There are currently nearly 2.2 million podcasts out there, according to ListenNotes. According to Amplifi and Podnews, 44% of the podcasts have less than 3 episodes. Only 720,000 podcasts have more than 10 episodes. Of those 720,000 podcasts, only 156,000 are releasing a weekly episode.

There are more than 1 billion podcast listeners every week (really!). Most listeners are in Asia, India, and China and are responsible for 45% of all podcast listener-ship in the world. In the United States, 80 million people, or 28% of the population (over the age of 12) are weekly listeners.

Most of the podcasts are coming from the United States (1.4 million to be precise). While India and China have the most listeners, they only account for 42,000 podcasts. 1.3 million Podcasts are in English. The second most popular language, Spanish, is far behind with only 220,000 podcasts.

[Source for all the above stats: https://podcastpage.io/podcast-statistics/]

So, 80 million of us Americans are devotees of podcasts. I listen every morning on my 60-90 minutes-walk in my neighborhood, whenever I’m driving alone on a long distance journey in my car (in LA, that is a fairly frequent occurrence), and occasionally when I’m doing the laundry, washing dishes, or doing other household tasks that bore me silly. I’m sure, given the numbers above, I’m not the only one.

My preferred Podcasts are those in which I can learn something new about our times in politics, current affairs, thought, and history in the United States, Israel, the Jewish world, and beyond. I listen to Podcasts that express ideas from the political left, right, and center of the political spectrum. I do not listen to Podcasts whose hosts rile me up emotionally – life is just too short. I look to be both stimulated and entertained.

Here is my preferred current list:

American News, Politics, and Commentary

Post Reports – Daily from The Washington Post with Martine Powers.

The Daily – Daily from The New York Times with Michael Barbaro and Sabrina Tavernise.

Hell and High Water – Twice-weekly with John Heilemann.

Pod Save America – Twice-weekly with Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor.

The Bulwark – Twice-weekly with Charlie Sykes.

The Ezra Klein Show – Twice-weekly.

Sway – Twice-weekly with Kara Swisher from the New York Times.

The Lincoln Project – Twice-weekly founded by former and incumbent anti-Trump Republicans.

Politics War Room – Weekly with James Carville and Al Hunt.

The New Yorker: Politics and More – Weekly with different hosts.

Hacks on Tap – Weekly with David Axelrod, Mike Murphy, and Robert Gibbs.

The Axe Files – Weekly with David Axelrod.

History

HistoryExtra – Daily from the BBC History Magazine.

Reflections of History – Daily with Jon Meacham (5 minutes each episode).

History this Week – Weekly with Sally Helm.

Jewish and Israeli News and Commentary

The Daily Briefing – From The Times of Israel with Jessica Steinberg and Amanda Bush Eldan.

The Promised – Weekly from Tel Aviv (TLV1) with Noah Ephron, Allison Kaplan Sommer, and Don Futterman.

Tel Aviv Review – Weekly from the Jerusalem Leer Institute on TLV1 with Gideon Halpern.

Haaretz Weekly – With Allison Kaplan Sommer.

For Heaven’s Sake – Every other week from the Shalom Hartman Institute with Rabbi Donniel Hartman, Yossi Klein Halevi, and Elana Stein-Hain.

In These Times – Every other week with Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue, NY.

No – I don’t listen to every podcast every week.

When I become weary of the news and commentary, I shift to music (usually classical), or I take off my head-phones, listen to the birds in the early morning hours in Sherman Oaks and Studio City as the sun rises, and let my mind wander.

In the past week I watched two moving and important films now streaming on Netflix that offer insight into the origins of the modern State of Israel and the development of Israel through the experience of one of the most important of Israel’s founding generation, the late Prime Minister and President of the State Shimon Peres.

I highly recommend both to your viewing this summer and especially hope that young liberal and progressive American Jews (from junior high school age through their millennial years) who may be unsure of or question their relationship with Israel to watch both of them.

