the hip to them and that probably has some truth. I have recently thought/remembered what I experienced and she must have seen whenever I visited my Uncle Jerry when he and my mother were estranged. I visited when I thought they were getting on again ... and then discovered I was wrong, time-wise, ever-wise... SO I got shit... Therefore - maybe Debra was avoiding the shit she might have expected if she and I related... In any case -- why relate to me??
So -- now I am alone with my thoughts, recollections, suspicions, considerations ... I can spin things any way I want... while of course being honest ... and truthful... and fact/evidence-based -- and GOOD TO MYSELF. THAT is the point... be good to myself. Grow, be, enjoy, breath, carry-on, THRIVE!!!!
There are issues of control and fear and dislike and loathing and maybe care and love and support... Now - - no more care and support and love ... from Debra or mother or father.... CONTROL was very important to them... and I must look at myself and consider how I CONTROL? Control what? Who? When? ....???? And as for being afraid -- I know I act with considerations of fear. I call it being risk-averse. Or adverse.... As for disliking and/or loathing people -- there are some... have been some ... need not be any now, actually. PEACE FOR ALL..... Forgiveness where appropriate. I still need to be asked if the people/persons are alive. Those who cannot ask... they get a pass. AT LEAST - that is my thinking today, August 20, 2025. I have begun reading ON REPENTENCE by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, of blessed memory. This book IS on one of my favorite subjects and was recommend to me by Rabbi Stein... for prepping for the end of Shloshim of my sister. The beginning pages have been interesting as they seem to address freedom, creating one's self, being authentic... stuff I've been thinking about at this time... in Shloshim, during mourning, as I grow a beard and consider keeping it this time. When my mother and father died... I shaved it at the end of Shloshim to RENEW myself. This time -- INVENT - or - Re-Invent myself... That is the thing! Its a new day, a new period of my life, perhaps a new ME.?
What would be the changes I want? What can I do? Where? How?
Questions, questions, questions...
Some answers -- do more with daughters... Another trip? A cruise??? A house for the weekend? A trip to Ashland? Some combination?
---------------
Albert Schweitzer said: “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
Sounds right to me...!!! Dogs, kids, teens, others????
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
2025 Daily - 08/19/2025
Today would have been David Sternberg's birthday
Today i began reading Soliveichik's book: On Repentance --- which from the introductory sections looks to be a dense and very good book of ideas, etc.
Continuing to read Huckleberry Finn....
Had a walk w/Ava, worked out, played some piano (ragtime and an sonata)
Did a laundry. House was cleaned by Adrianna, et al
Now doing this blog writing...
Tired... heading for bed soon (its about 10pm)
Didn't go to / will discontinue going to ... chiropractor.
Thinking about Ashand and wonder if Ellen wants to go for Labor Day Weekend.
Noted a 500 dollar fare for Amtrak -- 10 stops... in a month. Very similar to old EurailPasses.
Shipping car - too expensive, I think. Value of car -- not high. Driving it cross country might not be wise. Better to rent a car ... or buy a car... Rental... possible..!!!
Dogs for the Blind or CASA or ???? Work w/teenagers at HS here in Davis...????
BUT ... I'm TIRED... tomorrow, Wednesday -- nothing on agenda ... SLEEP IN....add eye mask in morning.Turn off phone!!!!
And I got an improved deal on Xfinity... found it a good moment! What is on AppleTV?
Monday, August 18, 2025
2025 Daily - 08/18/2025
Here I am today ... writing... And note: yesterday's writing was just published today but WAS written yesterday.
Today, this morning - 9:05am or so... I am home after being in Clayton w/Ellen. Very nice dinner and a partial view of an interesting looking movie - The Order ... and hugs and sleep and close niceness. I am fortunate! I will miss her this weekend.. She will be with grandchildren and that is wonderful. I will find something to do, etc... And then maybe figure a little trip or something for Labor Day Weekend.
Soon I will play my daily playing of piano after a trip to Costco, then visit Jim and then workout and tonight I will go to Anticipatory Bereavement and check in and probably check out, too. OH .. and cleanup around my house? My office and maybe 2nd Guest room where a computer files transfer device resides and I need to try and then get rid of the computers.
AS always - till I start actively answering the question - what shall I do? Dogs, kids, something?
