So, what did you learn today?

I am now in the habit of asking the student this question when he comes home. I'm not sure if I do it because I want to know, or if I am just unsure what to ask him. Hmmm.

The confusion is - I have come to realize - that I am not quite sure what I have learnt that day, and that perhaps if I hear someone else's, I'll find my own? (I dunno, it made sense when I started typing).

Tomorrow I stand on the outer edge of a decade. I will begin the cusp year, and prepare to take on a new shell, of sorts. Not unlike some crunchy, ecto-skeletoned creature, I will begin the sub-surface reformation, hoping that I will shed this skin and emerge a somehow beautiful and colourful new existence. Or something like that.

I am having a bit of a crisis of faith. I used to be so sure of my part in the wider picture, and was able to see everything as beautiful and meaningful, beyond what my frail human eyes could view. Now I am just not so sure.

Everything seems to be going to crap around me. Peace is at the best tenuous, but seems to be slipping into a quagmire of Hamas-Fatah, Likud-Kadima, Iraq-Iran, Republican and Democrat shit. I feel very uneasy.

It feels as if the coming years will call upon us Jews to make some very difficult decisions. How much will we do for the homeland? How prepared to fight are we? Fight physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

I fear for the prophet's vision of vines and fig trees. I now see only shadows of rockets and demolitions. I despair for leaders who will act for the future and not the past. I feel we are very small pawns in a very big game.

The planet is being eroded by capitalist motivations that trample people beneath their green-backed boots. We are intolerant, rude, insolent, and unlistening. I feel myself so often being pulled into the spiral of negative energy and despondency that seems to rule the day.

Where is our hope for the future?

Maybe some Moshiach wouldn't be a bad idea?