tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32139176192216118562023-11-15T09:14:50.851-08:00A New Shade of BlueJewish spiritual fiction and writing like you've never experienced it beforeAdam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-24289736241446456092015-03-22T23:44:00.004-07:002015-03-22T23:44:55.975-07:00Respecting Palestinians as a precursor to peace<br />
I am prepared to get viciously attacked for this and am open to people telling me I am wrong, but please hear me through. I saw an article about a 'Peace' meeting between an Arab man and a Jewish woman. Without going into details, I feel that it s essential to point out that this is the case of a PA man and an Israeli woman. If it was a PA woman and a Jewish man, both would be dead. And that is fitting and proper. When building these relationships, you must absolutely respect the other side's values. When creating a Palestinian state, we absolutely must arm them because they want it and that is their culture. We must absolutely support them in their desire to live without pork and alcohol, to treat women like chattel and deprive them of rights. Female genital mutilation and child-brides are their heritage and their right. We have to support them in creating laws that make homosexuality punishable by death, otherwise we are not creating a Palestinian state, just a western state that they live in like we want them to so they will shut up and stop complaining, and that is disrespectful. And, yes, I am serious<br />
.<br />
I remember watching Donald Rumsfeld talk about the war in Iraq, saying the US was going to help them achieve democracy. Someone asked him, "what if they elect another despot like the last one?" It stumped him. The Palestinians chose Hamas. They chose to act as human shields. They make harsh choices, but you have to respect this as their choices. Even with the best of intentions, if you help them achieve a free society with equal rights for women and homosexuality, with plurality and separation of church and state, by helping them to achieve this, you have committed cultural genocide. That is what the world has taken away from them; existence. If you shoot mortars into anther country's urban centers, they will attack you back. When the Palestinians do this, the world closes its eyes and says, 'nothing happened', turning the Palestinian's best efforts at national military expression into sound and fury signifying nothing. They are being treated with less recognition than little children. The world has turned them into non-existent, unempowered, unequal, non-entities. The Palestinians are fighting to get that back. When you do things like force Israel into unilateral ceasefires, unilateral peace moves like the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif, make their murderers exempt from punishment, deny their place in Israeli history, and claim Israel never conquered land in war by defeating them, you have denied them any shred of history or existence.<br />
<br />
And, in fact, I have watched European anarchists come into Arab villages and goad the residents into rioting against armed IDF troops. They don't care about the Arab blood that is spilled. This is because they don't see the Palestinians, only their own self-righteousness. It isn't blood to them. It is only a statistic they can use against Israel. This disrespects the Arabs, and believe me, the Arabs know it.<br />
<br />
The other Arab nations look down upon the Palestinians, and that must be rectified if the Palestinians are going to put down their weapons. They have no pride among their brethren because they have lived alongside the Jews. They must fight to have any self-respect. Any Peace Process must have in it a way to bring them respect.<br />
<br />
When you make peace with them, it must be according to their definition of peace, which means living under sharia rule. Anything else is disrespectful and will not work. To a Moslem, peace does not mean a cessation of violence. Under most conditions, peace for them requires jihad. Many of the peace negotiations have left the Muslims with no choice but to wage war. It was very logical to the Muslims that Arafat showed up to receive the Nobel Peace Prize wearing a military uniform. For Westerners, it was either ironic or so absurd that it didn't register in their conscious. For a Muslim, it was a necessity. If you don't even respect them enough to understand their language, then please walk away from the table and shut your mouth.<br />
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Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-52987641720786917142014-12-16T23:08:00.002-08:002014-12-16T23:08:23.823-08:00God is a family affairMy mom is in Israel for a visit and we decided to meet in Jerusalem. The first stop, of course, was the kotel. On the way in, I pointed out where I asked my wife to marry me. We separated, she to the women's section, me to mine. As I passed the tefillin stand, the normal thought went through my mind; I am religious so I don't need that. Another voice in my head laughed scornfully, telling me that I am a fake and not as religious as I want people to think I am. Ouch! So I stopped and put on tefillin, so tired that I put on the head tefillin first, in my rush to get it over with. Then I remembered when I first brought my parents to the kotel. It was their first time in Israel and they were excited. At one point, I left my father, of blessed memory, alone adn went off to pray by myself. A little while later, he walked up to me, strangely excited. "Guess what I did!" He sounded like a teen who had just done....I dunno, whatever teens get excited about. That was the kind of breathless look he had when he said, "I just put on tefillin for the first time since my bar mitzva." <div>
So, now, here I am, with my mom, wondering while I wind up the tefillin if I am the same age as my dad was when I first brought him here. And I remember him excited and full of life , while I stand here feeling half-dead, weighed down with bills and broken expectations. It's not all that bad. Maybe I'm only one coffee away from redemption. I know that I still have that spark glowing, waiting for just a little traction, a reality with a tiny bit less disappointment. It is there, hidden in the memory of my father's smiling face.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And immediately I think of my children.</div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-21771734057489556442014-12-10T09:52:00.003-08:002014-12-10T09:52:35.660-08:00Rambling writer<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
My job as a writer of fiction is to look at reality and say, "Maybe
it isn't exactly that way. Maybe it's different. In order to be a good writer,
I can't lie. I have to be telling the truth when I write fiction. For me, that
comes particularly easy since I have an awful memory. I can't remember facts,
and like Gimpel the Fool in the story by Yitzchak Bashevis Singer, I believe
everything I am told because, if you hang around long enough, it will probably
happen somewhere sometime. And I have recently found scientific proof to
support that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
I have become fascinated by the studies of memory. What is memory? There
is surprisingly little proof that it is a biological process that writes onto
your brain cells. Science has yet to directly confront the question of what is
consciousness. Elizabeth Loftus has studied memory in the context of the legal
system and has discovered that memory is an incredibly malleable phenomenon.
People will swear to things, be absolutely sure something occurred, list
details, and the statistics show that the majority of instances, people are
mistaken. It would seem that memory is
fallible in the extreme.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
I have a gift. I collect facts and theories from vastly separated
sources and like Magister Ludi in Herman Hesse's Glass bead Game, I bring them
all together. But Herman Hesses was not a Deadhead from New Jersey with a
history of chemical abuse. The facts stayed straight. With me, it becomes this
massive mixed up Sunday morning stew made up of crazy left-overs that should
never have been put in the pot together. When I discovered how fallible our
memories are, I thought immediately of the Dancing Wu-li masters and what it
taught me about the multiple-universe theory. I think that our memories are
one-hundred percent accurate. Let me explain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
If time is a line, then what is the study of history? When many lines
come together, the result is not a line. The result is a net. But my line is
separate from yours. It could be that I remember something differently than
you, not because one of us is wrong, but because both of us are right, but we
exist on separate lines. I am standing on a different time line than you. My
facts are right for my line, and your facts are right for yours. Both
histories, both lines of the past, actually existed. And at one point we came
together.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
That all being said, and maybe it would have been better that it hadn't,
but it was, so here we are. I am going to make a premise, and my facts could
all be wrong, but I believe my theory is correct nonetheless.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
I am wondering what it means to be an American Jew. I don't care to
discuss our psychology or values. I even feel that the history of the Jews in
America would not answer my questions. If history was a story, and our nation
was a single character, what would he be? Even stranger, given the character's
wandering in foreign lands, his short but productive stay in America, now that
our character lives in Israel, what part does he play in the story of mankind?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
It has been said that when Tolkein wrote the Hobbit, the dwarves were
his interpretation of the Jews, longing for the kingdom under the mountain, overly
fond of gold, greedy yet honorable in their mission, hunted by the evil dragon.
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
If we were to write the story of American Jews coming back to Israel,
what would it be? If we were writing a fiction based on history, not on facts,
but on the essence of what we learned from history, what would our story
be? </div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-12821416033956866432014-12-10T09:46:00.000-08:002014-12-10T09:46:56.112-08:00My thoughts on writing<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Question</u></b>:
Could you describe the writing process?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Response: </u></b>Writing
is a very passive; things come through me, not from me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Question</u></b>:
But you do come through in your writing. It is uniquely yours. How is that?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Response</u></b>:
Well, for example, in The Hope Merchant I wrote a section that is anti-GMO. I
am not militantly anti-GMO but I am certainly not a pro-GMO kind of person. I
am not republican. So one of the reasons I am against the whole university
process and learning to be a writer is that a major part of the writing process
is turning yourself into a proper vessel for the story to fill. If you live in
a closet in the suburbs and never go out, then I think, I mean I could be
wrong, but the only thing you can truly write about is closets in suburbs. If
you only prepare yourself to be a vessel for stories about closets in suburbs
then those are the stories that are going to come to you. You have to live it.
You have to be willing to put your life on the line in order to open your soul
for new realities to come into existence. That is why the stories that come to
you will be uniquely yours. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Question</u></b>:
So, Eliyahu, how do you prepare your vessel?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Response</u></b>:
A lot of it is a life process, definitely. I still remember speaking to Donna
Insilaco twenty-five years ago when I was a cook in Manhattan. I said that I
wanted to be a writer so I could go and living an interesting life. She said,
“No, it works the other way around. First you live an interesting life and then
you write about it.” I’ve definitely been lost in the forest a lot of years,
failing at a lot of things. But through those failures, I’ve lived it,
experiencing. Failure is still contact. It’s real and valid. It’s not a closed
door. It’s an open door to a different reality, a different reality from people
who are successful, in some ways more valid. Not all stories are about heroes
that conquer. How boring would that be if those were the only stories we had? I’ve
lived it and that is already a preparation. On a daily basis, I have my writing
rituals. I think artists are very religious, or superstitious might be a
different way to put it. First I play one game of solitaire. Losing is a sign
from the gods that I need to get writing right away because winning takes more
time. Then I check my email. Then I yell at myself for wasting time. Then I
stare at the page, feeling awful because nothing is coming, and I’m not really
a writer so who am I trying to kid. Next thing I do is realize that three hours
have gone and I cry because what came out onto the page is so wonderful.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Question: </u></b> So when you come up with a story idea, is it
something from your past or does it suddenly hit you? How does that process
work?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Response</u></b>:
Well, it’s an actual process. Usually I get an image, a picture, a quick burst
of a scene. And for that picture to exist, there has to be a certain reality; a
past that is a believable and logical sequence of events that bring that
picture into existence, then the picture itself, the fulcrum point in time, and
then the future that is derived out from that picture point in time. So, for
example, in Riding the Backroads Home, for some reason I suddenly saw this
image of a girl sitting at a booth in a diner, talking to an old Charedi man,
who I knew was her father, and it was clear that they weren’t in the same
reality anymore. I mean, Charedi men don’t do the bacon and eggs scene very
well. And, in the picture, I was sitting
in the next booth over, back to back with the girl, listening in on her
conversation. I don’t know where that image came from but it was the same time
I was writing Sihara. I guess I’m fascinated by religion. God is everywhere but
with religion you have an inside and an outside, and even when you are inside
there is a dynamic, circles within circles. In theory, there is no inside and
outside; we are all god’s little children. Free choice makes all this possible
and it is essential to religion. I choose to do good. But it is problematic to
the concept of God. How can we have free choice and coexist with an infinite,
all-encompassing, all-knowing god? Philosophers think they are so clever by
asking can god create a stone that he can’t lift. Well, can god lift a stone of
any size if he is part of the stone as well as the one lifting? Can I lift a
stone that contains an infinite god? My p;roblem is that once I start believing
in God, I stop believing in me. And once I stop believing in god, I feel like
crap. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Question</u></b>:
I’m getting the sense there are a lot of contradictions you are trying to deal
with. In the writing process, how do you pull it all together? You have your
own life experiences, you’ve got your philosophies, you’ve got the message that
you want to set forth, and you’ve got that inspiration that comes through you.
How do you pull them all together?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Response</u></b>:
First and foremost I think it is being true to the reality of the image, the
story. That comes first. The story is not an extension of me. It has its own
life. I have to be true to that. A biker has a bike. A biker talks a certain
way. As soon as the story is twisted to fit some outside purpose, it rings
false and dies a little bit. Sometimes I blow it, I’m not one hundred percent,
but that is what I’m shooting for. Sometimes the miss comes from something
inside of me. I’m not the perfect vessel. I’m too different than my characters.
