Friday, September 18, 2020

SOLEMNITY IN OUR TIMES

      Tonight we begin Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, a time of atonement, of introspection, and a time for deep wishes for changes, positive ones, ones that benefit all, rather than a few individuals. We ask forgiveness from those we have offended, or might have offended. We usually spend hours in the synagogues, but this year prayers as a group have been truncated in order to limit time together and increased danger of COVID, with the rest of the prayers being prayed at home. And that haunting sound of the shofar will be heard on Sunday with a unique and heartwarming innovation. In many places all over the world and in America, there will be shofar blowing in various spots, enabling the homebound to hear it.

Generally, we wish each other happiness, peace, prosperity, joy and good health, but this year we need to wish our country, so ill, so battered by forces within and without, several deeply felt and needed wishes as well.

We wish all to have peace, to know that they can live their lives without fear of war, displacement, or starvation as people caused or Nature caused disasters arise. In fact, we wish for a definite ceasing of these disasters. And of course, we need to accept upon our shoulders our own participation in these causes. Food for deep thought - honest, too.

We wish for health for all. The current plague has disturbed the rhythm of the world and we wonder if we will ever get it back. Personally, I think not, for we are entering a growing phase in world history, where plagues are more likely to occur, for mutations to defeat prior successes in combating illness, and we will see a return of prior diseases once thought to be defeated, to have been conquered. Why?

Because we have lost trust in our governments. Thus, we wish for trusted and competent governments. For a government where all is not subsumed to and by politics. Where sanity prevails, along with understanding and compassion. We wish all to have governments in their countries that respect the rights of all, the exercise of all rights, even if unpleasant, without the dangers of being beaten up, arrested by secretive forces. Ramping up, now, Barr, that corrupt individual, has fallen into the ways of tyranny and is threatening to arrest protesters for sedition, being a danger to the country. Really? I can think of a whole lot of other people, mostly situated in DC who are the definition of sedition and treason, of danger to the country. Go, arrest them, and include yourself as well.

We wish for prosperity, one that will benefit all, not just those of the already top percentage points of wealth, but all, including the little guys and gals doing the tough jobs, carrying the daily lives of so many on their backs. If worth would be truly valued, then nurses, teachers, compassionate people in caring professions, orderlies and whomever else fits the description would be far wealthier. Skip the tax cuts for the wealthy, fix the infrastructure of the country. Fix the cracks that are roiling society, cracks going ever deeper under the ugly rule and behavior of a man who instigated and developed these cracks, working hard to deepen and widen them, pushing for ugliness that should never be. 

We, as a country, as a government, have lost credence and trust, belief in our goodness, as the world watches us as we treat children like trash, as we perform horrific sterilizations on unknowing women, as we ignore the dangers we place people in with our lunatic rolling back of safety regulations. We insanely return to the ignorance of the Middle Ages, turning our backs to science and instead go to quacks for their 'scientific' opinions.

We wish for leaders who have working brains. We wish for the hyper exaggerations to stop. Lockdown is not slavery! What the hell is the matter with Barr. Perhaps it is the water in the WH and the Capitol? All seem to have turned to lunacy, to absolute, dangerously ignorant, provocative statements, precluding any possibility of a nation healing and reuniting itself, for all of us to become Americans once more, not Democrats or Republicans. And while on the topic of GOP, we wish them a complete and total healing from their emasculation, their loss of morality and all moral values, their loss of compassion for others, their tragic and complete loss of spine, and of their ability to be firm in defense of their country, rather than in defense of a deeply compromised individual whose only desires and ambitions are to takeover the nation, establish his family dynasty, and become Ruler For Life - in his own words.

And we wish for joy for all. Is that possible? Yes, if all the above wishes come true and sanity and American values return to our shores. If the muck of the ever growing swamp of DC is cleaned up. If we return to a government not wrecked by nepotism, cronyism, old boy networks, and greed and corruption. 

In closing in my last posting of this Jewish calendar year, I truly wish for only the best for country, nation, world and all those living on this little orb in space. I wish for a return to our senses, for abysses formed to be filled in, sealed, for love to prevail, for honesty, transparency and morality to return to our governments. For the politicians to realize that their time has come, nationally, locally, and here in CV.

I will return to posting on Monday, and perhaps during days of prayers and introspection, of knowledge that we ALL have to do better, perhaps as Jews and non Jews, as all the peoples of the world come to their senses, we can have that better world and hope for the future.

That and those are my wishes for the New Year to all. Shanah Tova. a good and sweet year to come.

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