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Sheltering Walls

Bare Trees in Fog

Copy of Who Gets to Say?

Updated: Oct 7

It is National Book Banned Week!


Imagine that . . .or, don't imagine. That is the desired effect of banning books from readers like you and me and your kids and mine. No reader, whatever the age, should be deprived of any author toiling for hours, days, weeks, months and years to capture our imagination with concepts that begin in their own. Nothing could be purer or simpler, until somebody mucks it up. WHO gets to say? We know the answer to that rhetorical question: "Mind your own beeswax", as my grandson used to say to his meddling sisters.


There is no joy in banning books, but we can celebrate the love of books by going into our favorite bookstore and library to pick up a book that seems to have been waiting just for us. Ordering online is okay, too, but it is nothing like supporting your local bookseller and library. Just imagine where we would be without them?


In the long winters in Iceland, a reading tradition begins on Christmas Eve known as"Jolabokaflod". Unpronounceable, but translated it means: Christmas Book Flood.


This unique and cherished tradition involves giving and receiving new books, then sitting by the fire with loved ones sharing in that simple joy of reading a book. Dating way back to oral storytellers in the 9th century, then much later in the 1700's when the first public library was established when schools were scarce, Icelanders read to self-educate. During WW II the tradition officially began.


Iceland boasts a nearly 100 percent literacy rate. Here are some fun facts taken from the site Arctic Adventures:*


  • Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country: 1 in 10 Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime!

  • Icelanders read an average of 2.3 books per month

  • Youth frequently read in languages other than Icelandic

  • A vast majority (76%) believe that it is essential for Icelandic literature to have public support and funding (italics mine)


Compare and Contrast with US:


Story and Song Center for Arts and Culture: https://storyandsongarts.org/
Story and Song Center for Arts and Culture: https://storyandsongarts.org/




 
 
 

In Other Words . . .

When there are no words, turning to someone wiser helps. I share the sentiments expressed by Rabbi Rubenstein of Harvard University Hillel to the incoming students. I offer it to you with his permission:


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. . . "Our time is a fraught and contested one: the headlines from America to Israel and across the globe surprise and worry us; we get our news from diverse and irreconcilable sources; the frameworks through which we have long understood the world now come up short in helping us navigate our rapidly shifting reality. 


How are we to move through these times - together, as individuals and a community - and not merely live, but make choices and, when necessary, sacrifices of which we are proud? Two very different approaches recommend themselves and - as it always does - the Jewish tradition holds both of them, “these and these are the words of the living God.” So we live them both at Harvard Hillel.


One stance is to seize the day, roll up our sleeves, and enter into the fray - to be, as Teddy Roosevelt put it, “in the arena.” Confronted by forces of hatred or intolerance, we organize, recruit allies, strategize, and fight to win. Jews - from at least the time Esther, and certainly since Herzl, have been consistent, energetic, and effective political actors. From building a state to creating and sustaining the organs of communal life and advocacy in America and elsewhere - our people knows the work of accruing and deploying power, in tune with the times and responsive to emergent stresses and possibilities. 


And there is another stance, one with at least as deeply-rooted a tradition in Judaism: the retreat from politics into the timeless cycle of holidays and the eternity of the Torah. Captured well by Arik Einstein, this tradition goes very deep: I remember my teacher Seth Schwartz asserting that the most stable and distinctive feature of traditional Rabbinic writing - from the Mishna through the modern giants - is that it is nearly impossible to discern anything about the political climate of the piece or its author. A given responsum could equally have been written under the Hapsburgs, the Czars, or during the Risorgimento; any piece of Talmud could have been produced under Roman (pagan or Christian) or Persian rule - each is defined by an internally-defined set of rules and ideas, a chain of teachers and students that stands impervious to the headlines and upheavals of the day or even the era." . . .

A minsister I know used to end each Sunday service this way:


"Peace, Shalom, Shanti. Now go and do as you see fit".


Amen!


 
 
 

Making US Great Again in My Little Town?

Updated: Sep 9

In my little town


I grew up believing


God keeps his eye on us all


And he used to lean upon me


As I pledged allegiance to the wall


Lord, I recall my little town


Coming home after school


Flying my bike past the gates of the factories


My mom doing the laundry


Hanging out shirts in the dirty breeze


And after it rains there's a rainbow


And all of the colors are black


It's not that the colors aren't there


It's just imagination they lack


Everything's the same back in my little town*


That is until now when this happened to my little town

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 DHS and its US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arm are calling the operation Patriot 2.0, modifying the name of a May deportation surge that led to the arrest of 1,500 people in the state, according to the reports.**


When the streets look less safe for kids after school flying their bikes on the streets where they live, the "good ol' days" are gone, never to be "great again".


My heart goes out to Massachusetts from Boston to the Berkshires where music, medicine, education are hallmarks for one and all. The "bluest" state, as it is often called has a very long history where the American Revolution began in Lexington on the Green. Each April that moment of resistance is re-enacted in real time. To witness it is a reminder that ordinary people, holding their own against powerful people, stood up for US. We have been their legacy for nearly 250 years. We owe them something in return. Standing up against powerful people is democracy more than that one precious vote. Standing up against powerful people empowers everyone. Boston is no stranger to empowering one another when the time comes.

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