“Image of Victory – תמונת הניצחון,” a 128-minute 2021 film based on true events that took place during the 1948 Israeli Independence War and was set in a kibbutz called “Nitzavim” on the Mediterranean coast between the Gaza Strip and Tel Aviv. In a ferocious battle between the Egyptian forces and about 200 young Israelis between the ages of 16 and 25, one cannot help but be moved and impressed by the courage of those young Israelis who gave their lives for the infant Jewish state or were taken as POWs by the Egyptian army. The battle that completely destroyed the kibbutz under Egyptian missiles and tanks is viewed from both the Egyptian and Israeli perspectives. The film, directed by Avi Nesher, was nominated for 15 Israeli Ophir awards and is the most expensive film ($5 million) ever shot in Israel. The film crew recreated in its entirety the former Nitzavim settlement only to destroy it with guns and tanks as the Egyptians did so long ago. The film is streaming on Netflix in Hebrew and Arabic with English sub-titles.

“Never Stop Dreaming: The Life and Legacy of Shimon Peres” is a moving two-hour documentary including portions of more than 50 hours of interviews with the former Israeli Prime Minister and President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres including discussion of his origins in Belarus, his relationship with his learned and revered grandfather, his teen-age years during the British Mandate helping to build up agriculture, and his close relationship with Israel’s founding Prime Minister and Minister of Defense David Ben Gurion. The film reveals Peres’ key roles in building up Israel’s Defense capability, in launching the famed 1976 Entebbe Rescue, developing a Jordanian peace deal with King Hussein in 1987, his advocacy of the Oslo Peace Process, his complex relationship with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and his role in inspiring Israel to become a hi-tech society. The film is streaming on Netflix and is in English.

Taken together, these two films amply show the courage, vision, ingenuity, and dreams for peace of the respective subjects.

I have lived with the death of a dear one since I was a child when my father died suddenly at the young age of 53. I was 9 years old. That loss was especially painful in my young life as it is for any child who loses a parent.

I have often wondered where my Dad was after he died. I knew exactly where his remains are buried in the cemetery, but where was the essence of him after he took his last breath? What happened to his spirit and soul, his mind, memory, and consciousness? As the years passed, did he know what became of his sons, my brother and me, his family and friends? Or, upon death did he simply cease to be, his memory gone, his consciousness inert, and his being nullified. In the Hebrew Bible, death is sometimes described as a state of non-being in “Sheol,” the “place” of non-existence, darkness, lifelessness – neither heaven nor hell.

I have had to help congregants over decades cope with our powerlessness before and following the death of loved ones, of our inability to answer the ultimate question about what happens to us, if anything, when we die. I read everything I could find in Kabbalah, Christian mysticism, Islamic Sufism, Buddhism, Native American and other faith traditions about the nature of the soul and that which animates a human being. At times, I allowed myself to believe in the idea that the soul is indestructible and eternal, that it retains its memories as it journeys into the metaphysical realm, and that it is aware of the lives of its surviving loved ones. I allowed myself to believe the evidence of past-life memory and the eventual return of the soul to effect tikun (repair) as a consequence of the former life’s bad behavior and moral failings. I found that this was often a comforting response to those who needed or wanted to believe that there is a reality to the soul separate from the body that transcends the material world.

The French Catholic Jesuit Priest and theologian Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) once said: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” I quoted him high and low for years, and part of me believes he was right, that there is far more to our lives than our earthly material experience, that soul-consciousness exists in the metaphysical realm, that it is a remarkable truth that one soul comes into one body to create a human life, and if it does so once, why not twice and many times.

