Chutzpah

Nerve, gall, arrogance, audacity, cheek, temerity...

Synonyms for chutzpah abound in language. The list is long. You would think that a word that derived from the shtetleh yidden of the Pale of Settlement would not actually have such a robust and all encompassing meaning.

Afterall, the legacy of the ghetto is not one of power. But of survival. Yet, that may actually be its magic. Chutzpah is not about a sassy, foul mouthed, in your face, take no prisoners persona. It is about the survivors. Those who refused to be written off by history. Those who basically refused to die simply because the world decided they should.

So these survivors. These in your face, we aren’t going anywhere people, came up with a word that described how they felt about their own existence. And in all honesty, they wanted to give themselves kudos for remembering who they were, and where they came from. They wanted to acknowledge the eons old legacy of a People that simply decided we are who we are, who we are is who we are. Basically chutzpah is the Jewish People’s way of giving the entire world the Finger.

(In your face, Babylon, Persia, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Holy Roman Empire, Catholic Church, Byzantium, Islamic Empires, Nazis, Soviets, Arab Bloc, Islamists, Unicause loons, ChiComs, Iranian Mullahs, Putin’s Russia.)

So that is what chutzpah means. It is the word of a People that are not afraid to tell everyone to back off. And if you don’t back off, we will back you off. Sometimes, unfortunately, it is not easy. There are times, like now, that it comes at a great cost.

Listen your right to live free is not always guaranteed and there is and has always been a price to pay for freedom. Not because the majority of the world doesn’t want to run their own lives, but because evil abounds in a world where the megalomaniacal decide they have all the answers and only their answers are the ones allowed.

Unfortunately, there are also those who think that they can build a dome over their nation and the evil that exists outside the dome is not going to find a way in. That somehow their way of life will be unaffected by the mendacious creeping of fascist entitlement. That somehow, their right to a society that enshrines the rights of humankind will continue to exist in a dystopian world that is bogged down in sectarian violence and barbaric depravity. I call these people cowards.

Cowards because they are selfish and narcissistic. That for some unbeknownst reason they, and they alone, are entitled to live in a world of freedom while the rest of humanity suffers. Plus they stupidly think that somehow this evil will not eventually come for them.

In living memory we have experienced this world before. Yet no one seems to remember the sacrifices that had to be made in order to save our way of life. We have allowed a revision of our history to make those that adhere to the western belief in freedom the bad guys. We have allowed those who despise freedom to turn the world upside down so that western society lauds those that burn babies alive in ovens and rape 12 year olds to death.

These medieval butchers are now the heroes of the day in many western capitals. Their acolytes parade weekly to celebrate their atrocities. They wrap themselves in the flags and accoutrements of mass murderers. Wearing these symbols as if they were awarded accolades from the highest pillars of humanity.

You could say that it is all about antisemitism. For a part of that you would be correct. How easy it was for the world to fall back into middle ages myth and mind set. It is beyond the pale how within a blink of an eye, the west threw out the age of enlightenment and instead decided to embrace medieval blood libels. But it’s not all about the Jews. Explain the move to abandon Ukraine to the totalitarian forces of Putin’s Russia.

Explain the “intellectuals who tie themselves into knots to excuse the genocide taking place in Ukraine. (Those as Mearsheimer are an abomination, spewing Putin talking points. These academics are no different than those who lauded Nazi Germany, and just like those who lauded Nazism, Mearsheimer is also a raging antisemite.) Explain the influencers who go to Russia to tell us how cool their supermarkets are and how clean their train systems, seeming to deride the “dirty invaders” crossing our borders, and to push their theories even more they bring on their shows holocaust deniers. Western society helped free the billions who live in eastern europe from the tyranny of communism and to these talking heads now we are seen as the bad guys because we won’t let the remnant of that evil empire reconstitute itself.

Explain the westerners who think that their problems would all be solved by simply ignoring the rest of the world. How is it possible that we have allowed ourselves to be so lulled into complacency? You cannot blame this all on wokeism, or BLM or COVID aftermath. This has been decades in the making. We have allowed ourselves to think that nothing is worth fighting for. That our way of life is meaningless.

We have allowed a society of jealousy. We have pushed a world where we cannot teach competition, that to produce and create is seen as a bad thing, and to stand up for the righteous ideas of the first amendment are somehow the epitome of evil. How dare we use words that make someone else uncomfortable! Such chutzpah, gall, audacity, nerve, temerity, arrogance, cheek… (luckily in the US we haven’t started imprisoning people for saying the wrong thing on social media like they have in the UK, but given their way, these haters of the US Constitution would love to do it here.)

The revolting aura of these people to decide that we should never get to defend our way of life is pervasive. They have decried who we are and what our society has accomplished. I for one have had enough. I am taking back the chutzpah of my ancestors.

One of the things I fought for throughout my life is to make sure that both of my autistic sons had the right to choose their future. Throughout history those with disabilities were never given the human right of decision making for themselves. The disabled were seen as either a burden on society to be hidden away, or to be killed so as not to drag society down. I made it my life’s mission to make sure that no one dehumanized my boys. I have fought too long and too hard in order to ensure that the future I hand to my children is one where they are truly free and no one, I mean no one, will get to decide their future except for them.

We the Jewish People are the chutzpah people. We have stood against the mightiest of empires and outlived them all. We will outlive these troubles too. We know how our societies will be run. We’ve been doing it for thousands of years. The question I pose to the rest of the world though is what kind of world do you want? What will your societies look like? And will it be worth it for your children to live in the future you allow to be created?

I watch this show called Lioness. It’s on Paramount and it is a good old fashioned rah rah hurrah US kick ass show. (The actress Zoe Saldana is the lead with Nicole Kidman.) It began its second season last week. In the opening episode the daughter asks her mom, the CIA agent, why she does what she does. Her reply (and I paraphrase with all do respect to the writers)

“My grandfather told his father that he fought in WW2 because as an immigrant he had just learned english and wasn’t interested in learning german or japanese. I do what I do, so you do not have to learn russian or chinese.” (We owe quite alot to the real life people who do this work.)

Then in another scene this same CIA agent in recruiting someone for a mission, asked a serving army officer, “Do you love your country?” The army officer replied, “I am already serving my country.” The CIA officer responded, “Your country needs more.”

I ask those who read this:

Do you love your children?

Do you love your country?

You will respond, “of course!”

Well in today’s world both need more of you….your country and your children need your chutzpah, without fear or favor.

Si vis pacem para bellum.

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