Dear Friends,
I confess that I have arrived at a state of numbness concerning the events unfolding all over the world.
I have been effected by the particularly pernicious dichotomies presented in the little 'vignettes' framed by ticker tape scrolls and flashy titles. "Crisis In The Middle East".
Though dramatic and immediate, television is a lousy conveyor of complex situations. In fact, it sucks at it. In fact, it can lie through its teeth 24 hours a day.
As much as it pains me to say it, my years of television watching and its attendant garbling of messages, has rendered me. . . psychologically confused. I cry during commercials and sit mute and disconnected, viewing carnage from the war in Israel, while sitting at the table eating my breakfast.
When the twin towers fell down that day in September, I was watching it happen live. I cried out, I wailed, I sobbed, my whole body shook with horror. I was on the phone all day with my family members. I was totally distraught, traumatized and literally beside myself.
But today I watch footage of buildings blowing up, and bloodied bodies on the street and feel numb.
I saw a portion of the movie Good Will Hunting last night, and tears streamed down my face. But this morning, I watched news of the war and sat there mute and unresponsive.
This is wrong on so many levels, I hardly know where to begin.
Then something happened. I was reading something on a web site and came across this picture of a muslim man in Indonesia.
[album 65561 20060804Indonesia01.jpeg]
Now we have all seen hundreds of protestors holding all manner of signs, complaining and demanding all kinds of things. But this one, for some reason stopped me in my tracks.
This man says that Israel must be destroyed. Why? What has he to do with Israel, living as he does in Indonesia, half a world away? What has Israel done to him? The very notion that ANY one nation must be destroyed in ludicrous. I would have more understanding of this man's thinking if his sign said, 'I hate Zionists'. I can sort of grok that he might be miffed at that group. But to go all the way to saying an entire country that has its roots firmly planted in ancient history should be wiped off the face of the earth is patently absurd.
Being a rational (I hope) human being, I am finding myself so totally flummoxed at the irrational things I am hearing people say. I feel like I am tossed to and fro in a raging storm on a small raft in the ocean, searching desperately for some shreds of truth, not distorted by tv lenses or humans who have taken leave of their senses.
It's like living in Bedlam.
Where at the same time the gibbering, drooling inmates run screaming around me, I am being told by my caretakers to give deep consideration at how happy I will be if I just buy this..... car, refrigerator, paint sprayer, vacuum cleaner, laundry detergent, or refinance my house. And then trot out some vapid celebrities and tell me I need to really be interested in what they are wearing, who they are sleeping with, and what kind of coffee they bought yesterday at Starbucks.
Good God.
But, even in the midst of all this confusion, a thought comes to me...
Something that Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said.
"Gevalt! Never despair! It is forbidden to give up hope!"
For me it is the hope that the doors of Bedlam will open and Moshiach will enter.
I cannot pretend that anything else will satisfy.
Perhaps *I* am supposed to open those doors.
Aye, there's the rub.
Am I strong enough?
Sane enough?