In 1995, after two years of reading, polling my congregants about their experiences of past-life memory and intuitive knowledge, I delivered a Kol Nidre sermon that I called “The Journey of the Soul” in which I made the case for reincarnation – in Hebrew, gilgul hanefesh (“wheel of the soul”) – and justified it based on the work of many originally skeptical scientists and physicians such as Elizabeth Kubler Ross, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Melvin Morse, Dr. Brian Weiss, and others into near-death experiences and past-life memory. I read The Tibetan Book of the Dead and the scientific work of the University of Virginia researcher Dr. Ian Stevenson on evidence of past-life memory in a number of subjects whose knowledge of former lives could not have been known through any normal means.

In Reform Judaism, the 19^th and 20^th century liberal Jewish religious stream that grew out of the European Enlightenment, I knew that when I delivered that sermon I was taking a risk of alienating rationalists in my community on the holiest evening of the Jewish year. I was surprised, in spite of the history of my movement, that many resonated with what I said and were inspired and comforted by the possibility that one’s soul-life survives death and is very long. I shared the stories of people in my community who told me that they had experienced visitations by dead relatives through dreams and in their waking moments. One told me she knew that her father died in exactly the way he did as a result of a catastrophic auto accident before being informed of the death because he came to her (they lived hundreds of miles apart) to tell her that he was at peace and that she should not worry about him. One well-known and highly respected non-Orthodox Jewish scholar in the Los Angeles Jewish community told me confidentially of a visit by his dead father soon after his funeral to him in his waking hours. I asked, “What do you make of this?” He said, “I don’t know because if I gave it any more thought I would have to change everything I believe to be true.”

In his series of books beginning with Many Lives, Many Masters, Dr. Brian Weiss presented compelling evidence that human beings can access the souls of the dead through hypnosis, and that there is a thin line between this world and the metaphysical realm. Part of me believes it’s true. Of course, no one can prove by empirical means the reality of soul-consciousness beyond death. Belief in it involves intuitive thinking and accepting the truths provided to us through non-rational (as opposed to irrational) thinking.

If gilgul hanefesh is a true thing, Jewish mysticism affirms that our souls undergo a process of tikun in the first eleven months after death, and then the soul ascends to the Otzar Ha-Nefashot (Treasury of Souls) before ascending higher into either lower Gan Eden or higher Gan Eden before returning to a new life.

There are many take-away lessons to be learned in reincarnation theory, that our lives are far more complex than we realize, that we are here to learn and evolve morally and ethically, that human life is short in the greater expanse of time, that a soul’s life is long, that the virtues of humility, appreciation, gratitude, and generosity are key elements to fulfillment, magnanimity, wisdom, and happiness, and that we are here to love and, hopefully, be loved.

Regardless of whether we believe in reincarnation theory or not, those truths are worthy in and of themselves.

By Ami Ayalon, Gilead Sher, and Orni Petruschka

July 20, 2022 – Opinion – Haaretz

[Note: Despite the expansion of the settlement enterprise in Israel’s occupied West Bank, these three leading Israelis continue to affirm the position that the United States must lead the way in bringing Israel and the Palestinians to the negotiating table to lay plans for an eventual two-states for two peoples resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. See their biographies at the conclusion of this op-ed.]

During a press conference in Ramallah on July 16, U.S. President Joe Biden reiterated that “as president of the United States, my commitment to [the] goal of a two-state solution has not changed in all these years.”

He then added that “even if the ground is not ripe at this moment to restart negotiations, the United States and my administration will not give up on trying to bring the Palestinians and Israelis and both sides closer together.”

Biden then flew to Saudi Arabia, where Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir clarified Riyadh’s position on CNN: “Once we have committed to a two-state settlement with a Palestinian state in the occupied territories with East Jerusalem as its capital, that’s our requirement for peace.”

Biden’s visit presented a multi-focal opportunity for the Israeli government: first, to restore a non-partisan, intimate strategic relationship with the United States; second, to fine-tune a coordinated policy to counter a nuclear-threshold Iran; third, to further reinforce the regional normalization spring-boarded by the 2020 Abraham Accords; and fourth, and most importantly, to clarify that Israel does not support either the three-state solution (which would return the West Bank to Jordan and the Gaza Strip to Egypt) or the slide toward a disastrous one-state reality.

