Israel: Oh, the Spaces I Love and the People in Them

Oh, the Spaces I Love and the People in Them

Ken and I just returned from two weeks in Israel. Every time I return, I marvel at the many different things that make Israel so special, am realistic about her challenges and problems, and am often dumbfounded by people’s lack of understanding of Israel’s reality. I am there constantly as you know by now, and it just is my second home, so I do not think of it as going somewhere as a “vacation” as much as spending meaningful time in a place I love with people I love and with so much for the rest of the world to learn from if there was a willingness to do so.

In full disclosure, yes, Israel is being confronted by similar dynamics in terms of politics and frustrations with the government that we in America are now feeling the full weight of in our own daily lives. That being said, life goes on in both places, not perfect, but with many good people trying to do good things and often succeeding, Baruch HaShem. We were there as they are gearing up for elections recently called, but it will be a few months, not years, and for better or worse, it will occur and be sort of settled until the next time elections are called in this parliamentary democracy. It is fully a Jewish homeland and a democracy in which many groups live side by side. While there as always, we saw Jews, Muslims, Christians (actually there was a huge celebration in the middle of King David Street at the YMCA as we were there during the season appropriate for such), Bedouins, tourists from all over the world, and so many others.

On Friday night as we were walking to shul (synagogue), a special moment occurred which has happened in the past and I just love. We were walking on Keren HaYesod on our way to Shira Hadasha, a community of prayer that actually meets in an International Youth Center on Emek Refaim, and something wonderful happened, that I have experienced before if you catch it just right. At the same time, the Shabbat Siren sounded to indicate the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, Church bells were ringing and the Meuzzin sounded to call Muslims to prayer as well. I just stopped, closed my eyes and took it in. There was no yelling, no contention, just the peaceful calling of three faiths to worship God in the way that works for them. How beautiful and what a wonderful call to all of us to think about what it means to live peacefully together and how it does not hurt any of us to do so. And this happens all of the time in JERUSALEM, the city of peace!

This time in Israel was different in that it was planned by my wonderful husband so that each of us could do what we wanted and play where we want. My cousin said this was like the trip twenty somethings take their first time in Israel. In thirteen days, we were able to spend time in Jerusalem, Ginot Shomron, Tzfat, Netanya, Tel Aviv, Beit Meir, Be’er Sheva, the Dead Sea and Masada and then finally back to Jerusalem. We walked the beaches, said Boker Tov (good morning) and Salaam Aleikem to Muslim beach walkers, saw Jews of all sides and parts of the Jewish continuum just relaxing, going to work, looking at art (a wonderful part of this time there as well), hanging out at restaurants and of course groups of Christian celebrants of the season. We were able to spend time with family and friends which is always wonderful. Our second Shabbat we were also in Nachlaot, a lovely neighborhood that I think still believes we are in the 1960s, and a wonderful community where all are welcome and included. We noted at one of the shuls in the morning, there was a group of Birthright kids who clearly were not aware of what was going on, and one of the shul members ran an impromptu class for them. At lunch, we had a lovely conversation about the many different ways people are coming together to advocate for each other and shared concerns for all people who call this home.

One of the things we did that was really special was the snake path walk up Masada to the top where Jews held out in resistance for their right to believe so long ago. We went with a friend of ours from Be’er Sheva and were told to give ourselves two hours for the walk as the one hour or a bit less usually allotted is for people much younger was not realistic for us. Just for the record, we made the walk successfully, have pictures to prove it, went and came without injury and the walk up took us less that 75 minutes. So there, doubters! While there, we witnessed two of the twelve Bar/Bat Mitzvah groups that would be there that morning. The celebrations ranged from just taking pictures to taking out a Torah and singing some songs while standing around it to a more traditional service, according to the Sofer who writes Torah scrolls there, to insure that the ancient shul structure has an ongoing purpose as a place of worship and observance. So many Jews coming to a site with historical meaning to celebrate in their way, again, peacefully and without incident.