I’m an outsider to the reality of the story. I don’t use foul language anymore
but the character does. I end up wioth fake sounding dialog because of that.
The story has a life of its own, an integrity and solidity that I have to be
true to. How much of me is in the process? There certainly is a certain level
but this is exactly where I have to do an awful lot of screening. I have to
take away any expectations about where I want the story to go or think the story
should go. Like when you raise kids. Do your best but mostly you do your best
to let it be free. Sometimes it’s easier. With Hope Merchant, I was a dairy
farmer. I know about dairy farming. So I had a certain reality that coincides
with the story’s reality, especially when it came to the relationship with the
cows. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Question</u></b>:
There was something in The Hope Merchant where you probably had to do some
research, about the indigenous character, the Inuit character. How did you
prepare yourself to relate to that?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Response</u></b>:
I kind of fudged that. I did a little research for that but not really enough.
And I think it’s okay to fudge it. I had a little message to bring, not a big
message. If it offends anyone, I apologize. It wasn’t about them, per se, it
was more about the story. I didn’t prepare myself for writing an informative
piece. There are things I’ll do a little bit of research for but I’m not really
into that. For so many people today, the word research is synonymous with
Google. If I really wanted to do a research piece, I don’t feel it would be
complete if I never actually speak with the subject or personally experience it
in some way. But up until now, research hasn’t really been an essential part of
my writing process. I feel it, though. My content editors will usually catch me
and make me do a little Google work. I like that because it stops me from
relying too much on clichés and it can even pull the plot in new directions. It
always helps. Like when my editor said that it wasn’t enough to say that Jack,
the lawyer in The Hope Merchant, was a dirty lawyer. It kind of stymied me. But
then I thought about him ending up on a dairy farm and I got the whole idea for
Bo-plus and Creves corporation. By the way, Creves is the town where Monsanto’s
headquarters are located. I think it added a new dimension to the story and
even added a few sections of plot. But I feel my lack of research. Sometimes
I’ll look at my own writing and say, “That’s a little shallow.” I can feel that
there isn’t enough research. It lacks the 3d feel that having that reality
inside of you gives it. I am in awe of writers who can do that, do research for
fiction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Question</u></b>:
That could be your next step, a new way of being true to the story.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Response</u></b>:
Maybe. I haven’t felt the need to do that yet. Maybe it’s an inherent laziness
or fear of unfamiliar waters. Maybe it’s just that this is the kind of writing
I do. At the risk of sounding snotty or obnoxious, maybe I haven’t felt the
need to do that yet because I’ve led a very varied life. It gives me a pretty
rich palette to work with without having to leave my chair. I own that. It’s
different than a writer who sits in his apartment in the upper west side and
does a lot of research to write about a different culture or location, in a way
I have a problem with that. He hasn’t really put himself on the line. He’s done
the mental homework but he hasn’t really put his butt in the saddle. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Question</u></b>:
You make fiction sound like journalism. Is the personal element really that
important to the process?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Response</u></b>:
One hundred percent. It’s interesting you put it that way. I usually don’t like
writers who come from the established community of writing professionals.
Journalists are the exception. I don’t
really care for writers who learned in university. It’s this instant karma
shortcut that universities are trying to make a buck off of. They say, “Come
here, pay us, sit in a nice air-conditioned room, and in four years you will be
a writer.” I don’t like that. The writers I love are not from the established
writing community. Steinbeck and Hemingway, for example, were not at all like
that. Just because you wrote a thesis paper on Hemingway doesn’t mean you are
equipped to write about war or running with the bulls in Pamplona. I have a
theory that I’d love to research. I think that almost anyone who gets an
advanced degree in creative writing will get published, and since the
publishing company has invested in them, they will get sold because the
publisher will invest in marketing. But the books that are still being read
years later are almost exclusively from writers who came from the outside. When
I first came to Israel, I wrote a novel based on what I experienced in the
after-hours surreality of Manhattan. I was there during the crack wars of the
1980’s. I have the manuscript but when I think about working on it, editing it
and polishing it up, I get scared. It would be like going back and reliving it.
It was a slice of hell and I am very reluctant to put myself through it again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Question</u></b>:
That’s a very strong critique of the publishing industry.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Response</u></b>:
Yes, and I think they deserve it. The big publishers are responsible for their
own demise. When I first started submitting my novels, I thought the publishers
were interested in finding good material and selling it to the public. I now
believe that what they have been doing is finding out what they can sell,
finding material that fits their comfort zone, and making sure that their
system is so overwhelming that something better that the public may want, can’t
compete. The internet has destroyed that business model for them. Marketing
used to be pushing something in people’s faces until they bought it.
Advertising used to tell me what to want. Marketing is now a process of
attracting. The public knows what they want and they have the tools to filter
out the pushy marketing and find exactly what they are looking for. The same
thing already happened years ago in the music industry. It is shocking that big
publishers didn’t see it coming. I think it’s because the mechanisms got so
enormous that they just couldn’t change. Now, anyone with a PC can home-record
their music or publish their own book. The smaller publishers can change and
adapt and since they don’t have to support an obese infrastructure, they can
make a nice living as long as they can connect with their specific slice of the
public. Also, the industry is populated by employees. Even CEO’s have become
employees since their bonuses are given with no regard to their achievements.
Employees don’t care as much about succeeding as they do about not being caught
failing. It is much safer to have a big pile of rejections than to put your
chips down on a manuscript and maybe have it fail. They are playing it safe; signing
celebrities and grad students the profs have said could write. The problem is
that few celebrities can write and few grad students have anything worthwhile
to say that anyone except their professor wants to hear. I am disappointed that
bookstores are closing down. I would like to see them return and I think they
will. I think they became slaves to the publishers and too wrapped up in that
system. That system stopped serving the public and at the first real threat,
collapsed. People who read love bookstores. I hope that one day a new
business model for bookstores will
emerge that is independent of the major publishers. Maybe Indie publishers can
each open a bookstore. That would be cool.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Question: Who are some of your heroes writers?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Response: Oh gosh! Barbara Kingsolver is definitely one. If
I could use prose like she uses prose, I would be so pleased. </div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-41493328689616852422014-11-07T00:07:00.002-08:002014-11-07T00:07:45.557-08:00Are you a new Jew?<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
I believe it is
time for a revolution in the Jewish arts. I do not mean specifically religious,
though I feel that religious Jewish artists should be in the vanguard. The Jews are intended as a "light unto the
nations" and a light is meant to illuminate and guide the way. The world
is at a cusp, staring down into abyss. Unspeakable evil is being encouraged to
flourish. The Jewish nation, as the receivers of the torah, must take its place
as the moral compass of the world. Dialectic is the way to influence the mind
but artistic expression is the way to influence the heart and soul.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
Just before World
War II, there was a revolution in Yiddish literature. I believe it came as a
reaction to World War I, which was, in many ways, more shocking to humanity than
World War II. It was the first time chemical warfare was used, airplanes flew
into battle, and automatic weapons were seen. War was no longer a battle of
brute force, man against man. A team of two men could kill dozens with the
press of a single trigger. A plane could kill practically with immunity. A
soldier could die just by walking into the field of battle without a gasmask.
Trench warfare was horrific, killing a larger proportion of Europe's population
than WWII. The world had gazed into the darkness of its own soul and seen
horrors that had never even been dreamed of before. It reacted strongly, creating the Geneva
Conventions, a previously unheard of concept to limit mankind's ability to
destroy itself. The League of Nations was created, and one of its first acts,
The Mandate for Palestine in 1922, was moving towards returning the Jews to
Israel. The Balfour declaration came, not as a reaction to the Holocaust, but
as a reaction to the non-Jews nearly destroying civilization in WWI. Theodore
Herzl wanted a Jewish homeland as a refuge for the Jews against non-Jewish
aggression. The non-Jews wanted to return the Jews to Palestine as a prelude to
the Messianic Age which, after the horrors of WWI, was a desperate, illogical attempt
at self-preservation from the darkness in their own collective soul. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
The role of the
Jews in the world had changed. The Jew had gone from being the nefarious stranger
amongst them, the shylock, to being the biblical figure, the keeper of the holy
flame that would bring redemption and save the world from its own evil and
ability to self-destruct. Religious Jews had the traditional role f building
walls and being insular as a means of protecting torah from foreign influences
and the Jews from assimilation and destruction. A few enlightened Jews, with
one foot inside the locked, hidden, world of torah Judaism, and the other foot
in the secular world, understood the need for change in the Jews
self-perception of their relationship with non-Jews. This changing role was
epitomized when Napoleon offered Jews citizenship in France after the French
revolution. The French Revolution was,
in essence, an attempt to create an idealized state. This drive towards social
idealism brought into the French Christian mind the desire to emancipate the
lowly and despised Jew and make him a brother. Religious Jews almost
universally rejected the offer because it required lowering the walls that had
protected Judaism form outside influence. After WWI, the world held out its hand
again, and Judaism was again challenged to lower the walls and go out into the
world as an equal and not as a stranger. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
This time, the
challenge was met with a different response. Jews, at least some of them, seemed
ready to leave the ghetto. I understand I. B. Singer's <i>Gimpel the Fool</i>
and Peretz's <i>Bontsha the Silent</i> to be challenges to the Jewish role in
European society as the perennial victim. Non-Jews were seeing Jews in a different
light, as a necessary guide to save them from self-destruction, and the Jews
were intrigued by the offer. After WWII, the non-Jews saw themselves as having
no choice. With fingers twitching on buttons that could make Hiroshima and
Nagasaki look mild, with human bodies still smoking in ovens, the world was considering
the possibility of instantaneous self-annihilation. It required a solution, a
safeguard against its own desire for evil, so it naturally looked towards the children
of Israel.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
I believe that
situation has arisen once again. I prefer to state the evils that anyone can
view at the touch of a button anywhere on the internet. A death cult is
sweeping the planet. Righteous anger threatens to return the world to the dark
ages and wipe away any advances that have been made in human rights and civil
kindness. The world wants Israel to return to the borders of 1967. The date
seems random, irrelevant to the plight of the Palestinian people it is intended
to help. It would seem more fitting to demand a return to the UN instituted borders
of 1948. I believe the world wants to return to 1967 when, for the first time
in over two-thousand years, the Jews stood on the Temple Mount. In 1967, we had
the opportunity to take our proper, God given role in the world as a priestly
nation, creating a bridge between God and man. We would serve the nations, and
not just perform a measly percentage of the commandments that pertained to
dietary laws and the Sabbath. Prayer as practiced by Jews today is a pale
compromise meant to remind us of the Temple service. It was never intended as a
replacement. The Jews stood at a crux, a moment of great potential, and chose
to walk away from their spiritual role and responsibility to the world. The
non-Jews were disappointed and have not forgiven us. They want us to go back to
the '67 borders and try again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
I feel that the
Jews must make a change in how they see their role in the world. Torah Judaism
is designed to prevent change in order to preserve torah from being influenced
by a world in which the majority is non-Jewish. That reality no longer exists.
At least not in the state of Israel. Torah Judaism used to have a one-way door.
