Overthinking

Not everything needs to be a dissertation

So as I have mentioned before, since my hysterectomy I have spent an inordinate amount of time on Youtube. Well, truth be told, since it is summer and my normal shows are on repeat, I turn to YouTube for entertainment. Well not so much entertainment as my daily fill of angst, anxiety, OMG, meltdowns, and holyshit!

And yes, I still watch all the travel vlogs and have branched out to food vloggers now. Not sure why that is. I have no desire to go to restaurants anymore. We ventured out when we lived in NYC enough even when the boys were little. But years before COVID, we had had enough of getting dressed up and going out. (We noticed that when everyone was talking about how their lives had changed because of the lockdowns, we realized our lives hadn’t changed all that much. We already worked from home, and never went out to restaurants. The odd movie we saw in the theater, we now saw at home. And yes, having realized that we may not go out to dinner, but we make an effort to get out of the house now. )

In fact, if I had to name my top favorite things to do, putting on fancy clothes, makeup, doing up my hair and going to a hoity toity restaurant would not be in the top 100. Sitting at home in my pjs drinking good champagne, eating take out that had been delivered from a nice restaurant, now the thought of that makes me happy.

Meanwhile, I have noticed that the algorithm for YouTube keeps sending me discussions on topics that are important to me as well as all my favorite vloggers. Granted, as anyone who reads this newsletter knows (if you want to call it a blog thats fine too, I have yet to figure out the difference anyway.) I have a specific set of interests that are important to me.

I do like find out how to keep myself healthy since I am almost officially a senior citizen- 65 is creeping up in the next few months. Even though I don’t have any desire to go clothes shopping I like information on what is out there for those of use who have graying hair, and also what makeup is nice on older skin. And yes, I use creams, but my skin is not that of a 25 year old. 65 is not the new 30. It’s not even the new 40. Maybe the new 50.

On that note, I just had a new visit with a new doctor’s office and when I went over the meds I take daily, which is none (everything is vitamins) they looked at me incredulously. Nothing? Some vitamins gummies and my B12 shots every 2 weeks but that’s it. Most just cant believe it. The last nurse I spoke to though gave me a “good for you” at the end of the list. “Keep it up,” she said.

Listen I took that horrible anticancer med for 3 years (yes it kept my cancer at bay, so horrible not in the efficacy) and had to stop because of the side effects, but other than that so far so good. The cardiologist (the one I wrote about who talked to me about my weight like I was an intellectually deficient toddler) said that eventually I would probably need a statin, yeah that’s not happening. (Maternal side of the family can’t tolerate statins, and I am NOT going to live in misery.) But she said there are alternatives now. I guess when the time comes, if it comes, I should try it. Heart attacks are actually the top killer of women.

Well, meanwhile the panels and the topics I keep getting of course all have to do with Judaism, the October War, US Constitutional Law, and antisemitism. The thing that I find so interesting is that for the discussion on law, even Judaism some of the discussion is short and sweet.

In fact, you should be able to lay out your thesis, or the concept, very easily and very succinctly. If you can’t, I don’t think you can call yourself an expert. An example would be that famous story about the approaches to the Torah by both Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shamai.

One day a gentile comes to Rabbi Shamai and says if he can teach him the precepts of the Torah while standing on one foot he will convert to judaism. Well Shamai was so enraged he beat the man and threw him out of his synagogue. The same man then went to Rabbi Hillel and asked the same thing: teach him the precepts of the Torah while standing on one foot and he will convert to judaism.

Hillel responded,” that which is hateful to be done to yourself, do not do to others. The rest is commentary. Now go study.” (Gentiles call this the golden rule)

Hillel was able to boil down the main ideas of the Torah into its most basic idea and to relate it in a way that the average person would not only understand, but that thsi concept could be used in daily life.

But for many this concept of brevity has been lost. And this is no more apparent than in the discussion about antisemitism. (Listen don’t include discussing the October War and the propaganda that is thrown into the world in this need for brevity. When discussing or arguing whether something was appropriate or not, sometimes you do need to spend a little more time in order to educate the ignorant. Of course, they also need to want to be educated, but you also need to remember that no matter what you do in life, you also can’t fix stupid.)

On that note, speaking of stupid, there was that huge brouhaha about what a miserable misogynist moron Piers Morgan is in his latest foray into the war in Gaza. Now he did try to explain himself on his substack, which honestly only made him look even more ludicrous. Talking about things he has no background in and deciding he knows more than military experts in urban warfare or International legal experts really wasn’t a good look for him.

