CONTRASTS

  Yesterday, while reading, I came across an excerpt from John McCrae's powerful poem Flanders Field. I can remember reading it in high school, felt its power then, but it is nothing as compared to the emotions felt today, in these troubled times.

"We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved," 

It is precisely more incisive at this moment, precisely when we are celebrating the wonderful occasion of a granddaughter's wedding. How do we meld those feelings with the emotions raised by a poem which pleads for an end to wars, to the coverups of deaths that rend the survivors, of losses that never ever go away, even as Nature tries her very best, cloaking the death with beautiful poppies. In fact, how does one allow thoughts of death in such a time of joy, an affirmation of the continuity of life, of the chains of generations which led to this point?

How? Why? Because it is at such moments that we realize, feel powerfully, the phases of life. Even as it begins new journeys for some, for others it is the final stretch. We realize the futility of denying death, its inevitability. However, at one and the same time, we try to pass on to the younger generation our apologies and our understandings, the outcomes and hopefully, the wisdoms of our experiences.

Generation after generation we have refused to recognize the futility of war. We glorify it, rightfully honor those  who died fighting for one noble cause or another, even as the same causes need more infusions of blood through the centuries. No matter how we name these wars, be it in terms of longevity, as in the Cousins' War in England, or The Hundred Years War, or the Civil War here, whose echoes remain, The Great War, the war that was to end all wars - which did not - its deadly futility remains hidden to the minds of many.

And so we leave these kids a world still, ravaged by war, its deaths, its horrid spillage of blood, its uselessness in the long run, the pressing necessity to find other answers, ones that benefit humankind. We apologize for we have failed in that task. In fact, we have made war an ongoing never ending part of life in areas of the world, with constant threats of ramping up with more powerful weapons, with savagery inflicted upon the 'losers' even as all are losers in war. The victors lose parts of their humanity, never to return, never able to undo the wounds of their souls. There are no victors, no victories, in war. No matter the nobility of the cause, for it returns almost immediately. The murders of Jews continued even as they returned from death camps to former homes. The anger of enemies rushed into the future, merely changing names. The beauty of  the poppies planted, the birds singing overhead - futile in the long run. The land continues to be soaked in the blood of those who perished.

I look at these kids standing under the chuppah, I am filled with joy and happiness for them, with them, fervently, with all the power of my heart and soul, only good, happiness, health, joy in and for their children, for a future. Yet I wonder if that is to be. Look around. See our world, besieged with seething hatreds, decimated by plagues of one sort or another, the devastation of the planet.

"Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep," 

We were charged by the poet with a duty for the future. We have most emphatically not fulfilled that charge. And so it falls to those two kids and the rest of their generation. And the generations to follow. One can only hope and pray that these kids, beginning a life together, hopefully a blessed one, will take on that charge, that duty, and leave a better world for their inheritors than we have done.

To them and their generation I, too, leave a charge. Tell the truth, always, for not to do so is only to invite danger into your homes and nations. Respect the humanity of all, the rights of all, the basic needs of all. Strive to do your best. Keep G-d in your hearts and love each other.

Now to the joy in life. Mazal tov!! The glass shatters and the singing, the dancing, the affirmation that there will always be a time for the sounds and joys of marriage, for the hopes that these marriages present and represent.

Shortly, I will be in the midst of this joy, in the midst of the singing and dancing  - and I would not have it any other way. We are told there is a time and place for everything on this earth. Time to rejoice.

Kol sasone, v'kol simcha.

Kol Chatan, v'kol Kallah

The voice of joy, the voice of happiness

The voice of the groom, the voice of the bride.

             MAZAL TOV!!!!!