AND talk soon/first with Rabbi - what to do after Shloshim... and assuming shloshim is appropriate/correct for my sister. I will do the 30 days and have a celebretory oneg on Sept. 4th at the Thursday minyan.
NOTE: I've been taking my blood pressure a bit recently as I have a device now at home. Today it was just 123/77 - GREEN ... and previously it has been higher but I don't think TOO high. Generally the bottom number has been below 95 ... I will take it again in a moment to confirm.126/74 after a double squeeze 150/76. note: I took 20mg cialis about 20 hours ago. BP at 1pm:
AHHHHhhhhh.... it is now 6pm... I'm at anticipitory bereavement .... perhaps the last time... I'm reporting in as noted above... It was a good experience ... I am grateful to have been part of that group and expect to go next week and talk a bit about my thoughts on legalities of assisted suicide...
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invent, re-invent, pivot.... or/and - re-engaging...!!! For CARE-GIVERS - who identify as such ... for long periods ... does pursuing care-giving as a service???
2025 Daily - 08/17/2025
NEW DAY.... Early... about 9:30am ....
What will today bring? What will I bring to today? Plan includes this writing, piano, workout, trip to CBS for members-day, CBH chorus, and then dinner and movie with Ellen.
Beard continues to grow during this shloshim period. It is itchy... and I am thinking I will keep it .. thus transitioning to future rather than returning to past.
SO what will MY future be? Guide Dogs for the Blind or something else for the blind (reading aloud)? And./or CASA or other thing with kids?
AND MORE SOCIALIZING.... Merry, Michael... old/new - soon!!! And Stu Bresnick? AND ??? Dinner on Friday or Sunday and what about Labor Day "Bash"?
AND then - what is the point of driving the car/Cadillac across country? THE point is a road trip... and with daughters that is special! BUT what will it cost to make sure it travels with no problems (potentially a BIG DEAL and an unknown) and then what is the cost of the travel (that is not a big deal). Value of the car is about 1200 dollars. Cost of gasoline for road trip (4 dollar gallons of gas, 14 miles per gallon. 4000 miles) - about 1150 dollars. Room and board - 20 days at 200 dollars a day - 4000 dollars - TOTAL - roughly - 7 to 8 thousand dollars... Lets say - 10K ... no problem... for sighseeing AND time with daughters. OR rent a car???? Look at Kayak for deals.
Saturday, August 16, 2025
2025 Daily - 08/16/2025 - A plan --- or two.. or three...OY!!!!
SO - invent or re-invent myself...!!!!
ONE: something relative to blindness? Guide Dogs for the Blind - https://www.guidedogs.com/volunteering/puppy-raising-volunteers/hybrid-puppy-raising
out of San Rafael --- reminded/noted by Philip... above is web site... Foster.... Raise Puppy? etc...
this is relative to my sister and mother ... and me, too, I suppose.
TWO; something with abused kids.... this is relative to my upbringing ... and to an exent . to how I failed to fully, properly raise my own kids... Re-up with CASA? Or https://www.yolokids.org/volunteer/ - Yolo County Children's Alliance...
I NEED TO DO SOMETHING... Choose something... BUILD Something.
THREE -- a conservative shul in Yolo County? A liberal conservative synagogue! Or some kind of conservative Jewish presence ... not affiliated w/CBH...
Thursday, August 14, 2025
2025 Daily - 08/14/2025 - to be a Jew... and a little something on compassion
Below is an essay which can be found at: https://www.exploringjudaism.org/living/jewish-identity/deja-jew-or-asking-the-question-yet-again-why-be-jewish/
WHY BE JEWISH... which I often essentially ask myself... OR actually I wonder why others do their Judaism the way they do. I don't have a good answer for myself... or maybe I do ... But for me .. doing and being and studying and praying are what I have done and do....My Judaism may not be deep and so sharing my way is not, I think, inspirational ... when I would like it to inspire.
SO?????
At this time in my life... I am 76 .... and as the last surviving member of my birth nuclear family -- time clearly has come.... already!!!
Yesterday I speculated about doing things relative to blindness ... Today let me speculate about doing something for the future of Judaism..... Work with Jewish Family Services? Help children? Teenagers? Young adults? Work at Hillel in Davis? Things to explore!!! Develop more yiddishkeit here in Davis for all? Kosher foods? Conservative services and teachings? WE SHALL SEE AND HOPE AND DO... DO... DO...!!!! I might restart attending Friday night services.... maybe... getting there after dinner w/Neal and saying Kaddish ... and oneging... This might only last a month... thru shoshliim!