Jews left but never came back. In most places in Europe, it was illegal and
even suicidal to convert to Judaism. The present practice by the Rabbis of
pushing the potential convert away does not have a halachic source. Judaism used to actively proselytize. The present
system for converting Jews is a mess because for two thousand years, the precedent
has been set by a fear-based reaction to relating to non-Jews. It was an
anomaly for a Jew to want to return to Torah and it was a threat to bring a
non-Jew into the fold. Converting Ivan's daughter today meant a pogrom
tomorrow. Rabbis are befuddled by the flood of baal tshuva and converts. They
should be. They had nothing to do with it. The baal tshuva movement began right
after Jews conquered the Temple mount. Being on The Temple Mount brings with it
a spiritual power. We have partial ownership, so the baal tshuva/ger movement
began. It certainly did nt begin due to a rabbinic structure based on
Christianity and priests. For two thousand years the rabbis have turned torah
learning and torah law into something it was explicitly never intended to be; a
process of contraction and stringency based on "we don't know". The
only basis for a surrogate in the Torah is the priestly class. The function of
Rabbi has no precedent in Judaism until it went into the Diaspora. In the land
of Israel, the Sanhedrin was a legal body that required dynamic innovation,
based on meritocracy and scholarship (mostly). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
When I first went
to yeshiva, I was fascinated by tchelet, the blue thread in tzitzit the fringes
on our four cornered garment. I asked my teacher a question. It is a mitzvah that
is mentioned in the shema, which we say twice a day and figures so prominently in
our service to God. How could it be that for two thousand years, this twice
daily reference was ignored by Jews who were passionate about their service to
God? Men who worked at making the dye and garments suddenly and collectively
stopped showing up to work? Are we, in our present day ignorance, suddenly aware of something they were not
aware of? My teacher answered me. He said, tchelet is the color of the ocean,
which is the color of the sky, which is the color of God's throne of glory. The
spiritual and the physical are so closely related that you cannot change one
without changing the other. When the temple was destroyed, the color of the sky
changed. Tchelet, that specific shade of blue, ceased to exist. Our desire to
return tchelet to the world is a precursor to building the temple. It is the
beginnings of desire that have no name or focus. I began to wander around with my eyes gazing
skyward. I was searching for a new shade of blue that I had never seen before. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;">
I would like to
establish a publishing group that will focus on a new type of Jewish fiction
that explores the changing role of Jews in the world and their relationship to
non-Jews, through literature and fiction.</div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-28277050902369362192014-07-06T23:01:00.001-07:002014-07-09T00:26:48.396-07:00Politically Ambidextrous<center><script id="woxxembedder-87" class="woxxer-embedder" type="text/javascript">
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<br>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are always surefire ways to end an argument without a
struggle. In yeshiva, you say, “There are conflicting opinions”. In marriage,
the wife says, “Whatever you say, dear”, and the smart husband will shut up. In political discussions, the phrase, “There are several ways to look at it”, is
shorthand for, “I don’t want to discuss it”. But in my case it is true. There are
several ways to look at it, and I do want to discuss it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
arrived in Israel in 1991 at the age of thirty (Everyone is scribbling away to
do the math. I am the oldest forty year old you will ever meet). In the United
States, I was hard-core left-wing. Of course, like any twenty something year
old, my political views were shaped by which side had the cuter women and
hippie chicks were way hot. I was out in the streets protesting for my right to
burn the American flag, I had a Mao tee-shirt bought second hand in the Village,
and I never missed a meeting of the committee for I don’t-know what that was
held in Barnard (the only semi-legitimate way to worm my way into the women’s campus).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just to
let you in on how crazy the trip has been. I was in Israel in 1978 for my
senior year of high-school. I went to the Sinai and it was still Israeli
territory. Menachem Begin was vilified by the left-wing for trading land for
peace. How dare he? Apparently, returning land that used to belong to the
Egyptians is evil, but giving land that never belonged to anyone and was
included in the UN charter in ’48 to an entity that never existed was a moral necessity.
But I am a simple country boy so it is reasonable that I don’t understand. The
memory that makes me believe I grew up in an alternate universe was that I
proudly marched with Peace Now. Like I said, I was eighteen years old and they
had cute girls.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I arrived
in Israel, the hot topic was “The Nation is With the Golan”. Back then, the
Palestinians did not exist as a nationality (sorry, but that is a fact), and
Syria seemed the most likely partner for peace. The only way to envision Yaaser
Arafat receiving a Nobel Peace Prize or Rabin and Peres calling each other
friends would have been injudicious use of controlled substances. But suddenly
I found myself on the side of the line with the guys wearing white shirts and
pocket protectors, and sandals with socks. All the rock-and-rollers and hippie
chicks were way over there, on the other side of the political mason-dixon line. For the first time in my life, I actually had to
inspect my political motivations under a microscope.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One
year I did reserve duty near Jericho. There were two young men who I ended up
spending a lot of time talking with. There are no discussions like miluim
discussions. You have one month in the middle of the desert with no
distractions to do absolutely nothing and you do it with the same guys every
year. This was before the advent of the cellular phone. Yes, we did patrol on
dinosaurs. Someone whispered to me that I should be careful because if I spoke
to them, I would argue with them. They were (GASP!) left-wing. I found out that
we had a lot in common, and that bothered me. I was dangerously close to being
left-wing. They were members of an inner-city kibbutz and I was a member of a
religious kibbutz. They thought that the Torah was dogma that brought evil and
suffering into the world. We left that point aside. The peace process was in
full swing and we had bigger fish to fry. They started out strongly in favor of
Oslo but very quickly began to hem and haw. They were left-wing but they didn’t
like the agreement so much because it was implicitly, though in an unspoken
way, meant to economically screw the Arabs. They wanted peace with the Arabs,
but very clearly not THIS peace. They were old-school socialists and thought
that capitalism was evil. They wanted the Arabs as brothers, not as distant neighbors
on the other side of a fence. They wanted to care for the Arabs, help them
build schools and hospitals and enter the twentieth century, not give them a
magnetic card and tell them to wash their hallway for fifteen shekels and hour,
and get out of the country at five p.m. when they finish. They wanted peace,
but not this one, and since it was the only one being offered, they supported
it. They were the silent left and I felt a strong kinship with them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
realized that all the hippies on the other side were wearing store-bought tie-dye
and the rock-and-rollers were mostly old men with fat apartments in Tel-Aviv. They
had the look and talked the talk, but they were the fat cats, the capitalistic
elite. At the Communist Club, we used to joke that a Republican is a Democrat
that finally has a solid stock portfolio. In America, Republicans are typically
keep-your-hands-off-of my-stack capitalists. Democrats are willing to share the
wealth.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In
Israel, it’s not so simple. There is a left-wing politically and a left
wing-economically. The left-wing political wants a Peace agreement with the
Arabs. The left wing economic wants a more socialist agenda. There are also corresponding
delineations on the right. After much introspection, I realized that I am right-wing
politically but left-wing economically. Oh, and my wife was right wing, and she's cute.</div>Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-35187682773017977712014-07-06T08:51:00.004-07:002014-07-07T01:57:30.470-07:00The left-wing phobia<script id="woxxembedder-86" class="woxxer-embedder" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I would
like to clear up a very important misunderstanding about a fairy tale. In the
tale of the emperor’s new clothes, a little boy calls out that the emperor is
naked and has no clothes on. In the classic fairy tale, the townspeople are
abashed, ashamed at their fear of the obvious truth that led them to their
error. They kicked the lying tailors out
of town and everyone was happy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let me
tell you the Israeli version of that story. The little boy says, “Hey, the
emperor has no clothes on”. Everyone sees that it is true, but fears the
repercussions. The boy is thrown in jail without a trial, and the media goes to
work, declaring that there is an extremist element bent on tearing the clothes
off the emperor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I recently posted on Facebook
several posts. One was about soldiers in the IDF going to jail for saying they
wanted to kill terrorists. I was confused as to why they would be punished for
that. I thought it was their sworn duty to kill terrorists. I also posted
something saying that I wanted the killers of the three Israeli youths to be
brought to justice. I was chastised harshly, albeit by only a few people. I was
accused of promoting vigilantes and senseless violence. I was accused of calling for a Jewish Jihad when all I wanted was a normal legal process, an army that dealt with national existential threat and a police that reacted strongly to crime. I was accused of promoting genocide. I tried to explain
myself several times but was astounded at how unheard I was. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
facts are that there may have been a murder of an Arab youth by Jews. There
were definitely three Jews murdered and their murderers have not been turned
over by the PA> The vast majority of the rioting has been by Arabs. For some
reason, the left-wing reacts far more strongly to the almost non-existent
right-wing Jewish violence than it does to the prevalent, even accepted, Arab
violence. The Jewish left is terrified of any reaction by the Jewish right.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
am fascinated by this. Not reacting to the murder of three young boys is s
clear sign of mental sickness. Being more afraid of a potential danger than you
are of an actual threat that has struck countless times and has recently shed
blood is, by definition, delusional. As delusional and imbalanced as it is, it
is consistent with left wing mindset. Despite several wars against the Arab
nations, the left-wing preferred a peace pact with Yaaser Arafat as a solution
to battle an imaginary demographic threat that was imminent at some moment in
the future. Shimon Peres, the mastermind of Israel’s nuclear program, felt that
the atomic bomb changed the strategic reality to where we no longer need land
to ensure a military solution. For this approach, Shimon Peres was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But back
to my original; dilemma. The left and the media are screaming about the right
wing “fanatics” the “extremists” who are irrationally and irresponsibly
incensed of three murders.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So let
me try to explain the two positions, as I understand them, in one sentence
each.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Left-wing:
Potential threat is much greater than any threat we have already lived through.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Right-wing:
The left-wing has traded the rule of law for a packet of worthless promises. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Lawlessnes is the methodology of
the peace process. It means the government does not react in the manner of
normal governments. It allows the citizens to be killed and the murderers to be
set free. It means that a teen can call the police emergency number, announce that
he has been kidnapped, and gunshots are heard in the background, and the police
do not react. The prime minister declares a search for kidnapping victims,
knowing full well that the teens are already dead. It means that 13,000 people
can be made homeless for a political agenda that, a peace agreement that was
never intended to be signed by the absent partner. The rights of the homeowners
are pushed aside for a political agenda. Rockets fall on cities and there is
not even any lip service paid to finding a solution.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There is a reason for this. The
peace process began with Shimon Peres going to Cypress to meet with Yaaser
Arafat and getting him to sign a peace agreement. Interestingly enough, it was
entirely illegal for Shimon Peres to do that. For any person to meet with a
declared enemy of the state and to make agreements and work with them was
illegal, an offense for which many men have been executed or been sent to jail.
It is the dictionary definition of treason. When he returned to Israel with
said agreement, Yitzchak Rabin, Peres’ longstanding political enemy, was
required by law to put Shimon Peres in jail. Instead, he had the law changed
and made Shim Peres foreign minister. The peace process began with a perversion
of justice and has been characterized by such.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I am going to the trouble of
explaining this so that my left-wing friends can understand what the right wing
Jews are screaming for. We want a return to law. We want criminals with blood
on their hands to stay in jail. We want murderers to be hunted down and
punished. We want to buy a piece of land from the proper authorities and have
that sale honored. Throwing stones at a moving car, or at a person, should be
illegal, and not treated as inevitable. Israel has the highest rate of car
thefts in the world with over45,000 car thefts
each year and less than 5,000 of those cars being recovered. Rockets are fired into cities. That should be
treated as a crime. Tolerance is not a positive trait when displayed by the authorities
towards evil. The peace process has brought many bad things to Israel. One of
the worst is the perversion of law. I realize that this is only my opinion. If
you disagree then you are clearly wrong and in need of serious psychiatric
care. But like I said, that is only my opinion.. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-45560748497189239892014-06-30T21:31:00.003-07:002014-07-02T00:55:03.096-07:00Words can kill so let's recognize it for what it is<script id="woxxembedder-82" class="woxxer-embedder" type="text/javascript">
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<br>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
bodies of our three boys were just discovered. Words could not begin to
describe my sorrow. My mind naturally drifts to, “What if I was sitting at
home and I got a call….” And my brain freezes up. I am not built for that. I
don’t think anyone is, but I am really not. And then I saw the headlines
declaring that the bodies of the three terror victims were discovered, and
something didn’t sit well in my mind.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The criminal
disgrace called the Peace Process has been a crime from which several Israeli
and US public servants have made huge sums of money. Shimon Peres took in
thirty eight million dollars last year for his selfless pursuit of peace. He
received the Nobel Peace prize, a prize named after the inventor of dynamite. I
remember that night; Shimon standing there embarrassed while Arafat, in
military uniform refused to shake his hand. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
But as a writer, the most painful
aspect of witnessing this historic debacle was the disrespect paid to the
English language and language in general. It could be argued that peace is not
a process. It is a state of being. When the killing continued despite the
signed documents, Peres, the master of the oxymoron, called the victims “sacrifices
for peace”. Strange indeed since I thought that one of the byproducts of peace
was an absence of human sacrifice. We’ve also been provided with such language
challenging beauties like unilateral ceasefire, which seems like volunteering
to help the enemy practice their marksmanship. Also, what are negotiations with
pre-conditions? If I got what I wanted, I would have no reason to negotiate. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Directly after the Oslo accords,
the Arab nations got together and tried to define terrorism. I thought that was
strange. Defining an act as terror is like defining kindness; it is possible to
define it but it is a thing that should be immediately recognized by any person
with a reasonably well-adjusted psyche. Before Oslo, there was never any need
to define ‘terror’. The Arabs had to do it in order to present themselves as
being innocent of acts of terror and make the Israelis guilty of terror. I read
articles today that refer to IDF actions as acts of terror, which is absurd since
violence perpetrated by soldiers cannot be terror. It is an act of war. You can
dispute the war, but not its definition.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But
undoubtedly the most inhuman, disgusting, criminal misuse of language is the
term suicide bomber. It turns it into a tragedy that the poor Moslem has been
forced to kill himself in order to shed Jewish blood. It is a horrific term.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is
all old hat and we have learned to live with it. I reiterate it to strengthen my
own resolve not to get sucked into the word game. To my surprise, calling the
three boys terror victims did not sit well. After some introspection, I realized
it was because an act of terror is meant to create terror, to influence the
masses, and to create a political reality. Arabs killing Jews is no longer
terror. It is plainly clear to them and the entire world that we aren’t going
to leave. After 2000 years of exile, we have returned for good. They are not
going to create any reaction other than grief and anger. The ability to feel enough
terror that would make us leave our land ended with the Nazis. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
only reason to kill those three boys was thirst for Jewish blood, something
that still remains strong in the world, hidden behind polite political
discussions, termed in love of the Palestinians and their plight. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bullshit.
