Embracing Gifts

Today is a day that is especially significant for us not just as Jews but as new parents as well. Today we celebrate the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. In the midst of the long struggle in the desert, G-d spoke to Moses and gave the gift of His words and wisdom to those who accept his covenant. We were given light and guidance during a time when we needed it. Similarly, our son granted that same gift to us giving us a higher purpose in our life.

On this day we are not just celebrating our faith but we are celebrating and embracing our family as well. It doesn’t matter if it is an event that took place over 3,300 years ago or 3 months ago, there are moments that will forever impact and influence our lives. These moments are what determine the means by which we live and set forth the goals by which we measure the remaining days or our lives.

We embrace our faith, the Torah, and the Ten Commandments by which we should all live. They serve as a means to guide and inform our actions and grant us the ability to set forth a clear set of rules to pass on to our son. Of course, this is only a beginning to the faith and knowledge which we hold in our hearts. This enduring faith, in various levels of observance throughout our lives, is what keeps us grounded in the knowledge that there is a higher power in this world and we can’t control everything around us.

Our son also reminds us every day that we must take life by the moments… one after the other. While we can anticipate and stick to certain routines, there is still a lot that remains uncontrollable. Our child is the light that greets us each and every day and reminds us of the higher purpose that we now have in our life. Our child is what ties us closer to our faith than ever before and on this holiday, on Shavuot, there is no denying the impact that our son has had and will continue to have in our life. This is summed up perfectly by the following from Chabad.org:  

“Before G d gave the Torah to the Jewish people, He demanded guarantors. The Jews made a number of suggestions, all rejected by G d, until they declared, “Our children will be our guarantors that we will cherish and observe the Torah.” G d immediately accepted them and agreed to give the Torah.”

There is tremendous light in the world. Enough to illuminate the beauty of all that has been given to us but not enough to blind us from seeing the bounty. It is a light that must be fed and nourished to remain bright for fear of fading into darkness. As Jews, as parents, we are the temporary generational guardians of that light and we will do our part to feed the fire of faith and family in our son. There is no greater responsibility or honor in this gift we call life.

Time To Eat The Donuts!

Now that we are in the midst of the Hanukkah holiday, Jews around the world are lighting their menorahs and stuffing their faces with latkes (potato pancakes) and Sufganiyah (jelly donuts). I might be doing the same if I had planned ahead a little better. Oh well, there is always next year.

Over the past few weeks I have been packing as many boxes and bins as I could in the little free time that I have had. One of the many things that has long since disappeared is the menorah that we have lit the past couple of years. While I could rummage around in the tightly organized containers, there is even less time available and too much more that has to be done between now and our move.

So this year is going to be chalked up as a moment of transition in our lives (like we needed something else to carry that moniker). Maybe we need to take the holiday off this time around and start fresh with our son next winter. So while we do not have the hanukkiah out right now, we already have a place picked out in our new home. Maybe we will even have the time to light some candles toward the end of the holiday.

But there is much more to Hanukkah than lighting candles and eating carbs. At its core, Hanukkah “celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, of purity over adulteration, of spirituality over materiality.” Those of you who might be brothers will see many parallels to this in Freemasonry. In fact, it summarizes quite nicely the core of masonic teachings. This of course is in addition to our teaching new masons about the construction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

However, I digress. The story of Hanukkah, which can be found on Chabad.org, is as follows:

More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel. Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of G-d.

When they sought to light the Temple's menorah (the seven branched candelabrum), they found only a single cruse of olive oil that had escaped contamination by the Greeks; miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity.

To commemorate and publicize these miracles, the sages instituted the festival of Chanukah. At the heart of the festival is the nightly menorah (candelabrum) lighting: a single flame on the first night, two on the second evening, and so on till the eighth night of Chanukah, when all eight lights are kindled.

It is the holiday of miracles and morality, dedication and determination, holiness and humility. It is during these eight nights that we stand in awe of the gifts that abound around us and thank G-d for everything that we have been given. This year, we have a lot to be thankful for and I look forward to sharing this holiday with my son next year.

Time To Play The Ebola Blame Game!

It might be more than just a cough!

