Not Just Tikun

"For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time." Elie Wiesel in his Memoir "NIGHT"

On a daily basis, I see a plethora of Facebook post (more like rants) about this social injustice and that social injustice. For the most part, I find the majority of them off putting, divisive and unnecessary. What's that expression about opinions and a$$holes? Oh right, everybody has one and they all stink. This onslaught of posts and pseudo-op-eds has been one of the factors in my reluctance to share my thoughts over the last 2 years. However, today is not a day for me to remain silent. Tonight is Yom Hashoah, the day set aside for the remembrance of the Holocaust. I heard an interesting factoid yesterday. There are less than 30,000 Holocaust survivors alive in the NY metropolitan area today. I suppose that it is a remarkable thing that these individuals who survived the horrors and the atrocities of the camps, all in their late 80' or 90's, are still here to tell their stories. To remind us with first hand accounts that we must never forget. The sad but obvious truth is that in the very near future, they will all be gone. Holocaust denial will only grow stronger when there is no one left to remind the World of the evil that befell our people. Growing up, the idea of Tikun Olam, loosely understood as repairing the World, was often tied into the Holocaust. It was our responsibility to help not just our community , but all of Mankind, to move past that awful time in history. Not to forget, but to repair, to grow, to move beyond, to be better. Today, I don't see my responsibility the same way. It's not my job to repair this world. No, my responsibility is to make sure I ,and my generation, makes sure that future generations, never forgets. Soon, the survivors will all be gone. I, no we, can never allow for their stories to disappear. It is our obligation to Keep Telling their Stories!

Keep Telling the Stories! 2023

 

We're Just Not Ready

To say "too busy" is merely to say "confused priorities." Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When I write, I try to keep my political and social leanings to myself. It's no great secret that I tend to be conservative in my thoughts and life style. While change is inevitable, I am a strong believer in evolution over revolution. This has certainly been clearly evidenced by my experiences of the last few days. Last Friday, we discovered that we had a gas leak in our house. At 5:15 Friday afternoon, as we approached the holiday weekend, PSE&G shut off our gas. We were "red flagged" until we could get a plumber in t fix the problem. It was, as I said, a holiday weekend. Any plumber would regard this as an "emergency" call and charge accordingly , if we could even get them to come out. In any case, PSE&G would not be able to turn us back on until Late Monday at the earliest. We chose to wait out the holiday weekend and get a plumber in on Monday. Without boring you with the details of the how's and why's of this ordeal, we were without heat, hot water ,a stove or an oven for 6 days. No heat, no showers, no cooked food. Being Passover, eating out of course was not an option. The bottom line take away for me was that while I am a big proponent of renewable energy sources and certainly am always in support of caring for the environment, we as a society, are just not ready to live without gas. Obviously for a one week period, switching all of my appliances over to electric would not have been feasible. However, even in the long run, the cost to upgrade my existing home would conservatively be in the 10's of thousands of dollars. No one I know can afford that kind of an investment. Evolution, not revolution. A sound reliable plan, not The Green New Deal. Incremental changes are monumental changes. If we have learned anything this weekend, or over the last 2 years, we just can't turn off the gas and expect to lead the lives we have worked so hard to build for ourselves.

Keep Telling the Stories! 2023