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The Prince of Madrid
May 14, 2013 | 16 comments
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French Fears, French Fantasies
April 30, 2013 | 262 comments
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The Prince of Monte Carlo
April 23, 2013 | 362 comments
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Winning and Staying Honest in America’s Game
April 1, 2013 | 1 comment
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The Kenya Syndrome
March 21, 2013 | 13 comments
Special Report
If Not Higher
What is goodness? What kind of culture produces good people? Who knows?
The story is told of a rabbi who, during the penitential prayers, disappeared. Imagine that! Our rabbi disappeared during Selichot, the penitential prayers recited before Rosh Hashannah and during the 10 Days of Awe. What do I know? I am nothing but a ‘am ha-aretz (uneducated) and I am not versed in anything, but follow along, as best I can — at least they appreciate it when they need an extra man for the minyan, then they do not even bother to remind me to speak the prayers louder and pronounce them a little better! Oh well, I can hardly reproach them, I should have studied more.
So, this rabbi, disappeared. But his congregation, a congregation I am sure full of ignoramuses like me, had an explanation. They loved their rabbi, you understand, and they would not have him doing anything untoward during the penitential prayers so they said, Why, of course we know where he is, he is up in heaven conversing with the Almighty because, man, we need somebody up there for the plea-bargain. These days, these awesome days, when the book of life is opened and everyone is judged, we know we need the plea bargain because none of us, not one, is without sin. Do you think one of us is without sin? And do you think G-d gives us credit for the Cossacks and the czar’s tax collectors and the others who make our lives so difficult — do you think he thinks that’s paying enough for our sins? Trifles, gestures — even 20-year forced conscription for our boys, which most of them never return from, he would say, what makes you think you deserve a better break than anyone else? So the rabbi is up there, interceding, begging to stay the hand that would mete out the really serious punishment.
The really serious punishment. I always wondered about that. I wondered when I first heard the story, my mother told it, and I was too small to know anything about anything. And later, when I was older and knew a little though never enough, I figured that since the serious punishment had come down, what more was there to say? You could ask — what did we do to deserve this? You could not answer that, so you could ask — it could not happen again, could it? And as I got older I decided, no it could not. It could not because we had got strong enough to parry. Then as I got older I realized, Wait a moment — no one is strong enough if it is written that it must happen. I remembered the story then and I thought, older and supposedly wiser though I was, well, maybe we do need a rabbi like that, one who goes upstairs and makes the plea bargain.
Now there was a Litvak visiting the little town in which the rabbi disappeared during the penitential days and Litvaks are curious by nature. Curious scheming more-smart-than-anybody, the Litvaks. Litvaks, you understand, are Lithuanians. And they like to rub it in, too, show you how much more they know than you know and how little you know. The Litvak decided he would find out just what the rabbi was up to and he would expose it, he would show them it was not possible for the rabbi to be in heaven during the penitential days, even Moses had not had such a privilege. He figured he would find out where he really went.
He sneaked into the rabbi’s house at nightfall just before he returned after a long day of teaching, and hid under the bed. That way he would know exactly when the rabbi arose, before dawn it had to be, and he could follow him.
Curiosity! Always curiosity. It goes in all directions. Some directions are more interesting, or more valuable, or more valued — how do we determine which? — than others. But you do notice this about curiosity, about wanting to know: There is curiosity that is malevolent, and there is curiosity that is beneficial. There are other kinds of curiosity too, I am sure. And it is quite possible sometimes the curious person does not know which is which. To be curious about the likely value of a stock is beneficial. The person’s curiosity may be motivated by what we call greed — which as often as not is the envious or stupid person’s way of defining the urge to earn a living and take good care of his family. But even if it were greed, it would be beneficial, to the degree that active participation in the stock market is part of what makes work a system that keeps things going, world-economy wise. This is a very general way of putting things but you know what I mean.
