WHERE OR WHEN

  The title once again comes from an old song (can't help showing my age, huh!). It is one of those plaintive old songs, longing for a return to what was, but the doubt remains re that possibility. Hence, the title. Today, our tired, disillusioned world knows what follows. Even should that love return, it will never be as pure, simple, clear and clean as it once was. One can try to go back, but backwards does not really work well. 

Mark Twain had one of his characters say that one must go forward, for backwards is basically not an option.  However, that forward direction is too often blocked by those who insist upon the values of a troglodyte to be adopted as our own, hugged tight within and without, an ugliness which gains power with every misstep of society. To go forward in that misshapen society is, actually, to go backwards. It is self-contradictory, self-destructive and infinitely harmful with no positive aspect whatsoever.

Today we live in such a world. Getting worse every day, compounding its errors every day. So where do we stop? Where in fact can we start? Is there a possibility any more to redirect the world - to redefine its good and bad impulses?  To go forward by taking a brief change in direction, sifting the past, discarding the remnant chaff hanging on, and delaying our forward movement on our new path.

Unfortunately, today, too many of us have taken giant steps, leaps actually, backwards, embracing its foulness and propensity for evil. Giving in to wicked impulses is fun - for the moment. The    memory of that moment of indulgence, the high it imparted to us overpowers the thoughts of the consequences inevitably to follow. 

Society becomes addicted to the wrong, to the evil, to the selfish, and their magnetic pull tows us right back to where we were when we first went wrong in a major overwhelming manner. At that point, we willingly entered a phase of stasis, which prevented us from moving forward, from self-evaluation and truth seeking. Unknown are the concepts of honesty and honor.   

Is it possible that we regain our senses and our moral backbone? Is it possible that we have enough grit within to afford a true deep dive. into our conscience, recognize where we went wrong? Can we come to understand. where and when there will be a possibility. of goodness ahead of us. However, the where with the when is not automatic and needs hard work and consistent forward movement. At this point in time I am not quite sure that anybody, at least the majority of society wishes to give up its newfound freedom of indulgence in evil and hate. Its ugliness is visible within Gaza and its lines of temptation for the world, for their indulgence in JewHatred buoyed by their false accusations and denial of rights for Israel to defend itself and rescue their kidnapped citizens. 

How do we stop this? How do we stop a snowball from ruling rolling down the hill at ever faster speed? I damn well wish I knew. I really do. All that I do know now for certain is that if fear were able to be quantified it would overflow the tube of measurement. The world has moved backwards, dived headlong into the bog, an evil smelling swamp with an overwhelming miasma of negativity and hate.  

Society hides remnants of goodness deep within us and joins in lustily with those who champion the retro society. We are now well within. For the Jewish people this retro leap is of grave danger. Rampant antisemitism has morphed into toxic JewHatred. Chanting, shouting, acting out, their objective an open goal of genocide. Even as they pervert the truth and reverse the roles, claiming the status of victims - despite their aggression and initiation of this war and their continued holding of the captives and the brutality of the treatment afforded them. Endangering their own, they have failed in responsibility of a government, to benefit the citizens rather than prepare their certain death. 

Somehow, they have managed to persuade the world of the righteousness of their murderous desires. The world without great difficulty and slim reluctance, if any, at all, jumped right into that swamp, splashing all who stood around. The vapors and water drops flew an ever-widening evil eddy in the air of the world. A toxic air, a polluted air. Yet embraced by so many willing to forgo true truth, honor, justice in their acquiescence and surrender to evil and the momentary pleasure it imparts to those who practice it.    

The original aggression is forgotten. They debased demeaned, belittled, and perverted all into an assertion that Israel itself perpetrated the horror upon their own citizens. The gall! The numbers game is played. and the numbers of Israelis dead wound. disappeared have now lessened day by day by day. The original numbers are almost nowhere to be found. 

This takes place at the same time as the numbers emanating from Gaza are stretched into infinity, pulled out of the air. Dangers are exaggerated, even invented. Manifestly false, clear to seeing eyes and open minds, yet the world jumps for Hamas, empowering their openly and reiterated statement    of genocidal intent for the Jewish people, in Israel and round the world. It pleases the world to believe and act upon the accusations thrust at Israel, to accuse them of genocidal intent. Deny them the right to defend themselves, to ensure the safety of their citizens. In fact, the safety of every single Jew upon this planet. Why? Because hatred is a strong emotion and legitimizes brutal. vicious, beastly behavior emanating from it, and legitimized its consequences.  

The fact that antisemitism has been alive and. unfortunately well, a consistent part of the mesh of   the fabric of humanity, does not make it right. Nor does it entitle nations of the world to deny Israel its own nation, its own state, a haven, a refuge, for every oppressed Jew on the planet. And a source of pride for every Jew, and a determination to defend it even as Israel defends us.

     We Jews know from time immemorial that the land of Israel. is our homeland. Thus we have been promised. And thus we have lived. And though exiled from it, denied it we know the truth. The return to Zion is part and parcel of the Jewish religion, to be found within the marrow of every single Jew. We always return. We have always prayed for its return, and we live its return. Jews round the world must now and always stand tall and proud.  Flaunt that Judaism, embrace it and do not be afraid to do so. Do not hang your head. Do not bend low. 

We are the nation of Israel. We walk proudly with the righteous of the world who join us. We stand firm against hate not only of Jews, but of hate directed against any and all who are deemed 'other'. One day, one day ..... Where or when that day is not for me to say. I cannot say for I have no idea and actually very little hope of seeing it in my own time. Where has it gone? When did it disappear? Can we find another where or when. this time a lasting one? As stated, not a clue, only a yearning.

Yitzy, sweet boy, perhaps if you had lived, if science had been quicker, you could have grown up to save this ugly world. Maybe.

 But it was not to be.

You are missed and loved. By so many.

Always and forever. Always and forever.