SHRINKAGE AHEAD - HARD APORT!

 The posting is a tad long, but from my heart. And I hope yours as well.

Every person on this earth will meet at least one moment in time that challenges core beliefs. It forces one to either hold tight onto moral values, keep one's soul intact, or choose the easier, manifestly wrong option, thereby refuting all that one has believed in and tried to live in accordance with its precepts and standards. These moments are difficult, often literally at times of life or death, and those moments, times of stress, force one to delve deeply into one's soul, and define what kind of a person one truly is.

Some pass, some fail, some regret the decision made and others merrily sail along not giving a second thought to the whole event, discount its importance and definition. Not only individuals have these moments. Nations do as well. We in the United States have reached the critical crux of such a defining moment. We have reached the dividing line, a choice which will either keep us true, hewing to the values of this nation, or will take us down a road leading to perdition, to the graveyard of defunct nations which ceded their souls, their values, their founding principles, and for the advantage of the moment, chose incorrectly. And died. Folks, like it or not, we have reached the crux, the point in that road which will either give us a future as a nation true to its values, or a nation that spits on and demolishes its democracy and blackens its national soul forever. Damage done -irreversible.

We can try reparation for those egregiously wrong choices, but the harm can never be totally ameliorated, no matter how hard the effort to do so. The harsh tones, the negative overlays, morality challenged, compromised, and the unknown, immeasurable consequence and tragedy of what might have been and now will never be. There is no way to ever fully delineate the echoing loss.

So where are we at. We are at a point which will set people off into rants or moments of black despair. My view on this topic will enrage some, but will hopefully find common cause with others, or even influence some to see the light, so to speak, and understand this crucial defining moment. The topic: immigration.

There is not a soul on this earth, certainly not in this country, which has no connection to another place in their family's history. We all - ALL - came from somewhere else. If not us, then a preceding generation. It should matter not from whence, or when, or even why. People, we, came, for reasons of economics or education or dreams or basic fear of survival where they presently live. Some come with advantages, others not. But all have the right to dream and hope, to build better lives. All have benefitted from immigration. Even the Native Americans, indigenous, are actually also people who came from elsewhere, who conquered land from other groups. Right or wrong - that is what it is and we must accept the truth. 

I look at all the groups which came over, took the trip across the sea after difficult, expensive, torturous and deadly trek to reach points of embarkation. Most came at times of mass immigration, huge numbers of fellow countrymen and all groups were despised at the point of debarkation here in America, as colony or country. Resented for using up resources, took jobs, raised costs of food and housing, spoke different languages, some unintelligible, or were of incorrect religion, another color or facial characteristics, wore weird clothing, different societal norms. And so - we were taught to hate, to spread the hate of the different, to claim superiority, all in turn and at the precise moment, criticize the next group coming over. Italians. Irishmen. Scots. Eastern Europeans. Slavs. Jews. Black. Yellow. Too small. Too tall. It did not matter. Not one whit - unless one understood the wrongness of it.  

The rhetoric has not changed. Not a tad. It is simply applied to whatever group is the chosen group for that moment. We forget our shared history. We forget our commonalities and stress the differences, real and imagined. We aim our grievances at the wrong targets. We claim we did it the "right" way, legally - and yes, many did - but many did not. They jumped ship. They strolled over the borders. They overstayed visas. The hopes and dreams, the desperateness was and is the same.

New immigrants are the ever replenishing and refreshing new blood. New ideas. New ways of thinking. Amazing art and literature and histories. They fill the lowest level jobs, taking on the dirty work, send their kids to school, teach them vocations, instill pride in their past and their future and we are the better, the wealthier for it all. Today we are plunging ahead without thought, with blindfolds over eyes and dead brain cells. Our farmers are wondering who will pick the crops even as we whine re higher prices. That is called supply and demand and consequences. Who will package our foods? Who will be the medical caretakers in our cities, in rural areas? Who will bring in a breath of fresh air and thinking? Who will be the next generation of researchers, of defenders, of thinkers and doers, of crafts, of anything and all. Who will join our kids and become the kids of us all, the pride of our nation and its path to the future.