When you have a curious mind, a mind inclined toward making things work (for you personally or for your family or, if you are one of these idealistic types, for all mankind), you generally invest. You put money into — you know, investments. Because nothing happens unless it is nurtured. You invest in your company. You invest in stocks. You give money, a form of investment, to schools. You know, for example, that it takes a lot of investment, not only money, to make a doctor. You have to invest to become a doctor. Years and years of hard work on your part, and money on the part of those who pay for your training, build hospitals, schools.
A society that invests to makes doctors has an advantage over others. It may or may not put that advantage to good use, that is another issue, but as a broad proposition, I would say it puts it to good uses.
In Israel there is state-of-the-art medicine. Israel was an extremely poor country just 60, even 50 years ago. Even 40 years ago it was still by some definitions a “third world” country. Lod Airport, for example, bush airport, much improved now. Air conditioning, such as it was (or was not). Very few Israelis had any money by first-world standards. It was a society, however, that managed to find ways of investing in doctors. In the facilities that train doctors and, already, in the ways they could make themselves useful not only to their patients at home but wherever they were needed, allowing of course for being able to reach them.
Israeli doctors went everywhere they could to be of assistance to people who needed doctors. Over the years and decades, as Israeli medicine and medical education and education in general got better and better, they went to many downtrodden third world countries, Haiti for example. Places in Africa, even in the first world. (New Orleans, Louisiana, after the hurricane disaster.)
And though it is little known, Israeli doctors take care of their neighbors, notably the Palestinian Arabs, who are Muslim. They take care of them in their hospitals, I mean in Israeli hospitals. These are far superior to Palestinian hospitals, despite the billions of American dollars that over the years, channeled through USAID and the UN High Commissioner, have lifted the wretched Palestinians from poverty. It is inexplicable why some of these vast sums of money have not produced more doctors and more hospitals with state-of-the-art equipment.
That is to say, it is inexplicable in terms readily grasped by the Western mind. Why, from the billions of dollars the Libyan state earned from the sale of hydrocarbons and natural gas, have Libyan schools not produced more doctors? There are scarcely more than five million Libyans, so it is not as if it would be a huge sum to invest, to give every Libyan child a decent education and maybe even the aspiration of becoming a surgeon, pediatrician, you know — sports medicine or something. So not everyone has a mind for chemistry, biology. How about a violinist? How many violinists have been produced by the lavishly funded Palestinian government (your tax dollars at work) or the Libyan school system?
Cultural generalizations are risky. They can be viewed as mean-spirited. As a new year begins — 5733 since creation, and counting — and we enter the Days of Awe, one feels a certain qualm about saying anything that might seem not humble or high-minded, though of course it is difficult to be humble when you are calling attention to how humble you are. Anyway, I will refrain from comparing the number of Nobel Prize winners produced by the state of Israel and the number produced by its combined enemies, and that includes, in these strange times we are living through, a number of countries that would not have the nerve to admit what their policies, their diplomatic, political, cultural, call it what you will, policies, toward Israel amount to.
A culture that produces doctors who do not think twice about letting their neighbors into their hospital wards, though these same neighbors may well be watching programs on TV, reading articles in newspapers, that could have been imagined by the editors of the Nazi state’s most hateful anti-Semitic media (newsreel and newspaper, mainly, back then).
And a culture whose young men, instead of aspiring to medical school, kill American diplomats who have been trying to help them. Burn down their consular buildings.
About the Author
Roger Kaplan, a Washington-based writer, covers the Middle East and Africa (and tennis) for The American Spectator.
Jack in Wi| 9.17.12 @ 8:01AM
I wish you a peaceful and happy Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kipur. But please can't we leave all the BS at the Synagogue door. If most of our Jewish brothers and sisters followed the Torah admonisitions to love their neighbors as themselves and treat the strangers among them as themselves, most of your troubles would disappear. Lets pray for most of our Jewish friends, that they return to God, the Torah, and the the 10 Commandments. If they did the world, and especially the Middle East would be a far safer and better place, for all of us
Alice Moore| 9.17.12 @ 10:10AM
So Jack, it's all the fault of the Jews. I'll go one better. If all Christians, Muslims, athiests, Hindis, Jainists, and anyone I may have overlooked, treats others as they would like to be treated; the world would be a better place. Every creed, secular and divine, at least pays lip service to this . Your prejudice is showing by saying that only the Jews must do this. Or are only the practitioners of Judaism at fault?
