About Legacy.com
Legacy.com is a gateway to memories.
No, seriously. I find it kind of creepy.
Spiking off of Facebook
TW: I am going to allow Pres Obama a bit more time before I decide he is not a friend to the GLBTQ community and being pro two-state does not = being anti Israel and certainly not anti Americans of any certain faith.
JP: It’s been 4 1/2 months! Give the guy some time! Jeez! To quote Seth Myers “Let’s not forget, the last guy BROKE THE WORLD!” (though I do realize how much of an idiot I sound quoting SNL)
I appreciate the thought; we are currently having similar issues with a new mayor. It’s easy to have opinions but it’s much harder to be the one who has to make the decisions, especially if you’re the new guy. But, boy, I hope he was prepared for the issues well before the actual election. If he was a doctor, he wouldn’t get a breaking in period to make mistakes.
I would like to say that I did not say that he was “anti;” I might say that he is not as “pro” as some had hoped. I cannot give an opinion on the GLBTQ community, as I am not a part. I do comment on the other because I am American, Jewish, and Israeli, living in Jerusalem, where we would like to keep our city as it is, and where we are being directly effected by the new guy’s decisions. I gotta tell you that I’m itching to give away New York City as an international city that should be shared by the world.
Just a thought.
Yom HaZicharon (Day of Remembrance)
This is the day on which all of Israel remembers everyone who has fallen for her, soldier and bystander. Television and radio stations carry special programming, or go off the air, and entertainment is closed. Nationally, we know the name and the face, of every casualty, as it happened; few of us do not have a personal loss.
At eight o’clock in the evening, and again at eleven in the morning, the siren sounds, and the world . . . stops. Immediately and in place. Cars and buses, people in the grocery store, crossing the street, working, talking, all movement, it all stops. Stops. Every year, I am overwhelmed.
Pairs and choice: Part 01
From the beginning, every thing was created as half of a pair, each half truly or finally complete only in relation to its other half. Even the physical space that we inhabit exists in relativity–above and below, light and dark, night and day, wet and dry, physical and metaphysical–before even flora and fauna were created, themselves a pair. Of all of the creatures, only the human was created originally as a single being, with intention not yet separated, and the human was singly given choice that required a soul.
Paired inherently with choice-and-soul is the ability to apply mercy, kindness, justice in order to create a world based in the same. The soul knows this, that the world only begins to change when one soul connects with another soul, and two become one pair, which is something more. What had to be set into motion was the desire to be an agent for change. For this reason, the base of the two was reformed from that of the single, whose experience was that alone meant limited happiness and unending frustration.
The single was reformed into a pair, separated to here and to there as was the light from the dark, from a finite resource based in mercy, kindness, justice.
Thus, to be single and not half of one pair, is lack access to all of that life’s potential for completion, and, thus, we are made to want to choose to be in a situation that engenders more potential mercy, kindness, justice.
End of Part One
Intention: an ongoing discussion
From the beginning, every thing was created as half of a pair, each half relative only to its other half. Even the physical space that we inhabit exists in parallels–above and below, light and dark, night and day, wet and dry, physical and metaphysical–before even flora and fauna were created, themselves a pair. Of all of the creatures, only the human was created originally as a single being, not yet separated, and the human was singly given choice.
Paired with this condition and to this gift, is that, in order to be complete, the human is merciful, kind, just. Accordingly, awareness of the necessity for these qualities is brought about only through awareness of another, another viewed equally but with differences to remind the intender to act for other than self.
Choice is what separates us from other creatures in our world. Choices can be intuitive, an immediate knowing, which I believe are moments of parity with the spiritual plane to which we aspire. Other choices are reasoned within the physical of the here and now.
Intuition and reason brought together properly should propel us to recognize when we feel rightly, and then to act as we are intended. The world is as it is in order to motivate us to choose, to choose to act with intention, to bring about the simultaneous existence of the physical/now world and the spiritual/always world.
We have a guide by which to choose. Halakha is the way we are to go, but it is only the way, it is not the act by itself, and to follow it without intention in the greater sense actually choice blocks that path.
Pairs
What exactly is happiness? Is it possible to be without a partner, and be completely happy? I don’t think so.
From the beginning, every thing was created as half of a pair, each half relative only to its other half. Even the physical space that we inhabit exists in parallels–above and below, light and dark, night and day, wet and dry, physical and metaphysical–before even flora and fauna were created, themselves a pair. Of all of the creatures, only the human was created originally as a single being, not yet separated, and the human was singly given choice.
Paired with this condition and to this gift, is that, in order to be complete, the human is merciful, kind, just, but these qualities are relative only when applied to another, another viewed equally but with differences to remind the intender to act for other than self.
How much more fulfilled by, and grateful for, that other was the first human when halved and reunited, than if the halves had existed originally as already-paired parts.
A pair that is not together is not empowering intent within itself, and has no chance to exist as a force to affect the world. As that is why we were created in such a fashion, a single must, in fact, rely on another half in order to be completed.
