So tell me this...
When did we wake up such a sullen and narrow minded people? What transpired in the night that we are so poisoned and bitter? It's all over the place. How we talk to each other, how we relate to the outside world, how we politic, how we play.
I look at the world that I am inheriting, filled with sadness, anger, bitterness and bile, and wonder if I want it. How could the generation that brought a national war machine to it's knees in the 60's and 70's have made such a huge 180? Did all those drugs turn their hearts to mush?
And it's not just "the world around us" - it's us Jews too. I just don't get it. We stand in our synagogues and weekly recite verses that speak of justice and mercy, hope and compassion as the virtues we so aspire to emulate, and yet we walk out of the ka'hal and climb into our capitalist gas-guzzling status symbols and speed away into the world - and forget.
Where is the light we are each supposed to shine for the world?
I don't think the American dream is the Jewish dream. Not anymore. When we marched in Selma, and Montgomery, it was there. Now we are lucky if we can even acknowledge our brother on the street. We have lost touch with who we are just because we can pass. We have taken on the capitalist consumer dream where I can, and will have it all, because it is there.
Shame on us.
At dinner last night, with a friend of Dean's who is an assistant rabbi back east, she told me about her HHD drash. She told the congregation that unless they have made an actual accounting of how much tz'dakah they had given they had essentially failed their HHD commitment. They'd made t'shuvah between their fellows; they were there in schule - so they were making t'fillah; but that they also had a responsibility to make an honest accounting of their tz'dakah.
She is right...better get out the calculator this year...
I look at the world that I am inheriting, filled with sadness, anger, bitterness and bile, and wonder if I want it. How could the generation that brought a national war machine to it's knees in the 60's and 70's have made such a huge 180? Did all those drugs turn their hearts to mush?
And it's not just "the world around us" - it's us Jews too. I just don't get it. We stand in our synagogues and weekly recite verses that speak of justice and mercy, hope and compassion as the virtues we so aspire to emulate, and yet we walk out of the ka'hal and climb into our capitalist gas-guzzling status symbols and speed away into the world - and forget.
Where is the light we are each supposed to shine for the world?
I don't think the American dream is the Jewish dream. Not anymore. When we marched in Selma, and Montgomery, it was there. Now we are lucky if we can even acknowledge our brother on the street. We have lost touch with who we are just because we can pass. We have taken on the capitalist consumer dream where I can, and will have it all, because it is there.
Shame on us.
At dinner last night, with a friend of Dean's who is an assistant rabbi back east, she told me about her HHD drash. She told the congregation that unless they have made an actual accounting of how much tz'dakah they had given they had essentially failed their HHD commitment. They'd made t'shuvah between their fellows; they were there in schule - so they were making t'fillah; but that they also had a responsibility to make an honest accounting of their tz'dakah.
She is right...better get out the calculator this year...
posted by simpletruths at 10:57
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