The only time anyone cares if Palestinians suffer is when Israel is involved.
These people thirst for Jewish blood and the Palestinians are the most
convenient tool, willing to die to kill our children. This is not terrorism.
This is Jew killing in its twenty first century incarnation. See it for what it
is.<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> If I can offer a few
words of comfort, then I must bring the words of the Piasetzner Rebbe, Rav
Kalonymous Kalman Shapira. While he was hiding from the Nazis during the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising, he wrote Aish Halkodesh, Holy Fire. He did not survive but the
manuscript did. He wrote about his own son’s murder which he witnessed with his
own eyes. He said that the water libation begins in the Temple on the second
day, the day of Yitzchak, which is confusing since Yitzchak is gvura,
judgement, and water is chesed, loving kindness. He said that this is because
the actions of the father are a sing for the children and in the future,
judgement will become loving kindness. This was done because the binding of Isaac
was intention whose action did not come to fruition. In the future, Jews who
die for no reason or no other reason than they were Jews, are the completion of
the act Avraham intended to do , an act without intention. Any Jew who is
killed because he is a Jew is the completion of the sacrificing of Isaac.
Avraham Avinu raised the knife and those dogs that walk on two legs brought the
knife down. Our three dear children were on the level of Isaac, lying there
next to him on the altar of stone</span></div>Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-85390079520984005462014-06-30T00:32:00.000-07:002014-07-02T00:53:43.393-07:00Why I Hate Secular Zionism, or Could I Have the Broccoli Quiche Instead?<script class="woxxer-embedder" id="woxxembedder-81" type="text/javascript">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> I’ll
call this the broccoli blog. Blogging used to be about people writing about
things they were passionate about. Some people were passionate about cars, some
people were passionate about politics, and some people were passionate about
broccoli. Some people are ambivalent about broccoli and some people even hate
broccoli. I have seen a feedback conversation in which one person extols broccoli
quiche while the other describes how much he hates broccoli quiche. I suspect
that most people didn’t care.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> I
like broccoli. I like chocolate more, but broccoli is okay. I hate artichokes.
But way more than artichokes, I hate Shimon Peres. On a scale of one to ten,
broccoli being 2, artichokes being 7, I still hate Shimon Peres. Irrational
hatred is a fact of life and I only appreciate it when it brings good into the
world. The reason I am permitting my irrational hatred to express itself now is
because I just read an article, proudly proclaiming that Shimon Peres was just
awarded the United States Congressional Medal of Honor. I feel this is
horrendous and I need to express why. My one disclaimer is that I am not a
historian, though in this age when objective opinions are accepted as facts
more than facts themselves, my inexperience and lack of accreditation might be
a form of validation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> I
have many reasons to dislike Shimon Peres, not the least of which is his
disturbing likeness to the evil Jedi master, Emperor Palpatine, from Star Wars.
Shimon Peres is a holdover, perhaps the last surviving one, from a previous era
of secular Zionism. To understand what I don’t like about Shimon Peres, we need
to understand what I don’t like about secular Zionism and Peres’ mentor, Ben
Gurion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> Early secular Zionism, in the shadow of the Holocaust,
received carte blanche, no questions asked, adulation and (monetary) support
from the American secular Jewish community. Their sins were overlooked because
they were the beacon of hope. The image of the muscled Kibbutznik jumping from
his tractor into a tank appealed strongly to the Jews in America suffering from
survivors’ guilt. It was so different than the hunchbacked hooknose money
lending shtetl Jew of Poland who meekly walked into the ovens without fighting
back. The Americans united with the European secular Zionists, though the
feeling was far from mutual. The European secular Zionists were forgiven their
sins, of which there were more than a few, because they were on a mission of
epic proportions. And their agenda was
never questioned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The
Ben Gurion agenda was to create a refuge for the Jews and to remove the rule of
the Torah from the Jewish people since the non-Jews hated us because of it.
This, despite all evidence to the contrary. The Nazis killed all Jews, secular
and religious. I might argue that Ben Gurion disliked Torah Judaism because it
accepted an authority that little David could never usurp. I believe this also
explains his absolute hatred of Menachem Begin. Menachem Begin also believed in
a secular Jewish state, but he believed that the essence of the Jewish people
was the torah and the essence of anti-Semitism was not a reaction to Torah.
This was a challenge David Ben Gurion could not tolerate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Ben
Gurion and the secular Zionists that came later, were so attached to this
agenda that making alliances with Jew-haters and Jew-killers became a part of
their foreign policy. Ben Gurion joined
the British to fight against the Ottomans despite the Ottoman Empire being
friendly towards Jews. The British, in return, did not vote for the Jews in the
League of Nations and they were decidedly pro-Arab during their mandate. He
also developed a warm relationship with West Germany, something that should be,
at best, questionable, in the light of this being less than ten years after the
holocaust. Moshe Dayan was popular with
the Zionists because he was an Arabist, glorifying Arab culture and having a policy
of negotiating with Arab leaders during war. That legacy of befriending
Jew-killers and haters is still vibrant to this day and an essential part of
left wing Israeli foreign policy. It is a trait that I cannot respect. The
Arabs themselves say “The friend of your enemy is your enemy”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Another
example of this policy was Rudolf Kastner. He worked during World War II for
the Jewish Aid and Rescue Committee, helping Jews of Budapest and Hungary.
After the war, he became part of Ben Gurion’s political machine. He achieved his
goals by negotiating with high Nazi officials, including Adolf Eichmann. He was
later accused of making a deal with the Nazis in which secular Zionists were
released in exchange for his persuading other Jews to board the trains to the
death camps. He sued his accuser for libel but the story was found to be accurate.
He also helped a high ranking Nazi officer to escape prosecution after the war.
Kastner was posthumously exonerated. Unfortunately, the book that I found to be
most informative on the subject, <i>Perfidy</i>, is blacklisted, illegal in
Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Sweet
Papa Ben Gurion with his grandfather image, a silly old man performing
handstands on the beach, could do no wrong. He was not evil. Let’s look at
history. Ben Gurion made a deal with Menachem Begin to allow the Irgun to bring
a ship load of weapons, The Altalena, into the soon-to-be State of Israel. Ben
Gurion then sent Yitzchak Rabin to sink the ship, forfeiting dearly needed
weapons at a critical time, and to murder Begin and any of his supporters while
they struggled ashore. This came after a history of turning over Irgun Jews to
the British who would execute them. Ben Gurion was, and still is, forgiven because
he was on a greater mission and, after all, with so much at stake, who could
possibly judge him. He was busy saving all of world Jewry from the Evil Nazis. I am often shocked at how many young Israelis
know nothing of the Altalena or of any of the other historical events I will
describe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">If
you were to ask the average secular Israeli ‘How many assassinations have there
been in modern Israeli history?’ they would say that there have been two and
that both were perpetrated by right-wing elements. They might even say that the
first is proof that the right-wing was guilty of the second, or vice versa. The
first assassination was Haim Arsolov who was a leader in the Mapai (left-wing).
He was believed to be murdered by revisionists (right-wing) elements. This
helped cement Ben Gurion’s position of power. It was much later discovered to
be an act of subterfuge and , at best, the right-wing was not guilty. There is
even reasonable room to suspect the left-wing. Again, the secular Zionists are
above suspicion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Most
people will say Ben Gurion had to solidify his power base in order to bring
about the Jewish State. He could not be a power monger since he created the
democratic state we are so proud of. I think this argument gets a bit sticky
when you realize that Ben Gurion served as the first prime minister of Israel
despite not being elected. Nor was the first kenesset elected. They were chosen
by Ben Gurion. This was only possible because Ben Gurion had, quite ruthlessly,
eliminated anyone else who was working towards bringing about a Jewish state.
It should come as no surprise that his efforts at eliminating any opposition were
so effective that a left-wing, i.e. Ben Gurion, government ruled in Israel for
the next forty years. I think it is fitting that Ben Gurion became prime minister
without being elected and so did his protégé, Shimon Peres.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">I
should explain at this point that there are two types of left-wing in Israel
and they do not correlate to left-wing as it is referred to in any other
country in the world. Left-wing usually refers to social minded, spiritual and
idealistic, anti-laissez faire people. That is true in Israel, but that branch
of the left-wing, oddly enough, supports and serves the other left-wing, which
is elitist, power based, and no-holds-barred capitalistic. Ben Gurion was left-wing but socialism meant
something very different for him. He was elitist and pro-capitalism. He hoped
to build an Israel in the vision of Herzl’s second book, Alneulant (Old-New
Land), a mulit-cultural, technocracy. I have noticed that this is becoming true
in the United States today, which also has two corresponding types of
right-wing and left-wing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Next
week, I talk about Peres and his Congressional Medal of Honor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-50865904689686113482014-06-01T08:31:00.001-07:002014-07-02T00:58:11.567-07:00I like slavery (Sort of)<script id="woxxembedder-83" class="woxxer-embedder" type="text/javascript">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> I
believe that everything should be brought into the light of truth and the only
way to do that is to question everything, even our most basic beliefs. For example,
we are all taught that slavery is evil and should be eradicated from the world.
I am going to question that belief and I can already hear the collective gasp
of indignation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> I actually believe
in slavery as it is proposed by the bible. In today’s “enlightened” system of
crime and punishment, this is the way things work. Let’s say, one day I wake up
and my car is gone. I call the police, they show up and file a report. If I
have been paying theft on my auto, I get at least some of the money back, but
probably not the full worth. I am left without a car until I buy a replacement.
If, by some miracle, the police catch the thief, my car is probably gone,
chopped for parts or abandoned somewhere. It is actually worse if they catch
the thief because now I will have to pay taxes to support his incarceration.
His family will probably require some form of social service because of the
stigma and the lack of income. After this episode, his children have a greater
likelihood of following in their father’s footsteps. It is unclear to me what
benefit is derived from prison. It has become a form of graduate school for
prisoners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> I prefer slavery.