These are just a few scenes of the Israel I love. Spending Shabbat in Ginot Shomron where Jews who hold by a variety of levels of observance live together and have respect for each other, leaving the main roads carless during Shabbat and Yom Tovim so that those observing the days can do so, while others go to their cars outside of the designated roads to go where they will on those days. Beaches where people are dressed in all types of garb or lack thereof and no one is throwing anything at anyone else. Jerusalem where three different very visible religious groupings do co-exist and observe according to their beliefs, holding holy their respective special sites. Tzfat where so much art and beautiful scenery cause awe for us all and we thank God in our own ways. Be’er Sheva that is a wonderful community of shared living and where concern for various groups is palpable, where a recent article in The Jerusalem Report chronicled how Bedouin women are making amazing strides in their education and Ben Gurion University is so involved in their progress. On and on the list goes. THIS IS MY ISRAEL and this is the ISRAEL I am so proud of. While some people focus on how it may bring out the worst in people, I prefer to focus on the majority of cases in which this is simply not the case. That is the Israel I keep going back and forth from – my Jewish homeland and a beacon of so much to the world, if they would take off their predisposed lenses of contention and really look carefully. I will return to my Israel, God willing, soon!

Kind Words Are Needed Now More Than Ever; Everyone, Think Before We Talk

2019 is coming around the corner. For us in the Jewish community who already have FOUR new years during our annual luni-solar (though some people think it is “loony”) calendar cycle, what’s another New Year? You can never have too many, right? And with the focus on New Year’s resolutions, this seems like a great reason to mark this turning of the calendar. Looking around at our world, its rather easy to figure out what our collective New Year’s Resolution should be – WATCH OUR WORDS and be aware of how what we say is heard by others.

With the continuing soap opera of our national drama continuing to assault us in our 24/7 news cycle, I find it hard to not get depressed and dejected. Thank God, as religious Jews, at least we get a weekly 25-hour rest from all of this, as we do not use any technology during our weekly Shabbat. But then, there it is again. I keep hoping that during our news blackout, the world has regained its sanity, but so far, no such luck!

I just today finished my learning of Masechet Sanhedrin (a Talmudic Tractate) and it ends with the thought that when there is evil in the world everyone is sad, but when a righteous person comes into the world and acts, there is joy. To be sure, there is a great deal of despondency on many levels in our lives today but there are also so many people doing good and doing so intentionally. As a mom of my four wonderful children, I am always so proud of their accomplishments and victories, yes, but I am most proud of the people they are – principled, intelligent, moral and worried about the world around all of us.. They are indeed living the values I have always held dear and tried to teach them, by word and deed.

Our words and our deeds do count. We can and we do make a difference. I am just as heartened by the wonderful initiatives that are going on all around us – the Toys for Tots drives, the volunteering at so many community spaces to provide for others, the many different levels of intentional redistribution of wealth and resources, the pulling together of people across different strata of society in working together to solve world problems – in short the many different initiatives taken by citizens who truly care in spite or what may be happening on larger official levels or not happening.

So we have the capacity to act with purpose and speak with intention. That is what we can do, and it is my prayer that this year of 2019 will bring us all together so that we can fulfill the words I read and thought about this morning. Let us all think carefully, act prudently and use our words for righteous purposes. Happy New Year Y’all!

Thanksgiving – A Celebration That We Can All Share and Lessons for us all to Learn

What follows is a brief reflection I shared at our recently held community-wide Interfaith Thanksgiving Celebration. This was a gathering of celebration, exactly the type I long for when we gather for something somber as we did several weeks ago. I have been asked by several people if I would share this on my blog so here it is. The celebration was held at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Glenside, Pennsylvania and coordinated by its wonderful Pastor, Emily Richards. Jews, Muslims, Christians, and adherents of other religious traditions all gathered together as people of faith and as Americans.

About three and a half weeks ago, we had a huge community gathering at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel where people of all faiths came together to support the Jewish community as we mourned the loss of members of our larger faith community in a violent incident in Pittsburgh. I remember feeling so thankful for this outpouring of love, concern and support from my friends in faith, all faiths. I wrote in my blog that week about how I so appreciate how we help each other through challenges and that I would hope we could join hands and hearts in celebration as well. And here we are doing just that. For that I am thankful.

I am thankful to be living in this country and freely practicing my faith as we all, in this beautiful sanctuary of faith, are doing. We would like to think that this freedom is fundamental to our identity as Americans; that we, as the children of Israel so long ago in the text that Rabbi Berkowitz just read, came to our covenanted union with certain understandings of our practices and our responsibilities to be contributing and appropriate members of the society that we would build together. As we all know, while this idealized notion feels good, this is not the entire story. In our lives today, we are constantly reminded of the vulnerability of that freedom to be, that we all cherish and often take for granted, as we remember and share our concern for those whose freedom to be is being threatened.

