Our eyes and hearts have been transfixed on Charlottesville. Our minds have reeled at the government response, at our president’s flip flopping from silence, to condemnation to equivocation. Watching the candlelight vigil held in Charlottesville, one couldn’t help but be shocked by the many forms fire takes.
Do you know anyone who’s only happy when they’re miserable? It’s a bit of a paradox; happy and miserable are opposites. “Happy” in this sense really means emotionally fulfilled. I went to a therapist when I was a teenager, and apparently she saw this tendency in me. It’s true – I used to look for the bad so I would have something to be complain about.
Last night, Dr. Uri Shanas presented at this month’s Israel360 event. He’s a renowned Israeli zoologist whose focus is on how humans impact and change the natural world (anthropogenics). He spoke primarily of his work with Jordanians in the Arava valley.
As the older sister in my family, I was lucky to get the brand new kid clothes; the hand-me-downs went to my younger sister and younger cousin. This was the case pretty much up until I was in middle school. In fact, when my sister was a toddler, she actually thought that “going shopping” meant going into our basement to get the next size up box of clothes.
Last night, I met one of our oldest congregants. It seemed appropriate since this evening we are celebrating folks who have been part of the Neveh Shalom family for more than twenty five years. And Jack Lakefish won’t be able to attend. So I visited at his home in southeast. Jack is 99. As it turns out, he’ll turn a hundred on Yom Kippur.
For me, all of my “Sinai moments” are tied in some way to family. If you’ve never considered your own Sinai moments before, the idea is fairly self-explanatory. These are events in your life which carry a certain power or splendor, akin to the feeling Moshe and the Israelites might have had upon receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai.
This week, our President decided that the military will no longer permit transgender people to serve. The suddenness of this policy shift, first announced on the President’s twitter feed, has created uncertainty and confusion for both top military brass as well as for a great many individuals who felt a compulsion to give back to our nation.