Whenever a national, or international as is the case now, disaster/epidemic/conflict occurs there is a certain segment of the population that can’t help but find a completely unrelated scapegoat. These people, for the most part, are bat crap crazy. As for the rest of them, I don’t want to insult bats by comparing them to guano. So, on a scale of 1 to 7, how responsible are you for this Ebola epidemic according to the various whackadoos out there who have committed their kookiness to print?

1. The United States Government is to blame and by extension, all Americans: “The outbreak began in September, when The Daily Observer, a Liberian newspaper, published an article alleging that the virus was not what it seemed — a medical disaster — but rather a bioweapon designed by the United States military to depopulate the planet. Not long after, accusations appeared online contending that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had patented the virus and was poised to make a fortune from a new vaccine it had created with the pharmaceutical industry… [humanitarian champion and women’s rights activist] Chris Brown took to Twitter, announcing to his 13 million followers: “I don’t know ... but I think this Ebola epidemic is a form of population control.” 1 point if you work for the government and 1 point if you are a citizen of the United States.
2. Like everything else that goes wrong in this world, some people are always going to blame the Jews: There are countless examples of this phenomenon that can be found on various social media sites. One of the philosophical gems from these people stated the following: “Zionists keep inventing moral, elitist & racist viruses such as Ebola or AIDS whose main target are poor people, Africans, promiscuous &gays”. I know, MENSA must be knocking on their door right now. Note that many who claim not to be anti-Semitic, and actually get quite agitated of calling them out on it, simply swap out the word “Jew” with the word “Zionist”. 1 point if you are Jewish and a bonus point if you consider yourself a Zionist.
3. Conservatives and the NRA are the ones that have slowed our response and are therefore the ones to blame for Ebola becoming a worldwide epidemic/threat: “If only there was someone around who could educate the American public about the actual level of risk. Someone who was trusted as a public health expert and whose job it was to help us understand what we really need to worry about and what precautions we should take. / Actually, that is one of the primary responsibilities of the United States surgeon general. There’s just one problem: Thanks to Senate dysfunction and NRA opposition, we don’t have a surgeon general right now. In fact, we haven’t had a surgeon general for more than a year now — even though the president nominated the eminently qualified Dr. Vivek Murthy back in November 2013. / The lack of a surgeon general is now becoming more than just one more abstract example of government gridlock.” 1 point if you are a conservative and/or 1 point if you are an NRA member (2 points if you are a life member).

So, how did you score? As a pro-Israel conservative Jewish American who is a life member of the NRA there is a good chance, according to the aforementioned experts, that I am one of the causes for the Ebola crisis. Actually, according to their reasoning and the fact that I scored 6 out of 7, this whole thing might be completely my fault.

However, when you take a look through sane eyes at the criteria above, it is all BS. We know that this is simply one of those nasty viruses that has evolved over time… man didn’t engineer this one so don’t blame the United States or Jews in general for something that is naturally occurring. But you could already see that. After all those are extreme examples and no one with a fully functional brain would blame such a tragic situation on an unrelated group of people.

Oh wait, there is the media and the lefties out there so the last sentence no longer applies (although I did specific “fully functional brain” so the argument still holds water). They like to ignore the fact that we have both an Acting Surgeon General, Rear Admiral Boris D. Lushniak, and an Ebola czar, Ron Klain, working on this matter so there is not a void in Washington as MSNBC would have you believe. But, what else can you expect when “the broadcast news networks entirely“forgot” to mention that there was already a highly qualified acting surgeon general. Not once did ABC, CBS or NBC news mention… that anyone was currently doing the work of the surgeon general.” So don’t blame conservatives or the NRA for the situation that we find ourselves in today. We have two qualified individuals taking on this issue. They just aren’t the appointee that this administration wanted; a Surgeon General in place to further the liberal agenda from Washington not someone to simply focus on the health of the nation.

In the end, why don’t we simply focus on the issue at hand and take the measures necessary to ensure the safety of the people? This is not a time to go around assigning blame for the reemergence of Ebola and the transcontinental spread of the virus. Now is the time to take action and prevent this situation from getting out of hand. Once all of the facts are in, after this mess has subsided, then we can take a look at what exactly happened, what could have been done better, and laugh in disbelief as parents start naming their kids Ebola (you know it is going to happen).