A CALL

     The other day I received the honor of being asked to recite the prayer for the State of Israel at our 50th class reunion. The last official reunion we had was for our 25th so I can only imagine the changes, physical, emotional, political, that will have taken place in the ensuing years, but I am indeed honored to be asked. Now I had better practice my reading of it aloud!
     And it caused me to wonder just what would the reaction be of the attendees to this reunion for within our group we have strong leaders on both sides of the issue, people who were in the State Department, a spouse who was an ambassador, professors, heads of organizations, speakers, educators, lawyers - and the list goes on - and all people who have strong opinions and no qualms about expressing them either!
     And I think over the pictures and speeches I have seen and heard in recent days. In particular I think of two or three picture which showed several attendees at a conference having to be protectively shielded by a gauntlet of police as the mob, a small but vociferous one, screeched - and I use that word on purpose - words of hate, of filth with high pitched hate filled voices. and what was worse, were the faces, the faces of young men and women, teens, twenties, thirties, who were stunned at this outpouring of hate, of its intensity and one could see it in their wide open eyes, in the questioning look on their faces, and yes, even the fright evidenced so clearly on their faces and in their body language. Never before had they ever faced something like this. Never before had they seen pictures of the Holocaust and the mob scenes from them  - never before had they seen them come to life and aimed at them.
     Yes, this is the world today. This is the world where it seems that all sorts of virulent and pestilent hatreds are surfacing once more, becoming PC to evidence, rather than hiding it in shame and secrecy. It has become the fashion, if you will excuse me using such a frivolous term for world shaking and shattering emotions.
     What was even more frightening to me were the questions asked by a grandson who was caught in  a BDS demonstration on his campus, one which had remained quiet until now. Most people simply walked by and paid it no never mind but I question that behavior and wonder if that was the right thing to do. This type of hatred does not go away because it is ignored; in fact, it thrives on that and grows until it becomes an ugly, vicious THING that makes it that much more difficult to defeat.
     And when there is one hatred, there is always another. There are backlashes. There is a definite backwards movement. There are renewed beatings of gays, actually, of anyone who is "different" in any which way, for it only has to bother someone for it to bloom into a black hole of hatred and anger, of violence.
     So what to do? Educate? Train people to see the signs? Fight? Scream back? Hope for courageous people who will speak up, who will be the leaders we need and not fools who throw around erroneous statistics at will? I cannot give one a definitive answer on this but I do know that in a proud voice, with tears in my eyes and a swelling heart, I will read the Tefillah L'medina - the prayer for the State of Israel, even as another alumni of the grade will read the prayer for the United States and another will ask for G-d's blessing on the soldiers of both countries as they defend the citizens of these countries.
    A small thing in time and space, but a big thing for me and for all of us. The questions that arise in these areas are existential in content and import and would that the world would see this and understand this and know the right path to choose, perhaps the one not so often chosen, as Robert Frost might point out, but the path that is the correct one, the one of life and hope and happiness and truth.