As I wrote in the comments, to paraphrase Mark Twain, it is best to keep your opinions to yourself and have people think you are an imbecile rather than open your mouth and prove them right. And of course, Piers then came onto X smoking a cigar and saying to all the war mongers- I guess that means the Jews who don’t believe that they should be gang raped to death, have their children burned to death and be kidnapped by a death cult, or put up with genocidal theocracies getting a nuclear weapon- how he is relaxing by his pool with his fancy tobacco phallic symbol. Talk about a self own for imbecility. He is smoking something that will give him lung cancer. Having watched people die from that horrible disease, there are very few people I would wish that on in this world. No Piers isn’t one of those. But how stupid are you that somehow giving yourself this deadly evil disease is supposed to prove you are smarter than people who called you out for your arrogance, idiocy, and moronic actions. As I said, he is a proven imbecile.

Moreover, in the continuation of constant questioning, asking and theorizing, we have panel after panel of all manner of Jewish people, from educators, to politicians, to rabbis, to philosophers spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out why the world embraced the lies of Hamas so quickly and happily. What is it about the fact that antisemitism reared its violent and malevolent head so easily and with abandon. They talk and talk and talk and talk. Theory after theory after theory is promoted, postulated and revamped. They are davening their way to an aura of epiphany. Or so they think.

I have lost count of the number of books I have about the history of antisemitism that are hundreds and hundreds of pages long. These books are so massive that if they hit someone in the head they would be declared a lethal weapon. In fact, these books don’t even give you an over view of the entirety of antisemitism, some simply look at the history in one country or area. And sometimes only for specific eras, as well. Its good to document events. it is needed and necessary. It’s quite another to tremble because of the enormity of what has occurred.

Honestly, we need to ask exactly what does this accomplish, this overwrought self indulgent narcissism? Oh it may make the authors and pontificators feel better. Honestly, considering that there is no way to get a handle on the inordinate growth of antisemitism in today’s world, and there seems no way to stop this dangerous explosive train, perhaps the underlying psychological need to feel as if there is some modicum of control is to try to comprehend exactly why, wherefore and whatnot of the issue. Ok. With all the psychiatrist and psychologists in the Jewish world some kind of therapy should be de rigueur.

Listen, for thousands of years Jews could not really control their fate. We were at the mercy of whichever potentate was in power in the land in which we had been exiled. We were never considered actual members, or citizens, of the empires, principalities, kingdoms, states, cities, communities in which we lived. At most we were tolerated and then perhaps exiled. At the worst we were slaughtered, in a very October 7 kind of manner.

One way of understanding, or handling, this lack of control over your own lives is to try to find a philosophical way in which to rationalize the uncertainty. Whether people turned to a more comprehensive look at liturgy, or philosophy it didn’t matter. Sometimes there was a combination of both schools of thought in fact.

Then of course there was always the conversation about how best to assuage the ego of the person, or persons, who held that sword of Damocles over your family. How do we work within the system put before us so that we can survive and prosper. What is the best way to get along to go along.

The upshot of all of this discussion though was always how to survive in a world in which we had no rights, no say in our own future, and no true sense of permanence.

So we are used to talking alot because that is the only power we had.

But you know what, we really don’t need to do that anymore. Ok we like to talk. It is what we do. We talk. We argue. We yell. We scream. Sometimes we have fist fights. But in the end the question you need to ask yourself what is any of this accomplishing? In fact, I am pretty tired of the nonsensical waste of time and effort.

We don’t need a dissertation of why there is antisemitism in the world. There just is. Fact. Who cares. It’s also not going to go away. We are not going to fix these people. You cant save them. It is really simply time to figure out how to save ourselves. (Does this sound selfish, too bad.) If I am not for myself, who will be for me? First you save you and yours. When you are safe, then worry about the rest….

Jews are also not a powerless people anymore. Fact. (I think the Iranian mullahs know that right about now. Prayers to Hashem to protect the IDF and all innocent life would be nice and accepted by the way.)

Constantly talking about antisemitism makes us look weak. Its the talking about it in a whinny sort of woe is me way that makes us look weak. And we are not a weak People. We have survived for 4,000 years some of the worst horrors the human race ever concocted.

Granted, it is rational to be concerned about what is happening today. Some of us are kinda scared. Makes sense when you can be attacked walking down the street because you are wearing a Star of David. But mostly it makes me furious. Furious at the powers that be for their cowardice in facing the reality of the world for far too long.

Stand up. Stop complaining. Get a straight back. Say gay kaken offen yam to the haters.

Remember it is also still better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

IT IS DAY 615 OF THE HOSTAGES BEING STARVED AND HELD IN THE TERROR DUNGEONS OF GAZA 🎗️

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