And do it with ????? Who might join with me ... as this IS a Community Affair.
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COMPASSION...
I sent the following to Jonathan S. Tobin of the JNS yesterday:
"I significantly NOT agree with your essay "The futility of compassion for those who want to kill you"..... Being high minded and doing some good IS GOOD. Seeing The Other as human and with value is essential to living. I said "significantly" because a lot of what you said about how we Jews are treated and reported on is true BUT the way to peace is simply UNKNOWN by anyone and peace must be hoped for and to that end compassion - even a drop -- is essential."
Furthermore --- if - IF - we are good, chosen, better.... we need to behave in ways that honor and develop our good characteristics and our intelligence, etc. TRUE - I and I would suggest you and most people do not know how to make the situation in the Middle East better. Maybe G-d's intervention will be necessary and that is THE Point ... we are in some real significant ways G-d's people. Believe it and until G-d today, in the 21st Century authoritavely says -- kill all those in Canaan ... in our holy land -- it is not for us to make that judgment(al) call.
==============THE ESSAY=================
Deja Jew, or, Asking the Question Yet Again: Why Be Jewish?
Several years ago, the Council of Jewish Federations commissioned a study to explore the state of American Jewry, to find out about Jewish survival.
Studies like that are notorious for being depressing, and this one was no exception.
After spending a large sum of money, they found out that American Jews are on the fast track to nowhere. Barely producing enough children to replicate current numbers, many are not being raised to identify themselves as Jews, let alone to practice any kind of Judaism.
The statistics from that study suggested that as many as one million Jewish or partially Jewish children were being raised in another faith, that a slight majority of marriages now involve a Jew marrying a non-Jew, and that the percentage of such marriages which resulted in either the conversion of the non-Jewish spouse or in the children becoming Jewish was small.
Jewish “continuity” has become a concern and a buzz word.
Slick ads proclaim catchy slogans in Jewish papers all over the country. Books and pamphlets berate the unaffiliated and remind the readers to continue being Jews. The only problem with many of these ads and articles and books is that they don’t address two fundamental questions: They don’t tell “why,” and they don’t tell “how.”
The sales pitch for Judaism should state unequivocally that being Jewish is wonderful and that this “product” is something that you need and you’re going to want. It has a track record at least 3,000 years old. Even better than its pedigree is its potential: it’s better than a lifetime warranty. It can outlast our children and our children’s children.
Why buy Judaism?
Why bother making the effort and the sacrifice? Why care?
Memory
When I was a child, my parents would always join us when my sister and I would go through the shelves, and pull out the pictures of when my parents were dating. We loved the pictures of their ski trip to Tahoe, of their wedding in my grandparents’ home, of their first apartment, or of moving into their first house.
We would gather time after time wanting to see the albums. Somehow, we never tired of looking at those pictures, reveling in the memories and the love.
Those albums brought us great joy until the day our parents got a divorce.
Once my parents separated, my sister and I stopped looking at those pictures. They had become painful for us to see. Because of that divorce our fond memories died. Memories became painful reminders of what had been lost, of what could not be. This transformation, from pleasure to pain, is the inevitable result of any kind of dissociation.
When a Jew separates from the Jewish people, wonderful memories die or are not pleasant anymore. They can only inspire guilt, sorrow, and anger. Alienated from a living community and a guiding spirituality, the wandering Jew dimly recalls what we’re supposed to be doing on Yom Kippur, but aren’t.
Looking at the old pictures of all those relatives sitting down to break the fast, to celebrate the Seder, to light the Hanukkah menorah doesn’t provide pleasure.
It reinforces a sense of distance and estrangement.
There are now millions of American Jews who have no memory of a kitchen on Friday afternoon, filled with the smell of simmering chicken soup, of white candles, and of the shining goblet of red wine on a Friday night. Lost are the memories of the Jewish people’s majestic history. Lost is the glory of what it means to be a Jew, to have traveled across the globe for 3,000 years with a message that all people are made in God’s image, that the world can be a better place, and that each Jew must help bring that about.
Divorced from the Jewish heritage, memory albums no longer inspire: they accuse. The wisdom of the ages, and the photos of formative family celebrations, lie ignored and disconnected because they are no longer part of our daily experience.