Allow me to explain. In a biblical framework, in the same episode, if the
police capture the criminal, he has to pay for my car AND pay a fine. If he
cannot, he is sold as a slave. Slavery in biblical terms is for a limited
period of time and the slave retains many rights. The owner of the slave also
is responsible for the welfare of the slave’s family. I get my car back. I even
get paid for the inconvenience. When the period of slavery ends, the master
sends the slave away with a party and presents. There is no stigma. He has,
quite literally paid his debt. And not to society. He has paid his debt to the person
to whom he has incurred the damages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> The USA has the highest per capita
prison population in the world. American troops are fighting to liberate
Afghanistan, which has one tenth the per capita prison population. Prison does
not serve the victims. It rarely rehabilitates the criminals. Norway has an
interesting approach. According to Wikipedia, “t</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">he maximum determinate penalty (civilian penal
code) is 21 years' imprisonment, but only a small percentage of prisoners serve
more than 14 years. Prisoners will typically get unsupervised parole for
weekends, etc. after serving a third of their sentence (a maximum of 7 years),
and can receive early release after serving two thirds of their sentence (a
maximum of 14 years). In 2008, to fulfill its requirements under the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Statute_of_the_International_Criminal_Court" title="Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court"><span style="color: windowtext;">Rome Statute</span></a>,
Norway created a new maximal penalty of 30 years for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_against_humanity" title="Crimes against humanity"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">crimes against humanity</span></a>.<sup>” </sup></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Norway has a per capita prison population of 71 per 100,000, one
tenth of that in the US. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222;">The
Directorate of Norwegian Correctional Service<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>has a “</span>reintegration
guarantee for those who have served their sentence. They shall – if relevant –
have an offer of employment, education, suitable housing accommodation, some
type of income, medical services, addiction treatment services and debt
counseling. Relevant services will be identified and included in such a way as
to optimize their effect by reintegration coordinators employed by the
correctional services. The guarantee is political in character and not legal.
It represents the intentions of the whole government and its underlying public
institutions to cooperate around this issue.</span>”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> I
prefer slavery to prison. It works. It is fair. I should stipulate that slavery
does exist in the modern world, almost exclusively in Islamic countries. It
would be more accurate to say that I believe in slavery but not in the ownership
of humans. Slavery can even be an alternative to bankruptcy. A person can sel
himself into slavery in order to pay off debts. Aaah, you say, a debt should
not limit a person’ freedom. Actually, in any case it does. And what is the
difference between slavery and the situation that so many college students find
themselves in upon graduation? They have been compelled by the reality of the
workplace to relinquish their freedom. Slavery takes many forms. I prefer the
biblical variety.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-79088106484482833552014-05-27T00:18:00.001-07:002014-07-02T03:49:12.034-07:00Mafia World or Why I Used to Love America<script id="woxxembedder-84" class="woxxer-embedder" type="text/javascript">
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<br>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">I
woke up in the middle of the night with a shocking realization. I realized that
I am weird. This isn’t a new revelation. I have always been weird. But I
suddenly realized that I was weird in ways that I didn’t feel comfortable with.
Usually, being weird meant being socially unacceptable and either I moved, or
my neighbors moved. But since my ego and I are not ready to part company, I
realized that I needed to cope with this. I have some beliefs that are logical
yet disturb me deeply. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">I
realized that I don’t like the police. As individuals, I like cops. Most of
them are idealistic, service minded, professionals. They do a difficult job.
But I realized that the mafia guy who came around demanding protection money
actually offered a better service. If a gang of hoodlums came around, causing
trouble, Antony and his buddies would show up and hurt them bad if they didn’t
leave. I pay them so they would want to protect me, so that I could continue to
pay. The cops would write a report or maybe sit at the corner store eating
donuts. It’s not that the cops don’t want to protect me. Cops get paid by the
government so they have no vested interest in helping me. They have a strong
interest in listening to what the government tells them to do. When the
government is a democracy, it means that the government is working for the
people and the police <i>are</i> working for the people. Unfortunately, the
United States is no longer a democracy. A recent study at Princeton and
Northwestern University has declared the US an oligarchy. The government, the
police, and the military, serve a new master<i>;<span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #373737; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> </span></b></span></i><em><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #373737; font-style: normal; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; padding: 0in;">powerful business organizations
and a small number of affluent Americans</span></em><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Another
problem is that the police are required to protect everyone, including the
criminals. They can’t beat them up, even when they catch them in the middle of
a violent crime. I think it is a natural human instinct to punish criminals and
having to play by such rules, and by going against their instincts, cops go a
little crazy. That is unfortunate, but it is one of the things that makes America
great.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">So I
am thinking that I would like someone, a face, a real person, that I can talk
to, someone who has my interests at heart. I was hoping that America, in all of
its greatness and glory, would provide that. I thought that if I voted for
someone that it meant that he would represent me. I hope that if I paid taxes,
the armed forces and the police would aim their weapons at the enemies of the common
good, and fight to uphold our fine beliefs. Otherwise, I am paying taxes so
that some rich person can afford an army and a police force, in which case I’d
rather pay Guido and his boys. They’ll get the job done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-45534700294344043352014-05-20T06:21:00.000-07:002014-12-10T09:44:05.131-08:00It helps to be a little crazy<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Miriam; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I really wanted to get accepted into the Israeli army. I
was thirty years old and could have gotten an exemption if I pushed a little,
but I saw it as my duty. I fudged a few questions about my medical history and
told everyone including the janitor at the draft office that I wanted to serve
in the army. One of the last stages in the draft process was the psychological
test. It was a long questionnaire, which challenged my new abilities at reading
Hebrew. The questions were very simple, and it was obvious which answers would
indicate an unstable personality, not to be trusted with an automatic weapon.
There were a few questions which challenged me as a person trying to be in
touch with my spiritual nature. “Do you feel there is an entity inside of you,
telling you to do things you don’t want to do?” I circled ‘No’, trying not to
think of my daily battles with my evil inclination. “Do you sometimes leave
your body?” Well…on a good day I do manage to connect with an expanded vision
of creation. I was starting to think that society might see the struggle to be
religious as a form of insanity. On one question I couldn’t hold myself back.
“Do you feel the world changes drastically from one day to the next?” I circled
‘Yes’. I handed in the exam to a young sergeant who had been trained to grade
these tests, thereby qualifying him to judge my sanity. He marked off my
answers as I sat across from him. When he got to the question about the world
changing, he looked up. “Would you care to explain your answer?” I smiled and
handed him my passport. He looked puzzled but opened it up. The picture showed
a young man in a black t-shirt with long curly hair, a moustache, and dangling
earrings, a biker. In front of him sat a man with a beard and yarmulke, a
religious Jew. I smiled. He gave me a passing grade and approved my induction</span>Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-82341915177450311322014-05-15T06:16:00.004-07:002014-05-15T06:16:27.439-07:00Hot Day<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I lay on the albino memory of a
lawn as a wind from a foreign desert I’ve never seen cracks my lips and flings
sharp sand into my eyes. My smile is blown from my face, flying out over the
valley, dancing to the rhythm of finger-snapping flags. My body moves to a
different song. The inner me straining to fly, sings the high notes as my body
thumps out the bass line of my feet dragging my body along in my daily routine.
I am nervous, afraid of lagging behind the beat, losing the rhythm as it dances
on, or of singing a false note in the harmony I am trying to make of my life. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I roll over and breathe deeply,
drawing in the yellow straw smell, mixing it with the deep earth in the
crucible of my lungs,. I have pushed and prodded, run around, run towards, run
away, run down, lost and found, meant and missed, and finally in this eternal
moment of ‘where am I now’, I ask myself, is that really what brought me here,
rolling around in the dust like the half-mad neighbor to be politely ignored?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I hear a whisper from the withered
grass. It tries not to laugh but I hear it nonetheless. I have always been
here, since now is always and a dot is a world only partially explored. I am
not waiting, I am being. A half-buried
boulder tells me of its journey, panting between breaths, running at breakneck
speed, racing to keep up with the centuries in their race against time.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I roll onto my back, grasping at handfuls
of dry grass to keep from falling off the world, dizzy from the effort as I
stare down into the depths of the sky above. Can I feel the mountain swell
beneath me as the waves of rock fold over the land? Where am I in this eternal
moment of reality? Creation and destruction are two heartbeats in the body of god. And yet here I stand,
clapping the dust from my palms, feeling my hands brush twigs from my clothes.
I tell myself that the jittery feeling in my knees is the extra cup of coffee I
drank this morning. I close my eyes, to just one more moment of strangeness in
an already peculiar day. I strain to listen. One note, one instrument in an
orchestra as large as the world, playing a song as long as time.</div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-17103833154354295912014-05-12T00:31:00.001-07:002014-07-16T01:40:49.237-07:00Be me friend<script id="woxxembedder-90" class="woxxer-embedder" type="text/javascript">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I am not a nice person. I have more rough edges than simple
geometry can explain. I wrote a sweet book, but I am not sweet. I do, however,
in the depths of my grouchy heart, believe that the world is a rough place that
demands average people to pull out from their inner depths the best they can
offer. And sometimes even more than that. And I have witnessed people who do
that. I sound like the old men in every generation who sit in their rocking
chairs and complain that the world today is not as good as the world they grew
up in. But it is true. The world is so much harder, so much faster, and thanks
to technology, our ability to do damage has grown exponentially. The atom bomb
is a water pistol compared to what we can do now, physically and spiritually,
to destroy our world. I have also seen a
movement, a small movement but it could easily spread like wildfire, individuals
who have pushed back the boundaries of good that a person can do in his
lifetime. It is a good thing to adopt an orphan. There are people who have made
their hearts so big with love that they can adopt dozens of children. The young
people of this generation will be faced with challenges that my generation
created. But even though we created these problems, my generation cannot
educate you or prepare you to cope with them. Our education is a failure
because it can only show you how to become part of the system that created
these problems. I beg of you, put aside the expensive toys we built for you.
They glitter so nicely but they distract you from your real mission. There are
a thousand ways to chat, but I never took the time to sit with you and talk, to
really connect. There are a million songs on your device, more if you are
wireless, but which one is the song that you and I wrote one night when we were
jamming by the campfire, drinking beer, and crying on each others’ shoulder. A
thousand million words float around the internet, but which ones tell me what
is in your heart. And I have time to read more than 140 letters, so please take
your time and tell me all of what your heart needs to say. There are billions
of emails each day, but when did you write a letter to someone you love so they
can hold a piece of paper that you touched and made warm with your hand,
perhaps spotted with tears? My generation has deforested continents. For this I
could never apologize but, when was the last time you planted a tree? We should
have taught that in school. It is a problem you are facing and we didn’t
prepare you for it. We went out to the stars, but our oceans are dying and we
know nothing about them. The maps you see with the ocean floor so proudly
displayed are lies. That cartographers made them up so they wouldn’t look
stupid. Honestly, that is true. But we know a lot about the moon and Venus.
They are dead planets, yet we can map them, though no friends will stroll their
barren faces. At least not in our lifetimes. And because we spend so much time looking
so far away for far-away answers, people may not last long enough to ever get
there. Yes, our planet will be dead soon also unless you learn more about the
ocean, about forests, and about your neighbor. Or the person sitting next to
you right now. We never invested money in learning about nature unless we were
sure to get our investment back in profits, and now nature is disappearing. I
need you to not make a profit. I need you to ask questions that don’t have
answers in the back of the book. I need a hug, and not the kind I can get on
Facebook. I need you to believe in goodness, and then I need you to go there.
Tell me what I can do to help you do that. <a href="mailto:adameliyahu@yahoo.com">adameliyahu@yahoo.com</a>
TheHopeMerchant.com</div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-59581803595390111442014-05-03T23:34:00.002-07:002014-07-16T01:55:39.846-07:00So, What is Prayer?<script id="woxxembedder-91" class="woxxer-embedder" type="text/javascript">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
So what
is prayer? I have a personal theory. My path to where I am now spiritually
wandered through transcendental meditation. It was great, and I sometimes
revisit that wonderful place. But as I got older, transcending the world didn’t
work for me. My life was high impact and escape to serenity didn’t seem to be
the answer. When I started doing Hitboddedut as described by Rebbe Nachman, I
felt that approach was more suited to me but it left me constantly in conflict
with God. I have learned to be okay with that. I believe that God created the
world because he was lonely. First he created a space where he seemed not to
be, and that created space for an other. He made us in his image, creating us
with his hands, putting his breath of life in us. By giving us the torah he
made us partners in creation. Raising our hands at the condition of something
that seems bad, saying it is God’s will, is not an option. We are active and
equal partners and are accountable for everything that happens in the world. So
let’s say someone gets very sick. We pray for him to get better. What does that
mean? We are asking God to change his mind. We are saying ‘God, I know it is
your will that this person is sick. I know that from your perspective. It is a
good thing. From where you sit, it is the best, kindest, most beautiful thing.