Only with immigration will we maintain the working population numbers at the necessary level to survive, to insure a good society with provision and futures for all. Only when we stop the hate, turn away from fruitless, violent trips to the past, of McCarran Acts, of turning backs to the desperate, sending ships and rafts away, back to certain death, back to gang threats, to imprisonment as they protest a corrupt government, as they starve and dehydrate because of the faults of the so-called advanced nations, only then can we claim our moral truths.

Only when we understand what we cancel before existence, before possibilities. How many geniuses, artisans, plain old good people, musicians, researchers, societal improvers were never born due to the slaughter of the once to be progenitors. Callously - who will fix your damned roof at an affordable price! NO 'white' person wants that job. Too dirty, too hot, too dangerous, too manual. Who will be our new friends, to share a laugh and a tear, to be our neighbors.

So yes, check for true criminals at the gates to the country. Stop walling us in from the world, creating our own huge, ultimately negative, decaying, soul and life destroying ghetto. Been there, done that - want no piece of it anymore. We need to keep our humanity and stop caging people, just like us, with the same dreams and goals. Stop besmirching them with the old and so tired tropes of being disease carrying, criminally ridden, intellectually challenged. G-d knows we have enough of those in our ranks of politicians. Read up on Trump, DeSantis, Greene, Jordan, Tlaib, Goebert, et al. 

Open the gates. We need new people. We need to keep immigration to this country alive and well. We need to eliminate hate from these border gates. We need to STOP that Wall, that ugly, soul and nature destroying wall. We need to understand the benefits of immigration. To us, for us, for them, for all to come together and be a healthy souled and true value filled America.

As I hear from my son and see via pictures, I know the value immigration has provided for me. I see the mixed teams of medical personnel who are working together, the shared goal to save a boy of 13, barmitzvahed in a quiet tear-jerking reading of a portion of the Torah, but not in the planned celebration. That will come - because of the mixed caretaker team. Who gives a damn from whence they or family came - only that they are here now, able to heal my grandson. 

And I am here, with my family and friends, not slaughtered with the millions of others in the Holocaust. I am here because my grandparents were able to enter before the McCarran Act and its awful consequences and basis of foundation. I am here because of all the varying kinds, types, of people, from all nationalities who contributed to my survival and life - from the agricultural workers to the packers to the truckers to the manufacturers, to the grocery workers, to the teachers, to the authors and musicians, the playwrights, the actors, the filmmakers, my friends  - who allowed me to be born, in this country and have a future, with a future for my grandchildren and greatgrandchildren - if we do not destroy it first with hate and violence, with just so wrong thinking.

The only way to ensure that future, a positive one, is to work together - in all fields and in every way. One can be proud of one's ancestry and heritage at the same time being inclusive, accepting, respecting and appreciative of the heritage of others. Even if there are things within the heritages that displease or concern, there are ways to remedy that situation. Properly. Legally. Fairly. With understanding and compassion. With a deeply engrained knowing, deep within one's mind, soul, and heart, that together is the only way. Accepting that wisdom can be reaped from all ways of life. That the same ideas are promulgated all over, with only wordage differing, not sentiment. If only, we, all, together, live the words, advice, guidance, heart of our religions, rather than misuse them.

Matthew 7:15-20: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves."

Together - we can decipher and live the truth, discard the evil, identify the liars, the wolves and move on to build a better world. For all. ALL.

Together - Together we can achieve it all. 

Together we can

HEAL THE WORLD.

HEAL YITZY!

Yitzchak Elimelech ben Chana Sarah

May he be granted refuah shelaymah bimheyrah beyameinu. 

May he be granted a timely and complete healing.

May Hashem hear all our voices raised in prayer. 

Amen. Amen.