We in the Jewish community are taught to remember Amalek and to never forget that this nation took advantage of our most vulnerable members. One of the more controversial teachings, for some, is the clear injunction to destroy Amalek for doing so, for not acknowledging strength or integrity, but for fighting those least able to defend ourselves. Many of our Jewish commentators explain that we are to not only destroy the Amalek that takes advantage of others outside of ourselves, but inside of ourselves as well. We as Israelites came to the land promised to us long ago as tenders of the soil, protectors of the land and each other, and as those required to take care of and welcome all those who come to us as strangers, but stay as members of our family, so to speak. This was the idea of the Native Americans so long ago when they too welcomed the other and shared the land and their resources with them. It is this lesson of caring for all those around us and not taking advantage of vulnerabilities that we are to remember and to practice when we are the best we can be. Doing so is fundamental to keeping the commandments God gave to us then, and to our covenant with each other, and what it asks from us now.

We cannot acknowledge and be thankful for our blessings without showing concern for those for whom these very basic elements of a life well lived may be denied or threatened. As there was affliction long ago in the reading from Deuteronomy, we are witnessing the same in our world today. For those of us who are able to be thankful for the blessings bestowed upon us, we hope that we are worthy and that we are properly sharing and caring with our resources as the commanded action of doing Tzedakah asks of us. Many experts tell us that there should not be hunger in our world today, we have technology to clean water and provide healthy environments for so many who do not have these most basic necessities, and with responsible choices, we can use our many financial and material resources to better the lives of so many. All of our religious traditions and our foundational texts tell us to do just this and chastise us when we don’t.

Yes, I am thankful for this assemblage. I am thankful that I can practice the faith in which I believe. I am thankful that we, people of different faiths can come together to celebrate what we share and recognize fully and respect where we differ. And I am thankful for the many blessings God, in Infinite Compassion, has bestowed upon us. Let us behave responsibly with these blessings and the quality of life they enable. My prayer is that for all of us who have come together in fellowship and as people of faith reach out to those who cannot be here and gently remind all of us of our humanity, our need for each other, and how we are indeed to show our gratitude by extending our hand to those around us. Then, with God’s help, we will show ourselves to merit these blessings for which we are so thankful.

And now for a footnote: This past weekend, our entire family gathered together and as is usual for us, we talked about important and relevant issues in our lives. It is always such a treat for me to gather with all of our children, their partners in life and the next generation, our eldest daughter’s four adorable girls. I am always touched by how they each continue to exude the values we all hold so dear in their professional as well as personal lives. Each of them does continue to extend their hand to others, to care about all people and to truly try to make this world a better place. For this too, I am eternally and boundlessly thankful. When people often worry about our next generation, look carefully. There are indeed many wonderful things that are happening due to the efforts of these younger adults who are caring more, doing so much and addressing many of our challenges. I pray that they will continue to do so for many years to come as well as show those who have forgotten how to work together with all people, both those similar to and those different from them, exactly how to do so and the benefit that accrues from such cooperation and sharing.

Here we are, acts threatening our humanity continue, and now what?

In the past few weeks, there have been letter bombs, several mass murders, individual acts of violence and hatred also ending lives that should still be lived, and of course the 24/7 barrage of words of vengeance and hatred that make me think we should all just stop talking. It really does get to be too much. And yet…. Such beautiful moments of resilience and hope.

This past Sunday twenty-two people came together across lines of faith – Jews, various iterations of Christians, Muslims, and wonderful resources in our larger community to have a meaningful and substantive discussion on Immigration – the challenges that we know are acting as significant and difficult roadblocks and the voices of our respective faiths, telling us to make the “other” one of us, because we are all created in the image of God. These gatherings always bolster me and give me cause for hope that the hard work many of us are engaged in is with purpose and may actually achieve something meaningful. Representatives from HIAS, Peace Islands Institute, Cabrini University, and so many of our faith communities shared stories including our own past with members of our families coming to the USA for a better life, with few prospects and from countries that were less than desirable. Our gratitude that our relatives not so long ago took this chance and the United States responded affirmatively was not lost in that room. Then we had to interface that with real stories of today and people who are being threatened given the climate in this country – people who are making our country a better place through their hard work, foundational values and important legacies. As one of the people with whom I have ongoing contact said some time ago when we were discussing the present dilemma and I tried to gently remind that person that we ourselves were immigrants, “That was fifty or more years go and that was different.” No, I would comment, in our conversation, it is not different. In fact, consider that if the present climate was operative when YOUR family came to this country, would they have been let in? What is different – simply that once again to forget history is to repeat its mistakes, and there are now way too many people who have forgotten their past and refuse to use it to acknowledge our obligation to give others a future, as those who came before us did for us.