But, God, you required me to connect with you. You made me a partner. From
where I sit, from the perspective of flesh and blood, in the temporal plane, he
is suffering. I am sad because he is suffering. I will accept whatever you
decide is best. But you MUST take my feelings into account because you brought
me into existence and made me as I am.” Prayer, for me, is frequently an
argument. Like Tevye said (and us dairy farmers have to stick together), “Lord
who made the lion and the lamb, you decreed, I should be what I am. But, would
it spoil some vast eternal plan?” I think that by showing God the human
perspective, he becomes a better God. And a closer friend.</div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-53196754084613901362014-05-01T12:12:00.003-07:002014-07-16T02:09:02.744-07:00Where is God?<script id="woxxembedder-92" class="woxxer-embedder" type="text/javascript">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Prayer is a meeting of place, time, and the individual. It
is referred to in Hasidut as Ashan (smoke) which is an acronym for olam (world,
place), sha’ah (hour, time), and nefesh (soul, person). In my last blog I
discussed how I experience finding myself in time. But the concept of place is
strange when talking about prayer. Just as prayer is non-time bound or
timeless, it can also be done anywhere and has a nowhere aspect to it. After
all, you can connect with God anywhere because he is everywhere. I said before
that I thought prayer was timeless, so we should be praying all the time. Also,
if we are praying all the time, anywhere we are go , we are there to discover
the aspect of God hidden in that place, that can only be revealed through the
once-in-an-eternity occurrence of us being there at that specific time. There
is an unfortunate aspect of modern life and Google earth. We have forgotten and
become disconnected with the experience of place. Virtual reality is
grammatically incorrect; there is no virtue in it at all. My birthday is a
special day and celebrating it a day later is not the same. A holiday is a
special day and blowing the shofar on Sukkot does nothing. In the same manner,
places have their own special identity and effect. And we connect to them in a
unique way. It is an unfortunate inherent flaw in the very concept of the
United States. America is not a homeland, except to the Native Americans and
Eskimos. Even the Spanish Speakers in Central and South America do not have a
family, genetic, connection to the land. World War One rearranged the world
map, messing with the concept of nationality.
I feel that was one of the reasons for establishing the League of Nations
after that war; to try to make sense out of something that had been eternally
clear and self-evident, and was now an indecipherable mess. A person used to be
defined by where he was. Now, the concept of place is not understood. Most
people believe that every place is like the other. Not only is that incorrect,
but I feel that to believe so is evil. It isn’t wrong, because there is some
truth to that statement. It is correct, but evil. I am fascinated by Las Vegas.
It is remarkable that they built Las Vegas to look like anywhere and
everywhere. You might have thought the Eifel Tower was special to Paris, but
no. It can be anywhere. Even in the middle of the Nevada desert. Same for the
Sphinx, and the Statue of Liberty. You might have thought that you were in a
desert except for the spectacular displays of water. It is all a massive
deception. I could be wrong, but I think that prayer is a point of truth in our
daily life. Truth is what you want to build your life around. In order to do
that we have to have a clear and undisguised concept of who we are and where we
stand in creation. The unique experience of reality of when we are, where we
are, and who we are. Every place is unique. Who we are when we stand on that
space is unique. The Gemara in Brachot says that if you are praying outside of
Israel, you should direct your heart towards Israel, if you are in Israel you
should direct your heart towards Jerusalem, in Jerusalem toward the Temple
mount, on the Temple mount towards the Holy of Holies, in the Holy of holies
towards the seat of mercy. The Gemara could have given one direction for all.
It is clear that your essential self and your prayer are a product of where you
are. A Jew outside of Israel is essentially different than a Jew in Israel, and
his prayers are necessarily different. Coming physically closer to the Holy of
Holies raises your spiritual consciousness. After Adam sinned, the first
question God asks him is “Where are you?” It is a strange question, given the
circumstances.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
When you turn to talk to God, the first question you need to
ask is ‘Where am I?’</div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-49118605049644004252014-04-26T23:18:00.001-07:002014-07-16T02:39:18.777-07:00When am I?<script id="woxxembedder-94" class="woxxer-embedder" type="text/javascript">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> When I was thirteen years old, my
family moved. My new neighbor, Howie Friedman, introduced me to marijuana and
teen boredom, possibly not in that order. His parents were trendier than mine
so they had cable television, a novelty in those days, and a refrigerator
stocked with cool condiments. We would get stupid and lounge in front of his
TV, eating mustard sandwiches, too stoned to move. One day, his mother came
home and I guess she was disgusted at our condition. She snapped at me, “Is
this what you are going to do with your life?” I looked up, unable to do more
than move my head, and said in total innocence, “Of course not. I am going to
write a novel.” We could leave this as being a typical teen stoner story but
for one major point. After listening carefully to other people and watching me
carefully, it has become my belief that people know what their life is going to
be. We all already know our own futures down to the tiniest details. I feel
like I have double vision. I can almost see time as one big reality; past,
present and future rolled up into one big ball of yarn. In order to operate on
an ever-day basis, I have to block that out and see time as a line, one half
stretched out behind me, solid and unchanging, the other half stretching
forward invisibly into the future. I know that to be inaccurate for several reasons;
however I need to generate that illusion in order to appear sane to those
around me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I think we hide prescience from ourselves for various
reasons. Maybe we want to be surprised. Life is more fun that way. But I think
there is more. I remember reading a Justice League comic book in which the
superheroes had dreams showing them what the villains would do. They each cut
straight to the end, trying to thwart the villains before they had a chance to
implement their strategies. It ended up backfiring. The superheroes succeeded
in the end but knowing what was going to happen really just messed them up. It
got me thinking. If I could see my whole life laid out before me in absolute
detail, what would that do for me? Would it help me succeed? Actually, no. What
it might do is help me appreciate certain things more than others. As Ursula
LeGuin wrote in <u>The Left Hand of Darkness </u>when telling about prescience,
foretelling the future is useful only to show the utter futility of knowing the
correct answer to the wrong question. When I read a biography of a genius or
artist that suffered years of rejection and failure, the happy ending puts the
failure into an entirely different perspective, making it seem like part of the
success. But it doesn’t really lessen the actuality of years of waking up
depressed. And the fact is that for every success story there are millions of
people who struggle and fail. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I also think that the infinite reality model as put forth by quantum
physics is a “Duh, what did you think it could be?” scenario. I don’t trust my
own perception of the past. It is no more real than the future and I have less
control over it. People are okay with that when they think about the future but
I think it may be for the wrong reasons. They think ‘Well, of course. I have
infinite decisions, infinite choice. So each moment is a possible change.’ That
isn’t my understanding of infinite reality. I understand it as every moment
being a link with an infinite number of realities, all of them real. And also
for my past. Each moment was a link with an infinite number of possibilities
that never ceased to exist just because I think I acted a certain way. Gee,
maybe there really is a me that followed through with that dream I had when I
bought my first guitar and I am actually a former rock star burnt out on wine
and women. That would explain a lot. I recently watched a video lecture by </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">Kathryn Schulz on being wrong. She described an
experiment where a leading expert in memory, the day after the space shuttle
disaster, asked a large number of people to write down major points of the
story and their personal experience. Three years later, he asked them to recall
the details. Fewer than seven percent of the second reports matched the initial
ones. Half of them were wrong in two thirds of their claims. One quarter of the
second reports was wrong in every major detail. She takes this to mean that our
memories are faulty to a shocking degree. I understood it to be an effect of
the multiple reality experience. The details I remember are accurate, just not
for this line of reality. The fact that we all experience it, makes
forgetfulness a valid excuse and makes it possible for us to live together,
despite coming from entirely separate threads of reality.<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">So how does this relate to prayer? Prayer is
necessarily a non-time bound mitzvah. Prayer is a process of stepping outside
of time in order to find ourselves. We do this by connecting to the infinite.
The gemmara seems to say that we should pray all the time, yet in another place
it says we should pray at a point of danger. This is a double contradiction. If
we are always praying, how can we all of a sudden start praying at the point of
danger? And, how can we pray all the time? The answer is, we are always in a
danger and prayer is not an act but, rather, a state of being. I think the
action of prayer is many things, as well. I love watching Tevye in <i>Fiddler on the Roof</i> talking to God like
an imaginary friend. It is, quite literally, awesome. I think it is also like
Jacob wrestling with the angel. <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">Many years ago, I was working as a medic and
armed guard for tour groups. My first day on the job was accompanying an
American teen group in the Machtesh near Arad. The first day, we woke up at
four in the morning to hike into the desert with Yisrael Chevroni, to greet the
sun with meditation. We walked all morning, climbed to the top of a mountain,
and stood, out of breath and tired, while he led us through a meditation. “Pick
a spot in front of you, in the desert. Imagine how you feel, what you are
wearing, what you see around you. How did you get there? Where are you going?
Who is with you? How did they get there? Where are they going?” The meditation
went on for an hour. By the end, I was audibly crying. I often feel lost in my
own life. It is an almost daily experience. I wonder if people who have a life
plan and follow go through this pain. For better or worse, at some forgotten
point, I chose not to follow that path. So here I am, stuck with myself, lost
and alone in eternity. Prayer helps me find myself, the infinitesimal point in
time that is the ‘now’, flickering in and out of existence, the glittering
grain of sand in the rolling desert of eternity.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-13013183568435222802014-04-23T01:15:00.000-07:002014-04-23T01:15:12.432-07:00The Problem with Rabbis Today<div class="MsoNormal">
I’d
like to spend some time talking about prayer. And I really mean talking. As in discussion. As in, two mouths but four ears. I
really need as much feedback as possible and I reserve the right to say at a
future date that any of the statements I am making right now are wrong and I
have reconsidered them, and that I now think differently. All comments can be
made to this blog site or to my email at <a href="mailto:adameliyahu@yahoo.com">adameliyahu@yahoo.com</a>.
I am in a process.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have
recently begun relearning some of the sources in the gemarra and understand
there are two sources for prayer, or perhaps more accurately, two types of
prayer. The original source for prayer originates in the torah and is illustrated
by personal example. We learn that Abrahm, Isaac, and Jacob, prayed. We also
see that Hanna was, in many ways, the pinnacle of prayer. For those of you who
have read my book, Hanna the milk maid was based on Hannah the biblical
character. Also for those who read my novel, <u>The Hope Merchant</u>, the book
begins with a morning prayer and ends with a prayer upon going to sleep
(actually, in preparation for death, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise for
those who haven’t read the book). Biblical prayer is a non-time bound mitzvah. I
would like to take that one step further and say that the act of prayer
connects timefullness with timelessness. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before
I go into that, I would like to discuss what rabbinic prayer is and why it isn’t
biblical prayer. The concept of “Rabbi” as we have come to know it is not a
Jewish concept. In Halachic literature, the term “Rabbi” is derogatory, meaning
someone who serves as a leader for enlightened communities, i.e. Conservative,
Reform, or any of the other non-Orthodox branches of Judaism. These people
served as religious leaders though they were not necessarily well-versed in
classical Jewish learning. In the traditional Jewish communities, the Rabbi was
learned, acting as a teacher and interpreter of Jewish law. In the
enlightenment, the Jewish communities wanted to blend into the Christian mainstream
culture, so they created a position that was more similar to the Christian
priest than the traditional Jewish Rabbi. The Rabbi was never supposed to be a
prayer leader. In traditional synagogues, the prayer leader is practically
anyone, usually chosen on the spot, with preference given to mourners. The Christian
priest was a prayer leader, an intermediary between man and God. Judaism does
not have a tradition of an intermediary or prayer leader. The concept of a
professional prayer leader is foreign to Judaism. I am raising this issue so
that my next statement will not be misunderstood. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Torah
authorities from just after the destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem
established prayer in place of the temple sacrifices. That is actually more
problematic than it sounds. There already was a tradition of prayer and it was
in no way connected to the temple or sacrifices. The temple service was a
public ceremony with strict guidelines. There was a caste system in place,
separating Israel into familial groups with specific functions and places in
the service. The temple service was separate from torah learning and the
political system. After the Hasmonean uprising, the family of priests entered
into politics with disastrous results. When the sages established prayer in place
of the temple service, remnants of the priest’s role were retained but there
was never any connection made between torah learning and the temple service or
prayer. There are several cases in the gemarra describing the tension between
priests and learned men. Even when they established prayer as a surrogate for
temple service, the priests were not designated as prayer leaders. Neither were
the learned men of the community. I believe it is because even as a surrogate
for temple service, the sages recognized that prayer is a separate discipline,
requiring different skills and serving a different purpose. Learning also
serves a different purpose and is a separate discipline in no way connected to
prayer. When the sages connected prayer and temple service it was so that the
temple service would not be forgotten during the exile. It was, essentially, a
mismatch. The two activities are in no way connected or similar. Temple
sacrifice requires functionaries and a leader, and it is public. Having a
prayer leader is counterproductive to biblical Jewish prayer. Prayer is a
solitary effort and should not be done as a group.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There are several necessary aspects of Judaism
that confuse me. They don’t seem necessary for my personal struggle to connect
to God. Why is religion passed down from your parents? A caste system seems barbaric.