Alan| 9.17.12 @ 11:30AM
Alice, does this answer your question?
Jack in Wi.| 9.10.11 @ 10:04AM
Whatever good individual Jews have done in the world pails in comparission to the bad of the last 200 years. Atheism, communism, Socialism, Nuclear Weapons, expansionist Zionism, and nuclear blackmail.
Yep Alice, everything today is the fault of Jews according to our expert(Jack the @ss) on what Jews are supposed to be, those damned Jews!
If these Jews according to Jack the @ss would just start being Jews the way he wants them to be maybe they can still be "useful".
TeaPartyNow| 9.17.12 @ 12:33PM
Religious intolerance in America is a common practice in the "judea-christian" right. I'n not saying Jack doesn't live without his head up his donkey, but the American right literally is the definition of religious intolerance in that it accepts no religion other than bible ones.
The freedom of religion in America is in chaotic shreds because the right is a basket case of intolerance more often than not. The right creates a psychotic reaction because of it's own damning intolerance of all religions, other than bible believers. Don't believe me? Take a look at Hannity & Beck sites & ideas. Intolerance is embedded in the right, & hate issues forth with any opinion other than jesus.
Don't like the psychopaths? Why don't you find out what true tolerance is, stop your own hate & then see how nice people like Jack can be. Until you clear the hate from your own ranks, the right has no room to talk.
Ryan| 9.17.12 @ 12:57PM
How do you define intolerance?
Ryan| 9.17.12 @ 1:02PM
Here's the rub - American Christians may, at times, rail against other religions, and even be a little too bigoted...but we're not killing anyone in the name of religion.
Occam's Tool| 9.17.12 @ 4:08PM
I lived in rural Alabama, surrounded by Conservative evangelicals, for 7 years, from 1993-2000.
I NEVER felt safer as a Jew than there.
RCV| 9.17.12 @ 12:24PM
You reach new lows each day, Jack. The overwhelming majority of Jews I've known in life DO love their neighbors as themselves and treat the strangers among us far better than most people. Your continuing efforts to disparage the Jewish community disgust me.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 9.17.12 @ 3:09PM
You guys think of the Mideast as a giant oil well-- you deserve the anti-Americanism.
Israel is a pawn in your oil-game.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 9.17.12 @ 3:14PM
And, might it be added, the majority of writers and commenters at AS hate not merely Islamists, but also Islamics, a great deal more than Jack dislikes Israel.
Jack dislikes;
you hate.
Alan| 9.17.12 @ 7:00PM
And of course you ride around on your bicycle wherever you go and refrain from using any of that oil right idiot?
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 9.17.12 @ 11:34PM
I do, as a matter of fact.
Occam's Tool| 9.17.12 @ 4:03PM
Blow me, Jack. Your "good wishes" do not compensate for your horrific evil and love of jihadists.
Peppermint Tea | 9.17.12 @ 9:25AM
Roger, loved the story.
Jack, you are a Litvak.
C Smith | 9.17.12 @ 11:17AM
“And the L-RD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets” (Leviticus 23:23-24).
There is mystery surrounding what is commonly called Rosh Hashanah (The Feast of Trumpets). Unlike the other six Messianic feasts, it has no name in Scripture. It is simply referred to as Yom Teruah (תְּרוּעָה: Day of alarm, or shouting, or trumpet blast). It is a memorial, but what is being memorialized is uncertain. Jewish liturgy describes it as Yom HaDin (Day of Judgment). Although it is to be on the first day of Tishri, the seventh month of the Hebrew year, ascertaining the day is dependent on atmospheric conditions that sometimes obscure the delicate crescent of the new moon. It could be said: “of that day and hour knoweth no man.”
http://theisraelofgod.blogspot.....-2008.html
Who Knows?| 9.17.12 @ 11:54AM
Sin?