Unfortunately, it failed to do the last of these.

The visit was potentially a golden opportunity for Israel to convey that it seeks to promote a process of gradual, responsible, continuous, and purposeful separation from the Palestinians, thereby ensuring its future as a Jewish and democratic, secure, and egalitarian state, all while respecting the Palestinian right to self-determination. All this requires courage, leadership, and national responsibility.

And the Biden administration should be hands-on in terms of both the process and the ultimate vision of a two-state reality, which is indispensable. It is attainable through a series of transitional phases, interim agreements, and independent steps, all compliant with a continuous regional, multilateral, and bilateral negotiation process.

It is clearer now that there are no shortcuts to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, contrary to what Trump and Netanyahu would have liked us to believe with the festivities over the Abraham Accords.

For us and those like us, Israelis who do not shy away from both love of our country and concern about its future as the democratic and secure nation-state of the Jewish people, the spirit of the Declaration of Independence is a lodestar.

Whenever liberal Zionist patriots like us, who served the country without batting an eye, do not deal with the occupation and its consequences, we abandon the arena and allow the continuation of the creeping annexation process. And every day that passes without advancing toward disengaging from the Palestinians and ending the occupation, the creeping annexation distances us from the possibility of changing reality.

The terminology of “shrinking the conflict” that the outgoing government has championed is linguistic whitewashing aimed at continuing the tacit annexation.

While turning a blind eye to the settlement outposts in Evyatar and Homesh and showing laxity in the face of the despicable phenomena of seriously, unruly settler violence, and most importantly categorically dismissing any dialogue with the Palestinians, Israel is blindly walking down the road of a one-state reality.

Its indifference to the ramifications of the so-called status quo is a mirror image of the Arab world’s “three nos” at the Khartoum Conference of 1967: this time, it’s no to peace, no to recognition of a Palestinian state, and no to negotiations with representatives of the Palestinian people.

There is currently no political feasibility for a two-state solution. Nevertheless, the moderate camp, with its political, civil, and public branches led by Prime Minister Yair Lapid and his colleagues, should rally around a plan and message that will promote the creation of a two-state reality and preserve the chances and conditions for future Israeli-Palestinian disengagement and creation two distinct nation-states with a border between them; call for a freeze on settlement outside the major blocs; and promote mechanisms that will enable the evacuation of settlements located east of the separation barrier.

Any other course means that the center-left is joining a policy of annexation that will lead to the loss of Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state, which would bury the Zionist enterprise and be a disaster for both us and the Palestinians.

The right-wing parties in Israel boastfully say are part of “the national camp.” In practice, they are no more than the binational camp, willfully leading us to a disastrous binational state instead of the necessary partition.

Prime Minister Lapid and the moderate camp around him should express a willingness to promote a plan aimed more ambitiously at providing a better future to generations of the some 15 million Israelis and Palestinians living in this battered land. Let us hope a second “government of change” is established after the November election, one that will adopt a step-by-step policy of advancement toward a better regional reality.

Ami Ayalon is a former commander of the Israeli Navy and head of the Israeli domestic security agency.

Gilead Sher is an Israeli attorney who served as Chief of Staff and Policy Coordinator to Israel’s former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak.

Orni Petruschka is a high-tech entrepreneur in Israel and co-founder of the Israeli independent, non-partisan organization, Blue White Future.