Why be Jewish? Because there are important memories—denying them amputates a piece of our selves.
And memories denied fester. Jewish memories lurk just under the surface, able to sadden and trouble those who neglect them. Cut ourselves off from Judaism as a living, ongoing identity, then memories are imprisoned or hidden.
Life is needlessly impoverished by the loss.
Identity
Why be Jewish? Part of knowing who we are involves knowing who we’re not. Identity is a dynamic blend of character and of borders, of belonging to this rather than to that. One powerful reason to be Jewish is its rich sense of identity and belonging.
Jews are the people who taught the world the Ten Commandments.
Jews are the people who gave the world a Day of Rest, with its notion of living in harmony with nature and its assertion of the dignity and freedom of all mankind.
Jews are the people who initiated the age-old conversation with the God who created the world.
That conversation has now spread to billions of people across the globe.
Knowing who we are, and knowing who we’re not, brings us back to another reason to affirm being Jewish. One’s father and mother need not be objectively the world’s greatest parents to have a claim on our hearts.
That connection is simply a matter of personal history and of ongoing identity.
For the attainment of mental health, it is crucial to admit one’s identity and to start from there. That affirmation is no less an assertion of health for an entire people: Our sense of who we are—as individuals and as a people—is inextricably linked to the community, to the people Israel.
Wisdom
A third reason to be actively Jewish is the tremendous wisdom and the deep profundity that our heritage possesses.
Across the millennia, the ancient wisdom emerges from the hearts and minds of remarkable souls, speaking directly to current concerns, doubts and fears. Their insight is a precious resource, a life line to the sacred. It remains sealed unless we read the books, unless we apply their content in our daily lives.
The sacred writings of the Jewish tradition are prescient in their vision.
How could they have known, 2000 years ago, to write down that we must cherish the Earth, because if we mess up this world God won’t give us another? How could those sages have anticipated that humanity would become a force of ecological disaster, that the ozone would start to seep away?
What resilient empathy drove the sages to write that God gathers the tears of every person who suffers, collecting them in a cup, and that when that cup is filled it is filled with God’s tears too? In a century that has witnessed so many tears, in an age whose cruelty evokes callous disregard, don’t we need the metaphor of a crying God, of One who remembers each and every tear?
If we don’t preserve those insights, then who will teach us what we so desperately need to know?
In our culture, people shoot and kill other people merely for driving down the wrong street. We are so busy running from chore to chore that we have become slaves to our jobs, our property, and our technology.
Yet ours is the tradition that says to the rush, “stop for one day a week, recuperate and recharge. Remind yourself of who you are and what you can become. You are made in God’s image and so is everyone else you know and therefore your task is to fight for a world in which God’s image in all people can shine.”
The entire world needs the wisdom of Judaism. And if Jews will not learn and live that wisdom, we can hardly expect our neighbors to benefit from it.
Spirituality
A world in which there is no spirituality is a world in which nothing matters.
There are two stark options: It may well be that we are simply born as a fluke, we live as happenstance, we have some lucky breaks and some bad ones, and then we die. Our life and our death may signify nothing, contribute nothing, and mean nothing.
This is the worldview of the Stoics, and of skeptics ancient and modern. It is a cynical approach, and it often leads to despair. Its logic leads to indifference or to a futile pursuit of selfish pleasure as an attempted distraction from the meaninglessness and the futility.
Such a view isn’t new.
But it is the antithesis of what Judaism offers.
With Judaism, people were able to raise their heads to the stars and see not just sky. A Jew looking up sees heaven, and that has made all the difference. The conviction that life does have meaning, that we are part of something that links us beyond our finitude and our mortality, that our being known to God and loved by God, gives us hope, purpose, and passion.
This sense of meaning, rooted in faith and in Scripture, has given us civilization, and culture and morality, art and ethics, science and everything cherished and meaningful and beautiful.
That’s what spirituality truly understood can be: the recognition that what we do matters. Spirituality is the ability not to just to think about God but to be thought of by God.
To engage Judaism is to be on God’s map, imbuing lives with significance beyond the brief time spent on God’s Earth.
So, Why Be Jewish?
Be Jewish because there’s great wisdom to be learned. Judaism can enrich our lives and make of our world something shimmering and beautiful.
Be Jewish because there’s God who loves and who calls out to each one of us.
Be Jewish because God still says to all of us together, “You be My people, and I shall be your God.
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