In one of my shul (synagogue) communities of which I am part, both of the past weeks were important ones of reflection, consideration of our present reality and a shared validation of what is truly important in our lives – with so many people of different faiths supporting us with their presence and expression of solidarity on Show Up For Shabbat, a report from one of our community’s Rabbis on his experience as a chaplain with the Red Cross in Pittsburgh to help guide that community through its crisis, a moving talk from the heart from one of our State Senators and our wonderful Rabbi who provided just the right healing community feeling we all needed. The bringing together of prayer, lessons of Torah and looking at our world with all of its flaws and finding hope in each other’s caring solidarity was another example of the best of who we can and should be. Knowing that this was the case in so many of our houses and communities of faith bolsters my spirit and encourages my soul.

Now, I am in the midst of working with a wonderful group of Christian, Muslim and Jewish clergy in planning a community wide Interfaith Thanksgiving Celebration. We will all come together as Americans who are free to practice the religions of our choice, a fundamental right guaranteed to us all, along with others that at present are being threatened. As Thanksgiving approaches with all of its attendant complexities and reframed meanings, the notion that we stop yet again and be thankful for our lives and many blessings seems to be something worth sharing and observing with other American communities of faith. It is my hope that as many people will make the point of showing up for these celebrations that will occur in many communities as they did a few weeks ago. It is critically important that we come together to celebrate to the same degree that we come together to mourn and support each other when needed.

Finally, this coming weekend I will be with one of my most cherished communities, a group of Orthodox Jewish parents of LGBT children. We will come together for prayer, community and sharing our stories with each other, while celebrating our children and their accomplishments and their lives. Once a year, we all gather while supporting each other in navigating the more religiously pitched communities in our lives and loving our children and advocating for them. I look forward to this gathering which is in its sixth year and am so aware of how much has changed in the past few years with more and more shuls/synagogues and schools and other institutions welcoming our LGBT children and other family members and friends.

Yes, there is much to celebrate and be thankful for in our lives. That being said, we cannot take these things for granted. We must always be aware of the need to continue to cherish what is important and to advocate for what is needed. It is when we stop looking to the sides and over our shoulder, insuring that everyone is safe, included and valued, that we as a society are most threatened. This Thanksgiving let us celebrate our many blessings and as we each approach our different winter celebrations, we should remember to honor each other’s narrative and consider what we can all learn from and with each other.

Once Again, Horror Brings Us Together - Respponding to Pittsburgh

Motzei Shabbat (Saturday night after our Sabbath observance) I went to reconnect to the world (as we stay completely unplugged during our Shabbatot/Sabbaths and Hagim/Holidays) and found a flurry of emails talking about the tragedy in Pittsburgh and the community response. Immediately my colleagues from various faith communities in the community in which I live had already been moving on all cylinders to make sure we had a place and service to gather for the following evening at 7:00 pm, less than 24 hours of my viewing these emails.

My assigned task as President of our Cheltenham Area Multi-Faith Council was to get the word out to as many people as possible in different communities of faith. We live in a celebrated and acknowledged community of diversity, not unlike Squirrel Hill and people feel safe in this diversity and acceptance as well as valuing of each other. The fact that Squirrel Hill is such a community makes this already horrific occurrence even more startling. Truly nowhere is safe if we ever were naïve to think otherwise. I quickly blasted the information for a service that had to yet be planned, which would be done the following day, to as many people in our Jewish world and in our larger world of communities of faith in Montgomery County, where we live.

After another flurry of emails and phone calls, it was clear that there would be a meeting to organize this even at 3:00 pm Sunday afternoon. I entered the room and there were Rabbis, Cantors, Pastors and Reverends from other faith communities and whoever could be reached “on the fly” with absolutely no lead time. In one hour, we had ourselves a plan. We then each went our ways to go over our parts and figure out how to bring it together and less than two hours later, reconvened to gather with whoever was reachable and could come.