We are all sinners.
“Sin” comes from the Greek, “hamartia”, which means to miss the mark.
An arrow that doesn’t hit the bull’s eye, say, sins.
How do sinning humans miss the mark?
By living in separation.
There is only God, or the Absolute, than which there is no other.
God coming at you, going from you, permeating you and everything!
It’s actually quite easy to understand this. You seem, bodily, to be enveloped by a skin. And yet, you know this epidermis is constantly changing. Slough some of it, grow some more! Just so, the mind and the soul come and go.
Yes, separation is an illusion, albeit there sure seems to be no doubt most people take it seriously.
Acknowledging Only God is THE great taboo!
Mustn’t say it out loud to one who doesn’t hit the mark.
Who Knows?| 9.17.12 @ 12:03PM
In 1975, Bubba Free John gave a talk, “Sex, Laughter and God Realization”.
In sex there is bodily ecstasy.
With laughter, the mind is lost in it.
God Realization releases the ego into bliss.
A triple play.
Or, a triple bypass of separation “surgery!
TeaPartyNow| 9.17.12 @ 12:22PM
You can not deny the beautiful spirit of a Jew. Their heart is so in tune with what makes humanity walk in the path that god would like us to travel. Always selfless, & amazingly forgiving. Jewish People wrote the Old Testament for their religion of Yahweh, the first major religion to use immortality & worship a single god. Then christians stole it, & claimed it was christians. Jews never said anything, & don't say anything about the crime to this day.
Jews are very beautiful people. But perhaps they might be better off if their cheek turned were curtailed from time to time. After all, what good is benevolence, beauty, & sacred immortality, if you are not strong enough to fight off those who'd steal your religion & try to commit genocide against you from time to time? Me thinks the Jews doth not protest enough.
Ryan| 9.17.12 @ 1:01PM
"Stole?" Probably not. More like brought to light what the OT was pointing toward - a Saviour, the Messiah, come to rescue God's people - both Jew and Greek - from their sins.
From what I see of Jewish theology, it tends to overcomplicate things - particularly the Messiah. The simplest explanation fits - a Person, establishing a heavenly kingdom.
Occam's Tool| 9.17.12 @ 4:06PM
Thank you RCV, and G-d Bless ALMOST everyone on this new year. May ALMOST all of you be written in the Book of Life for the New Year.
(786,Jack,etc.---burn in hell ASAP)
RCV| 9.17.12 @ 4:35PM
L'Shana Tova, Occam!
Occam's Tool| 10.3.12 @ 7:37PM
Thank you, sir. RCV, Bless you and your family, sir. And now, on to the debates!
Occam's Tool| 9.17.12 @ 4:34PM
By the way, check out Weasel Zippers...Nigerian Muslims just crucified a CAT in protest of that movie.
Clearly, Cheesehead Jack understands nothing about what makes a decent people. Israel's enemies are monsters in human form.
RCV| 9.17.12 @ 4:38PM
Isn't that what God demands of us?
The Whabbists in Mali also destroyed the historic tombs of Islamic saints, on the heels of their rampage thru Timbuktu's historic quarter.
Islam has degenerated into a state that would have made the Andalusian Moors weep.
RCV| 9.17.12 @ 4:48PM
And while I have your attention, Occam, the three books my wife uses with her class on the Constitution are:
"We the People" by Lynne Cheney
"If You Were There When They Wrote The Constitution" by Elizabeth Levy, and
"The Constitution - Translated for Kids" by Cathy Travis
Occam's Tool| 10.3.12 @ 7:38PM
Thank you, thank you, thank YOU, RCV!
Carroll | 9.18.12 @ 4:14AM
I must have been around 1975 or so when Brock Yates writing in an article entitled "55 Be Damned" said that "at 55 MPH, driving across Texas isn't a trip, it's a career."