Women, for the most part, are treated in an egalitarian manner, but they are
excluded from being witnesses. All these, and more, are points that confuse me.
But the most confusing is how the sages connected two activities that serve
such different purposes. And how did the Rabbis insert themselves into the
temple service and prayer, a position for which they are not equipped,
designated, nor is there a tradition in prayer of such a position?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
In my next blog, I would like to
begin to investigate what I understand biblical prayer to be. I will need a lot
of help with that.</div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-59223956693843095172014-04-15T22:53:00.003-07:002014-07-16T02:54:18.787-07:00Wishing Manual<script id="woxxembedder-95" class="woxxer-embedder" type="text/javascript">
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<h6>
Instructions for wishing</h6>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The cover of the book promises a free
wish with every purchase. The promise is real. Make a wish. Are you disappointed?</span>
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Does that seem too
simple? It’s really not. Allow me to explain. The simple act of wishing is
actually very complex. Unfortunately, the fine art of wishing has been lost. It
takes practice and must be learned. There are several components to a
successful wish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The least important thing about a
wish is having it fulfilled. The wish itself has great value. A wish declares
who you are, stabbing your pennant into the ground, declaring that here you
stand, against all odds. After the day is done, when the belly has been fed,
what is still left whispering in our ears as we lay in bed, is our souls’
hunger in this world. Western culture has dealt with our body’s needs, leaving
us wantless, leaving our souls abandoned and starved. Many people have taken
this one step further and become wishless, forgetting the heart and soul. Yet
they are confused when their hunger continues after the body has been fed. So
they seek more for the body, not understanding the soul’s source of hunger
after the body is sated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Man was created to want, because
wanting creates a relationship. The relationship is the main thing. A child
needs his father to give, and that creates the closest relationship. But
society, in fear, has taken care of our needs, lining the highways with fast
food dispensaries so that no one need go more than ten minutes without quick
and easy access to food. Our needs have been replaced with a staggering array
of wants. So we go shopping for wishes, see some shiny gadget on the internet
and saying “Gee, I guess that’s what I want.”, when ten minutes ago we were
living a perfectly fine life without it and humanity has stumbled along for
ages without it. The want was manufactured, designed in. The wanting isn’t ours
so the item will never fulfill our personal wishes. We will still be hungry, so
when next year’s fashion or new thing comes around, we throw away what we were
convinced to want last year and run after what was designed for us to want this
year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The first step towards a wish is to
ask, “What do you want?” This question asks who you are. The answer may
surprise you. I know it surprised me. When I wrote the free wish offer, I knew
all the smarties would say, “I wish for one hundred more wishes”. Okay. You got
it. You are the person who doesn’t have one special wish. You are the person
who wanted a lot, but nothing really special. You are the person who wanted ‘more’.
When a husband wishes for diamonds to give to his wife, the wish is worth more
than the diamonds themselves. When an artist wishes for his art to live, his
wish connects him to the infinite. Say your wish out loud. Does it say who you
are? Can you live with your wish, cherish it, nurture it, watch it grow? The
process is part of the wish, part of the gift. Climbing a mountain is a wish.
Suddenly appearing at the top of a mountain is pointless. Look at someone you
love. Do you know what their wish would be? Do you know who they are? Will you
visit them in their garden of wishes?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The second component of a successful
wish is to know what you want to wish for. The problem is that we are not used
to asking that question. I have always felt overwhelmed by this question.
Advertising is an enormous industry based on telling us what we want. How can
you fight that, filter out the millions of messages being beamed directly into
our consciousness? How can you wipe all that out and find yourself, your own,
personal and unique wants, under that heap of commercial driven goop? Also, to
keep the system working, we have relinquished our wants into the hands of
others, wish experts. They know what we want. It used to be that if you wanted
a chair, you picked up your tools and built it, bringing your own personal wish
of a chair into existence. It fit you. Aaah, but you say today’s chairs are
“better”. Perhaps. But it is not the chair I wished for. It is the chair the
builder wished for. The process of “I wish”, “I envision”, “I create”, and
“Here it is, here I am”, is different than simply buying something that someone
else created. Making your visions real enlarges the inner-self, making an outer
reality to match the inner vision, connecting you with the world by bringing more
of you into it. The chair that I have built is my dream made real. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The final step of wishing is to ask.
The difference between wishing and wanting is that wishing is asking the world
for your dream to come into existence. Wanting takes away from the world,
trapping a part of it and leaving just you. Wishing is asking, creating a
giving relationship, connecting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Please allow me to tell you a story.
There was once a king who became angry at his son, the prince, banishing him
from the palace and his kingdom. After many years, the king regretted his anger
and wanted to return his son to the palace. He sent a knight to find him. After
a long search, the noble knight found the prince living in a distant forest.
The son had spent those long years living in poverty, sleeping outdoors, eating
whatever he could find in the forest. His clothes were rags and his body was
covered with sores. The knight was overjoyed when he found the prince. He
explained his mission to the ragged young man and told him that he had been
charged by the king to fulfill any wish the prince had so that he would return
in joy to his father. The coffers of the kingdom were open for him. The son was
confused, overwhelmed by his circumstances. He had been so long in the forest
that the palace had become a distant dream. He stammered, asking if he could
truly make any request and it would be fulfilled. The knight affirmed it
joyously. The son, with fear lest he overstep, asked for a fresh roll with
butter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We are all princes. But we are even more
than that. We are angels wearing clothes of flesh. When wishing, remember that
more than the child wants to eat, the father longs to feed him. Fling open the
doors of your heart knowing that you cannot be denied. I ask one thing. A true
wish is a precious thing. It grows when new voices are added. Please, come to
me in my dream. Whisper in my ear. Tell me who you are, what you wish for. We
shall cry together, laugh together, wish together. We shall come together, not
in riches, not pooling together all that we have, but in our wishes, what our
souls long to bring into the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">UNLIMITED WARRANTY:</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> May all of
your wishes come true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Please share with me your wishes,
hopes, and dreams. If you have met the Hope Merchant in any of his many forms
and disguises, please tell me about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">adameliyahu@yahoo.com</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-15066284385749654742014-04-15T22:37:00.005-07:002014-04-15T22:37:59.548-07:00Having a Hard Time Living the Good Life<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe I am doing something wrong but…….</div>
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Moishe Gellar and I once had an argument. Okay, maybe it was
a disagreement or just a discussion. But when it comes to all things Gratefully
Dead, Moishe is rarely ambivalent, frequently adamant, and sometimes abrasive.
When I went to dead shows, I always stood as close to the speakers as I could
get. I also have this weird mental thing which makes it difficult for me to
make out lyrics. I don’t sing in public because everyone is always shocked at
how badly I mangle the words. In first grade, I was made to sit in the corner
because I sang the Dawnser song. You know, the dawnser that gives off a lee
light. Apologies to Robert Hunter, but were it not for hanging out with
Deadheads who were constantly quoting the lyrics and all the bumper stickers, I
probably wouldn’t have known that Dead songs even had lyrics. Well, one time
Moishe heard me singing the Dead tune about having a hard time living a good
life. Jerry, of blessed memory, sang it so soulfully. Moishe was horrified.
“Those aren’t the words! It’s ‘having a <b><i>high</i></b> time living the good life’.” Immediately,
I knew Moishe was right, but it got me thinking. Singing about having a high
time living a good life isn’t very novel. If you are living the good life, you
should be having a high time. The fact is, though, I know I am living the good
life. I have a wonderful wife, great kids, I love my house and where I live, I
like being a frum Jew,and I even like my eco-friendly electric cart. But it
isn’t easy and I am often happiness challenged (That is nineties PC talk
meaning depressed). Despite knowing the correct lyrics, I am having a hard time
living the good life. I am okay with it. I think. Maybe we aren’t supposed to
be walking around in a state of sustained euphoria. Maybe we are and it’s just
me. I don’t know. What do you think?</div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-67108443035675967592014-04-13T03:09:00.001-07:002014-04-13T12:29:09.220-07:00Anti-Materialism<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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When I was working as a cook in
Manhattan, I was young and single and loved to <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">mingle</a>.
During that time, I discovered an amazing phenomenon. In social gatherings,
people would ask two questions: What is your name? And What do you do? That was
actually not as clear cut or as logical as you might think. I could guarantee
that five minutes later, they probably wouldn’t remember my name, but they
would definitely remember what I did for a living. More important than my name,
my job title allowed them to classify me in a way which made them comfortable.
They knew, or thought they knew, which economic level I belonged in. One of the
greatest sins, reminiscent of tattooing numbers on Jewish forearms, is
quantifying people. It is forbidden in the torah, and yet we do it to <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">ourselves.</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Materialism would state that a
person <i>is</i> what he owns or how much he
is worth. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">However
that is not true or accurate, though it does have some basis in truth.</a> A person cannot be entirely defined by what he owns, but he is affected by owning
things. Owning things is important because it does define you and change who
you <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">are</a>. An automobile owner has certain privileges
and freedoms, certain abilities to do things, but he also has responsibilities
and liabilities. Right now I am waiting for a cop to try and pull me over while
I am driving my electric cart so that I can laugh in his face. I own an
electric cart so my status under the law is different than someone who owns a
car. I want so much to get a horse, so I can illegally park it and have a meter
maid try to put a ticket under its <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">tail</a>.
Because of my limitations, I have fewer <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">responsibilities</a>.