We found sanctuary in our very large sanctuary that was truly filled to the brim – with Jews across the ideological spectrum, many Christians of various iterations, Muslims and people of other faiths from our community as well. We all came together to share words of healing, honor the lives of those who were snuffed out tragically, and to take comfort and bring comfort to each other. I have received such an overwhelming avalanche of thank you emails and remarks from people about how meaningful Sunday night was.

So in that context, I want to offer a few remarks. First, we do tragedy really well. The majority of those of humanity who are good and caring find our ways to each other in times of need. How wonderful it would be if we could do the same at moments that are celebratory and those of shared observance. We in the Jewish faith always say at such times – May we all be worthy of sharing many joyful moments together. Yes, if we want to really feel community, let us share those moments too such as acknowledging our shared valuing of Thanksgiving as Americans, or coming together for important community conversations about critical issues that threaten even the peaceful and celebrated existence of communities like Squirrel Hill and Cheltenham, on opposite sides of Pennsylvania.

Secondly, and this is not a statement of politics, but of common decency at least and a foundational Jewish value (shared by other faiths) at most – WATCH OUR WORDS and teach our children to do the same. HOLD OUR LEADERS ACCOUNTABLE for what they say, for words certainly do lead to deeds and anyone who claims otherwise has not been paying attention to the world in which we live, like, forever. That is why in Proverbs we read “Death and life are at the hand of our tongue” – the mercy of what we say. Notice death is mentioned first, emphasizing the known idiom THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK.

Finally, remember that our faiths ask us to be the best we can be. The fact that it was communities of faith who came together throughout this country and elsewhere in our world is significant. G-d wants us to love each other and to care about each other, for EVERY HUMAN BEING is made BeTzelem Elokim. Islam, Christianity and Judaism all hold as core the notion that we should love and care for the other as we do ourselves. When you look at someone else and see the reflection of yourself in their eyes and the God piece of their soul, one has to love one’s neighbor as oneself, maybe not always like, or agree with, but love as in respecting and honoring that at our core, we are all little tiny pieces of God who created us all.

When one forgets that, one loses their humanity. May the memories of eleven souls and the worlds they represented from the Tree Of Life Congregation and those of the policemen and first responders who have left this world for us to tend and fix always be for a blessing.

What are we teaching and learning and losing along the way?

It’s all around us – more and more technology and less and less interaction with each other. I think that this, too, is a dynamic that has contributed to where we are in our world at the present time. I am often involved in discussions dedicated to how we get people to listen to and interact intentionally and meaningfully with each other and not shout each other down, which seems to be the preferred way to go for too many people in our world today.

Schools are increasing their use of technology, which has its obvious advantages, However, unfortunately, in too many cases this is done at the expense of teaching about how to be community – both what one gets from being part of a collective and the responsibility that goes into being a contributing member of a larger group of people.

According to a Nielsen report, adults in the United States watch five hours and four minutes of television per day on average (35.5 h/week, slightly more than 77 days per year). According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, kids ages 8-18 now spend, on average, 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day, 4.5 of which are spent watching TV. Over a year, that adds up to 114 full days watching a screen for fun and not interacting with other people, learning and honing social skills and participating in interactive athletic or creative activity. Conversely, numerous studies indicate that families spend a total of 34 – 35 minutes together as a family unit per day on average, and little of that is used for communication. The family was always the first social frontier for children and traditionally it was within the context of this social unit that children learned how to communicate, share space with others, have compassion for one another, listen and so on. At this point, this is severely compromised, though there is good news as more and more modern families are cutting screen time and other diversions significantly and intentionally planning family time and planned interactive involvements with increasing regularity.

Schools (including those considered to be some of our better ones) have in some cases become places where kids are left to their own devices with on line learning materials, and may end up doing nothing but playing and watching screens until they are caught (which has happened). This is now the main means of “interaction,” – programmed, distilled, biased and doing the thinking for too many people today. Again, while our motivated students can move faster and more efficiently with this delivery of their educational program, we must ask at what cost. This is consistent with so many observations and complaints regarding our present media- driven culture, including worries about our children’s communication skills beyond texting and IM’ing. How do we roll it back?