Note: I am printing the combined statement of American Reform Judaism (the Union for Reform Judaism, Central Conference of American Rabbis, American Conference of Cantors) concerning the American Presbyterian Church’s defamatory statement about Israel. As the statement notes towards the end, the American Reform Jewish movement has called over many years for a negotiated two states for two people’s resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This designation by the PCUSA of Israel as an “Apartheid state” is not only inaccurate (as the statement below explains) but is inflammatory and will be used by anti-Israel and antisemitic left-wing elements in the United States to delegitimize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

July 13, 2022 

The Reform Jewish Movement strongly condemns Presbyterian Church (USA)’s declaration falsely charging that Israel is an apartheid state, with the passage of Amendment INT-02 at its recent General Assembly. The Reform Movement is equally appalled that the Church entertained a recommendation to remove the term “antisemitism” from its official lexicon, preferring the term “anti-Jewish,” as it is universally accepted that “antisemitism” refers specifically to the hatred of the Jewish people. This is not the first time that an egregious statement on Israel has been made by PCUSA leadership, and we can clearly see that this is part of a pattern. Earlier this year in his reflection for Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, the Church’s highest official, Stated Clerk Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II, described Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as, “21st-century slavery.”

The Reform Movement condemns these libelous mischaracterizations of the Jewish State, which carry with them a significant risk of increased antisemitism in the United States and worldwide.

The accusation of ‘apartheid’ is flawed, as the distinguishing factor determining the legal system in the West Bank is based on nationality and citizenship, not racial hierarchy, skin color, religious, or ethnic measures. Positioning the conflict in racial terms is simply wrong and is unhelpful in bringing this conflict to resolution. PCUSA and other international organizations continuously fail to recognize the context of Israel/Palestine, as they do not address Israel’s security concerns or the call by many of Israel’s neighbors – including the Palestinians – to bring an end to the Jewish State.

While the North American Reform Movement has a long-standing policy of opposition to Israeli settlements, we deeply regret that the PCUSA has taken an entirely unhelpful, even counterproductive, approach toward achieving a two-state solution. We acknowledge that the occupation regularly causes hardship to Palestinians, and to that end, we have repeatedly called for negotiations to establish two states for two peoples.

Reform Jews across North America enjoy warm relationships with local Presbyterian clergy and laity, many of whom have chosen to disassociate themselves from the national body. We will continue to nurture those relationships, engaging our friends and partners honestly and candidly to share our hurt, anger, and disappointment. Reform rabbis, cantors, and lay leaders will work with our Presbyterian partners to build a greater understanding of the Jewish people’s commitment to Israel, as well as a more accurate and nuanced understanding of its ongoing conflicts, its vulnerability to antisemitism, and our shared concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people. We call on PCUSA to retract their resolution.

Central Conference of American Rabbis
Rabbi Lewis Kamrass (he/him), President
Rabbi Hara E. Person (she/her), Chief Executive

American Conference of Cantors
Cantor Seth Warner (he/him), President
Rachel Roth (she/her), Chief Operating Officer

Union for Reform Judaism
Jennifer Brodkey Kaufman (she/her), Chair
Rabbi Rick Jacobs (he/him), President

Classified document reveals IDF ‘firing zones’ built to give land to settlers

In a top-secret meeting held in 1979, revealed here for the first time, then-Agricultural Minister Ariel Sharon explained that firing zones were meant to create ‘land reserves’ for settlements, as part of his larger plan of establishing ‘ethnic borders’ between Jews and Palestinians.

By Yuval Abraham July 11, 2022 – 972 Magazine

A never-before-seen document reveals that Israel created “military firing zones” in the occupied West Bank as a mechanism for transferring land to settlements. Those firing zones, which on their face were established for the purpose of military training, were built as part of a larger strategy to create an “ethnic border” between Jews and Palestinians. (See link below)

I offer below an addendum to my post on Sunday, July 10, 2022 (“What to know in advance of Biden’s visit to Israel and the M.E. this week”). I included a letter to President Biden signed by American pro-Israel organizations, including the Union for Reform Judaism representing 1.5 million American Reform Jews, urging him to protest the removal of 1000 Palestinians from their homes in Masafer Yatta in the southern Occupied West Bank area around Hebron. Since Sunday, more organizations signed onto the letter. The letter was organized by J Street.

