Life

L'chaim, freedom, the future....LET THEM GO!

To life, to life, l’chaim…l’chaim, l’chaim to life…

Of course, as the story goes, the bride, being in love with the poor taylor, begged her father for permission to marry the man she loved. Of course, he relented, being the doting father that he was. The problem was telling his wife….and that is another scene for another day.

But I think that the song L’Chaim, encompasses so much of what it means to be Jewish throughout history. From persecution to persecution, we have never let evil get in the way about how we feel about life, love, hashem, and the future.

We also know that within a few decades of their expulsion from Anatevka, worse than pogroms were going to happen to the Jewish People. And at the end of the movie Tevye and Golda’s daughters are separated throughout the world and across oceans. I remember how it bothered my mother that the family was all separated, one daughter going to Siberia, one going to Poland, they to the US, and another daughter leaving out of sheer alliance with her family. We do not know if they and their children survived what was to come. But we know that despite everything, and the best shot the world threw at us, much to the chagrin of the UN, the ICC, the ICJ, and their fellow Islamist-Marxist-Judeophobes, the Jewish People survived and we have fucking survived quite well indeed.

So I think about the world today. This day of American Thanksgiving. I think about what it means to be Jewish in America today. What is our l’Chaim, what is our future? I think about the fact that we are no longer on a vacation from history. We Jewish Americans need to accept the fact that we are living history.

I think one day, historians will look back at our time and try to figure out just what the heck were people thinking worldwide? Why did Americans vote the way they voted? Why did humanity ignore the obvious destruction of the liberal world order? Why did the “elite” lash out at people who stood against the end of freedom? Why were people so inured to the injuries that they did to one another? Why did they take joy in destroying each other? Why were they so filled with hate? What drove people in our world? What basically made us different than the humans that have come before us? What made so many think that they could hide from history?

But I think one of the most important aspects of our time is that we, Jews, have not changed. Not one iota. Think about what makes Jews, Jews. We have 3 aspects to our being;

Tanakh Yisrael- the Jewish religion. Oh we have redefined some things, upended other rituals, revamped religious law, but it is all Judaism. And yes, we argue about that all the time.

Am Yisrael - the Jewish People. The Torah says we are the Nation of Israel. The descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. My DNA says I am 99.8% Ashkenazi Jew with a little north african thrown in. My children are 99.4% Ashkenazi Jew with a little Italian and other middle eastern thrown in.

Eretz Yisrael- the Land of Israel, our indigenous lands, where our religion was born, where the language of our people was created, the land that our holidays revolve around. The land partially reclaimed by a beleaguered, persecuted, and genocided people who demanded their freedom and who still have to fight for their survival against an evil that is determined to obliterate us worldwide.

That we argue, discuss, swear at each other about what these 3 characteristics of being Jewish mean, well that too is what it means to be Jewish. The old saying that with 2 Jews you have 3 opinions doesn’t fall far from the truth. That is also why having Thanksgiving with a Jewish family in the US is quite the experience. Needlesstosay, it is usually very loud. (We have bought our sons special earplugs for the occasion. Autistics tend to have auditory processing issues which interfere with sound assimilation properly. )

Life is interesting. There is alot to be thankful for and alot to mourn. There is alot to be weary of, and alot to be proud of. There will always be fear I think though. It is why L’chaim is so important in our world. Because if you let fear win, then what is the point of life?

Meanwhile, when you sit down at your Thanksgiving table don’t forget there are still 101 hostages held in Gaza. Save a place for them.

Also remember too, that if October 7th had never happened the war in Gaza, the war in Lebanon would never have happened. If after October 7, Hamas had simply returned the hostages and surrendered the war in Gaza would never have happened. If Iran had not created a “ring of fire” to destroy Israel, nothing over the past 14 months would have happened. All those lives lost and for what? So Iranian Mullahs can live out some doomsday death cult version of Islam? It is time the world held them, and other Islamists, to account for the damage they do and for the lives they destroy.

Oh and one more thing-If nothing else is learned by the horrors that have been lived through over these months is that Jewish blood is no longer cheap. That by the way is the 4th aspect of being Jewish in today’s world. (Unlike the whiny nonsensical spineless self-important cowardly leaders of legacy Jewish organizations in the US, all who ignored the warning signs for decades about the rise of antisemitism in the world, there are some Jews who are not afraid.)

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

By the way, I don’t like turkey. I admit it. I would rather be eating Indian food.

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