As an educator who has worked so hard to help students develop these skills of collaboration and cooperation through the decades of my professional activity, I am horrified and scared that in many ways, the hard work that my colleagues and I engaged in with great success is no longer valued. We have always held that the role of education was not to facilitate the production of automatons yet in some of our educational venues, that is what is happening. Individuals are so wrapped up with their own progress and trajectory, they do not stop to think about the other people around them; and then stop to consider how we can learn with and from each other, contributing to a self-centered way of viewing one’s world.

In collaborating and cooperating with others we are forced to go outside of ourselves, perhaps even, to move from our comfort zone to our courage zone. Doing so should be celebrated and valued at this point in our lives when so much is at stake as we watch in horror as basic skills of communication and being concerned about what you hear as much as what I say is being sidelined for the repeated loud and, often, offensive shouting we observe in our daily lives.

Is this really the world we want our children to grow up in and repeat for generations to come? I would suggest that we all insure that we work on communication skills and demand that our schools do the same. Otherwise all of one’s acquired knowledge will not be used for the potential good it can serve. This is not the first time we are confronting this dilemma; our history is riddled with it. It just seems that the stakes continue to get higher and unless we really care about and interact with each other in a meaningful way…. Well, we already see the other option too present in our world!

There is a New Supreme Court Justice in Place – What Have We Learned and Where Do We Go Now?

So here is my alternate reality. Judge Brett Kavanaugh is up to be a Supreme Court Justice. The country is terribly fractured due to poor examples of acting like an adult that are coming from the seat of the Executive Branch of our government, unfortunately. Scream, call people names, bully anyone and everyone who challenges you and so on …. By the way, Melania, didn’t you say you wanted to address bullying? Where are you when we need just that?

Anyway, so there is a judge that is being questioned and it gets difficult as evidence is uncovered of less than seemly, even horrible, behavior of this same person in his teen years and apparently into his twenties. Let’s imagine that this information comes to light and the judge who should have an even and appropriate temperament insists calmly that he has no memory of certain aspects of that time, while admitting to behavior that he is not proud of and regrets. A woman makes a very difficult statement about what happened to her and Kavanaugh’s involvement. She insists it happened; he insists it did not. There is an impasse. And then the statement I would hope could be made might go something like this. “Dr. Ford, I am sincerely sorry for what happened to you. That is truly horrible. I honestly do not have any memory of it. Yes, I did act like so many kids and did things I am not proud of and do definitely regret. If there is any chance that in fact I was involved as you say, Dr. Ford, I humbly apologize and in doing so would ask all of us to consider how foolish and inappropriate behaviors on any of our parts cold result in horrific memories and impact on others. I am truly sorry for anything I may have done that hurt anyone in such a profound way. That being said, I ask that all look at my record during the past twenty-five years. Yes, I am a conservative, but as you can see, I have voted with my conscience, not always adhering to one or the other ideology. I listen, I consider and I try to do what is right. I ask for forgiveness for the missteps of youth as I imagine we all do at times and again, Dr. Ford, I am truly sorry for what happened to you though I have no memory of being involved.”

So back to where we are. There is anger, frustration, ugly facial expressions, inappropriate accusations, disrespect for public officials, inappropriate and hurtful interactions, and a general disregard for what is honorable, while our children are watching and too many adults shake their heads in complete horror. We also note that too much of our society has now taken a page from that aforementioned Head of State’s playbook and think this is perfectly okay. Then we wonder why there is more violence, more disrespect, increasing lines of fracture and complete frustration in a country that we used to have such pride in for so many reasons. There is no wonder here, as Robert Bly (author of The Sibling Society) explains, that now instead of children looking at fairy tales and wanting to rid the world of the monsters that haunt us, they want to BECOME the monsters. That is what we are witnessing in our lives today.

Senators Coons and Flake, we need you, we need your friendship and respect that exist alongside your differences, we need to go back to the basics of how to act as human beings and for each and every one of us to remember that our way is not the only way. I do think that this has been a horrible display --- but not of the behavior of those of one political party, as the other political party has charged, but rather of the loss of common decency at the highest levels of the government of the land that claims that decency is a fundamental part of who we are. At this point, I am sad to say we as a country are NOT THAT and instead have become so much of what we abhorred for so long in other parts of the world. What do we do to get back to the example and reality we are supposed to be and how do we truly reclaim our identity as “one nation under God?” I am sure that God (however one refers to that entity) is crying “My children, my children, what has happened?” -- as the prophets taught so long ago.