Here is the complete list:

Ameinu – Americans for Peace Now – Habonim Dror North America – Hashomer Hatzair USA – Israel Policy Forum – Jewish Labor Committee – J Street – National Council of Jewish Women – New Israel Fund – New York Jewish Agenda – Partners for Progressive Israel – Reconstructing Judaism – Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association – T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights – Union for Reform Judaism

For English translation of original Hebrew article just posted on 972 Magazine, read details here – https://www.972mag.com/firing-zones-sharon-settlements/

Below is a link in Politico to a very good overview of what President Biden’s challenges and positions are vis a vis Israel, the Palestinians, the Saudis, other regional allies, and Iran as he prepares to spend four days in the Middle East beginning with a visit to Israel on Wednesday, July 13.

Before you read it, I want to share with you a letter that will be presented to President Biden on Monday (July 11) at the White House before he leaves for Israel that is signed by many liberal and progressive pro-Israel Zionist organizations including the Union for Reform Judaism (the umbrella organization of 850 Reform synagogues in America representing 1.5 million American Reform Jews) on the potential tragedy in the Occupied West Bank at Masafer Yatta, a collection of 19 Palestinian hamlets with a population of about 1000 Palestinians. This area is located in the southern West Bank between 14 and 24 kilometers south of the city of Hebron in the southern Hebron Hills. This letter, as is stated, follows another letter by dozens of US Senators and Congressional Representatives to Secretary Anthony Blinken making the case why it is important for the Israeli government and military NOT to follow through on this risky, inhumane, potentially explosive, and unnecessary military operation that will deprive 1000 Palestinians of their homes.

Quick background to Masafer Yatta: On May 4, 2022, Israel’s High Court ruled that Masafer Yatta residents had “failed to prove” their claim of permanent residence in the area before the Israeli army declared it a “restricted military site” known as “Firing Zone 918.” The Israeli High Court judgment ended a two-decade long legal struggle, paving the way for the eviction of all 1000 Palestinians from their homes and the planned demolition of those homes. In the 1980s, the Israeli military deemed that the area is a military zone and “uninhabited.” However, Palestinians claim that they have occupied these hamlets long before Israel occupied the area after the 1967 War.

The following letter from the American pro-Israel organizations urges President Biden to ask Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid not to carry out the High Court’s order and not to demolish the homes of these 1000 Palestinians.  

Here is the letter and the list of signatories – following the letter, I post the link to a very worthwhile read in Politico.

July 11, 2022

The Honorable Joseph R. Biden

President of the United States

The White House

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We are pro-Israel organizations writing to urge you to help prevent the forced displacement of approximately 1,000 Palestinians from their homes in the area of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. We ask you to raise this issue and make clear the United States’ firm opposition to such displacement in your upcoming trip to Israel.

Earlier this year, the Israeli government won its bid to have the Israeli Supreme Court greenlight the forced displacement of at least 1,000 Palestinians from their homes in several of the Masafer Yatta villages in the South Hebron Hills. This would be the largest mass eviction of Palestinian families in decades, and the demolition of homes in the area has already begun.

Dozens of US Senators and Representatives wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May, concerned that “this relocation of Palestinian families from homes they have lived on for generations could spark violence, is in direct violation of international humanitarian law, and could further undermine efforts to reach a two-state solution.”

“As supporters of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, we believe such evictions undermine our shared democratic values, imperil Israel’s security, and disregard Palestinian human and civil rights,” the lawmakers wrote. “We respectfully request that you immediately engage with the Israeli government to prevent these evictions and further military training exercises in the area.”

As lifelong advocates for Israel’s security and survival as the democratic homeland of the Jewish people, we echo these lawmakers’ call and believe it is vital that you firmly and unequivocally oppose these harmful displacements. We stand ready to welcome and amplify such a message delivered in your upcoming trip to Israel and the West Bank.