That is true but it cannot define my worth as a human and it only tells you
specific and limited things about me. My father, of blessed memory, was
irreplaceable because our relationship was unique in all of human history. He
was MY <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">father</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As an aside, one of the major failings of
modern education is the need to quantify
knowledge in a standardized, homogenous manner. Because the educational system
needs to do this in order to achieve its goals, it is doomed to absolute and
unavoidable <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">failure</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My rejection of <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">this </a>system
was one of the main thoughts behind my novel, The Hope Merchant. I have
always loved listening to people’s stories. A description of one of their
possessions is boring. Unfortunately, in a world of factories and assembly
lines most objects are boring. An artisan can tell a story of a unique piece
they created. Even architecture is getting to be stories of monoculture. I have
heard stories of great architecture that were spellbinding, like the building
of the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, Hoover Dam. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">I</a> remember reading that the tiles in Grand
Central Station, which give it a special look, were specially designed by the
architect to be the perfect size to fit into a bricklayer’s hand comfortably. Stories
like that are less common today. A person can be all excited about a new car he
bought, how fast it goes, or whatever is the current chic must-have out there,
but to me it just means that he has acquired something that rolled off an
assembly line and landed in his driveway, along with 50,000 other driveways. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">The<span style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 12.266667366027832px;"> </span></a>really sad thing is when a person tries to
become a certain person by buying something. If I get a certain car, then I
will be an exciting or sexy person. I think it accounts for the great success
of health clubs. People buy memberships to health clubs thinking it will make
them healthy and slim. They just neglect the actual going to the health club
and exercise. All they have to do is buy a rope for jumping, a cheap pair of
sneakers, and maybe a ball, but acquiring an expensive membership reinforces in
their mind the self-definition of being athletic.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The stories that really caught my
interest, made me drool in fascination, and told me the most about the
storytellers, were not the stories of what they had or even who they were. The
real stories were what they didn’t have, what their hearts needed, what they longed
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">for</a>. Advertising wants to convince me to desire something. Modern society has fulfilled
all of our needs, or so it would have us think. Do I need mass marketing to
tell me what I want and that some massive corporation is already producing
thousands of it? I am not a great dad because I spent all of my son’s
adolescence working overtime in order to buy him a car. I am a great dad
because of the night I sat up watching him cough with the croup, praying for
each new breath. Tell me what you don’t have but what you really want, and that
tells me so much more about you than what you do have. Tell me what you wish <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">for</a>. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-72276352524859464462013-07-10T01:12:00.000-07:002013-07-10T01:12:33.053-07:00Two people, one heartThe torah concept of marriage is based on Abraham buying the field of Ephron in Hebron in order to bury his deceased wife, Sara. His marital obligations were over. But he was also arranging for his own burial. It is a strange and morbid prototype for marriage but in a deep way, very touching. The burial cave is called the Machpela, the doubling or coupled. There are, according to tradition, four couples buried there. Why bury married couples together? When a Jew is buried, it is forbidden for any part of him to be left behind. After an accident, God forbid, the area is searched with magnifying glasses and forceps to collect any small pieces or fragments so that they may be buried also. A man and wife must be buried together because they are one body. There are two stories of the creation of woman. In the first, they are created together, and in the second God puts man to sleep and performs surgery, removing a part of his body in order to make woman. According to the gemmarra, these are two events that happened in a series. In the first, God created an androgen; one body, two heads, four arms and legs. The second story is the separation of that being into two separate entities. This would explain the phenomenon known to every married couple. From the first day, marriage felt strangely natural and my wife seemed so familiar. On the other hand, after ten years of marriage, there are moments I look at my wife and feel like she is a total stranger. Marriage is a constant tension between oneness and individuality. We want to return to our natural state of joint unity, but at the same time we are physically separate and must relate to that. Sex, despite what Western culture would have us believe, is integrally linked to creating children. Sex is two individuals becoming one and creating an other, who is the embodiment of them in one. Marriage is the ultimate team sport. It means acquiring a new identity, a joint identity. In today’s world of individuality, marriage is an anachronism. When you get married, you become a joint individual. That has so many connotations. Anyone who has lost a spouse or has been under the threat of losing a spouse knows how deeply that goes. A man must protect his wife’s honor more than he does his own. But in a more mundane sense, the oneness means that in marriage you absolutely cannot have a winner and loser. If one person loses, you both lose, and if one person wins, you both win. The same is true in parenting. What good is winning? The other person is conquered, defeated, less. It is like having a fist fight between both of your hands. So you’ve proven which one is stronger. Who really suffers? In a marital relationship, it is rarely helpful to establish who is right and who is wrong. The real solution usually lies elsewhere, allowing the couple to embody oneness in a healthier, stronger way. Please, at all costs, avoid interactions that are focused on showing who is wrong. Don’t work towards ‘wrong’. Work towards ‘together’. Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-35534148853651967642013-07-07T22:23:00.000-07:002013-07-07T22:26:34.018-07:00You don't have to be crazy to be religious. But it helps.<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
So many days, my religious observance consists of waking up, stumbling into the bathroom, and being shocked at the crazy looking man in the mirror. Frum means having a long series of bad hair days, since I now have more hair sprouting from the bottom of my face than the top. Obviously, I became religious becauese I believed in God, but lately that has taken on a different meaning. Experience has shown me that what everyone calls logical, isn't. It may seem logical, but more often than not, it doesn't explain the whole story. One plus one equals two. Kind of. One plus one <em>plus x</em> equals two, but since x is always there, you stop seeing it. Doing mitzvot is trying to make things happen by connecting to 'x'. I feel like one of those scientists, using mechanical arms to move things around. Being religious means living in the world, knowing that things we can't see are happening under the surface, affecting the outcome and the process.</div>
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I really wanted to get accepted into the Israeli army. I was thirty years old and could have gotten an exemption if I pushed a little, but I saw it as my duty. I fudged a few questions about my medical history and told everyone including the janitor at the draft office that I wanted to serve in the army. One of the last stages in the draft process was the psychological test. It was a long questionnaire, which challenged my new abilities at reading Hebrew. The questions were very simple, and it was obvious which answers would indicate an unstable personality, not to be trusted with an automatic weapon. There were a few questions which challenged me as a person trying to be in touch with my spiritual nature. “Do you feel there is an entity inside of you, telling you to do things you don’t want to do?” I circled ‘No’, trying not to think of my daily battles with my evil inclination. “Do you sometimes leave your body?” Well…on a good day I do manage to connect with an expanded vision of creation. I was starting to think that society might see the struggle to be religious as a form of insanity. On one question I couldn’t hold myself back. “Do you feel the world changes drastically from one day to the next?” I circled ‘Yes’. I handed in the exam to a young sergeant who had been trained to grade these tests, thereby qualifying him to judge my sanity. He marked off my answers as I sat across from him. When he got to the question about the world changing, he looked up. “Would you care to explain your answer?” I smiled and handed him my passport. He looked puzzled but opened it up. The picture showed a young man in a black t-shirt with long curly hair, a moustache, and dangling earrings: a biker. In front of him sat a man with a beard and yarmulke; a religious Jew. I smiled. He gave me a passing grade and approved my induction.</div>
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As I get older and more experienced, I see more things that don't make sense. I don't understand how people can operate in such a world, flying blind, thinking they understand the world. Even stranger is when they act as if they do see, but actually don't. Morality is a prime example. In a godless world, being moral is counterproductive.Charity is almost criminal. Marriage is a religious thing. If you are entirely atheist, marriage simply doesn't make sense.If you don't believe in God, having children is a massive expense and bother that certainly doesn't justify the occasional spurts of happiness. No expense is spared to save a human life because people instinctively know that the finite body, a hunk of meat, contains an irreplaceable slice of the infinite.Nature is a constant source of wonder and awe. Quantum physics......well.... that's already kabbala. </div>
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-38989605827022017612013-07-04T22:45:00.000-07:002013-07-04T22:45:58.009-07:00The Language or Love, also known as "Gee, you're not from around here, are you?"<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">This i This going to sound crazy and illogical, but it is something I have seen so many times. Let me tell you a story. Once, when I was on kibbutz, my buddy (let’s call him Jake) wanted to get accepted as a member. Becoming a kibbutz member was a long but relatively painless process. Another friend of mine (let’s call him Sam) was making it difficult for Jake. He was going out of his way and even putting in time and energy to make Jake’s process difficult. One time, over tequila, Jake and I were discussing the problem with an older kibbutz member. He laughed and said, “What goes around comes around”. He went on to explain that when Sam had first arrived on kibbutz, fifteen years earlier, his acceptance process was very difficult. Now it would have been easy to write it off and say that Sam was a vindictive jerk, but I sensed there was something deeper going on. Sam was basically a friendly guy, in a weird and dysfunctional way, and he had even been friendly to Jake in the beginning. Then I realized that when Jake wanted to become a member, Sam decided to oblige him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sam had learned that acceptance to kibbutz was a painful process and he wanted to provide that for his friend Jake. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Love is a language that we learn. Actually, life is a language that we learn. What does love look like? For some people, tragically, love looks like a battle, with casualties and the children become collateral damage. Sometimes, if our spouse is not so obliging or does not speak our language, we fill in the blanks. If a person was raised in an abusive marriage, he will see everything the other person does as abuse, even silence, even acts of kindness. Or they will provide the abuse that a ‘loving marriage’ needs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>There are two issues here. One is in the receiving and the other is in the giving. We need to learn to understand our spouse’s language. We also need to look at our own language and how our spouse receives it. As a cook, I am not used to long conversations. If I find myself talking too long, I begin to expect that the chef will come running over to scream at me. In the middle of conversations with my wife, I would suddenly start fiddling around in the kitchen. She thought I was distracted or not interested. I had to realize what I was doing, how she was receiving it, and change it into an appropriate form that we could both live with.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>And the language in the marriage is unique. Yeshiva students beware; your wife is not your study partner. Logic isn’t always the answer and can actually make her angry. Businessmen, you can’t prove to your wife you love her by showing her how much you spent. Success in marriage is being together. The way to get there is by being together. Take the time. Learn each other’s language. Learn your own language. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">My wife used to ask me if I wanted a drink of water. My automatic response was usually, “No, thank you.” The implied response was “I don’t want to bother you.” I didn’t realize that she was hungry for an opportunity to express her love in a small way. Eventually, my wife discovered that I was one of those people who are stuck three rungs down on the evolutionary scale until I’ve had my coffee in the morning. Despite being a strong advocate of healthy eating, my wife has learned to make my coffee and more often than not, she makes it for me. And I have been drinking more water than I used to.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span>Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3213917619221611856.post-9239484808519703382013-07-02T23:05:00.000-07:002013-07-02T23:05:12.346-07:00The impossible romance, is<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-outline-level: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Western<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>concept of romantic love is based on, or characterized by, the Arthurian myth of Tristan and Iseult. </span>I highly recommend reading Robert Johnson’s, <span>We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love. He explains it beautifully in Jungian terms. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">According to the story, Tristan and Iseult have accidentally drunk a love potion, thereby falling hopelessly in love despite Iseult being married to Cornwall, Tristan’s uncle who he is sworn to faithfully serve. They are relentlessly chased by the king, their love being chaste and pure, epitomized by them sleeping in the forest, Iseult’s sword thrust into the ground between them.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> <span lang="EN">Finally, the cruel king stabs his nephew in the back, and Tristan, at Iseult's request, fatally crushes his beloved in a tight embrace as his final act. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Unfortunately, our society and culture have programmed us with a concept of love that has many contradicting aspects and make it unsustainable and unrealistic. Our belief of romantic love is that it is above logic and reason, a runaway freight train of emotion we have no control over. The object of our love is probably not the healthiest choice, perhaps even the worst choice possible, but true love transcends and conquers all. It is the two of us against the world, do or die, more likely do and die. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It has always amazed me how single people resist the idea of shidduch. They think shidduch means an arranged marriage, one in which they have no say. Shidduch is not like that nor has it ever been. Shidduch is more about friends, relatives, and other people close to you making a suggestion based on things they now about you. In pre-Google days, it made sense. But grown up children raised on sitcoms, sugar coated breakfast cereal, and romance, avoid it like the plague, preferring to march forward in their dating like lemmings to the sea. It is more romantic when the odds are astronomically against happiness. Love is blind. Yet twentieth century, post-disco, romance means falling in love with someone you barely know (at best), based mostly on how they look on a dance floor. The internet version of love at first sight is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>based on how the picture on their homepage looks and a personal profile that may be more fiction than fact. You’d be better off falling in love with their avatar. I know people who trust a search engine to find love more than friends or family. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I don’t believe in romance. Or more accurately, I believe romance tells the truth when it whispers stories about impossible love. Impossible love is. For a quick burst of passion, something to get the hormones humming, romance is just the ticket. But so is bungee jumping. If you want to be long-term happy in marriage, it is better to find someone who has similar life interests and values, and is also happens to be cute as a button. When I tell you to burn your romance novels, I am not compromising. The opposite. Don’t compromise on anything. I am saying have a romance with a person you like, someone you respect and can connect to. My definition of romance is much more idealistic and strict. You can walk into any room and close your eyes, pick a dozen people you know nothing about, and have a steamy romance with them, anguishing for months or even years before finally acknowledging that your differences are well and truly irreconcilable. But what about love at first sight? I believe strongly in love at first sight. I just believe in giving love at first sight<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a better chance of lasting longer than a day, by choosing to look at people who I have a better chance of having a healthy relationship with.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Again, this is all about relationships being based on self-definition and not on bargaining. If I choose to be with someone whose values and life goals are different than mine, than one of us will have to compromise in order for the relationship to continue. And when it comes to life values, compromising means killing a part of yourself that is dear. That makes it romantic. Romance and the story it is based on glorify death. If you choose to suffer and die, than romance is fine (Read the story of Tristan and Iseult, or Romeo and Juliet, again if you think I am exaggerating). <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I suggest a new definition of love based on life. Love is the source of your life. No compromises. It is coming together with a part of yourself, someone who treasures who you are, and his/her happiness is dependent on every aspect of you growing. It involves the heart, the mind, and the body. It has legs and is meant to live as long as your life. Growing old together is the new romance.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span>Adam Eliyahu Berkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13309846989998272930noreply@blogger.com0