Sincerely,

Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Habonim Dror North America, and Hashomer Hatzair USA, J Street, New Israel Fund, Partners for Progressive Israel, Reconstructing Judaism, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, T’ruah, Union for Reform Judaism

See this link to the Political analysis: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/09/israel-winner-after-biden-meeting-with-saudi-crown-prince-00044789

“But words are things, a small drop of ink, / Falling like dew upon a thought, produces / That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” –Lord Byron (1788-1824)

After January 6, 2021, I compiled a list of descriptive words used by journalists and op-ed writers to describe Donald Trump’s behavior and character. I posted that list on this blog on January 8, 2021, two days after the violent insurrection against American democracy. In the past eighteen months, however, I have had to add more descriptive language that journalists and others have used in describing the former President. Taking them together, they create a mind-numbingly negative and bleak portrait of a man who was the most powerful human being in the world.

Never could I have imagined in my lifetime that any Presidency could be worse than the criminal enterprise run out of the White House by Richard Nixon. But I was wrong. It seems clear, even before the January 6 hearings are concluded and the Justice Department finishes its work, that Trump outpaced Nixon’s criminality by a wide margin.

Frank Bruni wrote in response to Cassidy Hutchinson’s damning testimony of Trump before the House Committee (“Was Jan. 6 Really ‘Un-American’?” NYT, June 30, 2022):

“…this country is a mix of truth and lie, of generosity and selfishness, of order and chaos. What Hutchinson saw on Jan. 6, 2021, wasn’t ‘un-American.’ It was just an especially sad and scary version of America.”

Bruni was right. Trump does not represent us all or the America as envisioned by our nation’s founding generation. Though that generation of constitutional framers worried that a would-be King might one day seek to destroy the constitutional separation of powers in our three-branch system of government and assume power for him/herself, theirs was a positive vision of America that would emerge because it was governed by law and justice than the dark dystopia in which the lawless Trump lives and breathes.

The question now is this – are we as a nation going to set aside everything the House Committee and Justice Department have learned about what Trump and his henchmen did and tried to do, or is there a legal remedy that can restore the integrity of our constitutional democracy?

I know I am not alone in hoping that Trump and his henchmen will be indicted, found guilty, and incarcerated, as would any criminal and seditious conspirator.

Those concerned about extremist right-wing political push-back should indictments come before the midterms and consequently cause a wave of Trump Republicans to be elected up and down the ballot in many states are possibly right, and they are also possibly right that the House and Senate might flip as a consequence – unless, of course, masses of anti-Trump Republicans, Independents, and Democrats vote; but not indicting Trump and his accomplices will send the message that the American criminal justice system condones insurrection, sedition, and treason and that, in my view, is far worse.

As much as I fear the transfer of control in the Congress from the Democrats to Trump Republicans, I fear more that AG Garland will allow his overly cautious judicial temperament to define this moment in American history with inaction thereby subverting the American democratic experiment.

Perhaps, reviewing this list of 152 words (yes – that many!) describing Trump’s character will have sunk in enough during these past eighteen months to stiffen the resolve of AG Garland and Justice Department officials to do what they need to do on our behalf.

Here are those words:

“Twice-impeached, corrupt, unprecedented, liar, dishonest, deceitful, denier, deceptive, insincere, untrustworthy, duplicitous, hypocritical, angry, argumentative, oppositional, divisive, aggressive, mob-boss-like, cyber-bully, intimidating, threatening, vindictive, rage-filled, controversial, outrageous, arrogant, entitled, intolerant, insensitive, uncaring, indecent, disrespectful, craven, hostile, hateful, ruthless, cruel, mean, malevolent, dystopian, dark, base, low, abhorrent, decrepit, egoistical, egotistical, self-centered, narcissistic, malignant, unwell, mentally ill, delusional, unhinged, nihilistic, self-serving, selfish, chaotic, unpredictable, childish, cowardly, manipulative, ignoble, shameful, deplorable, discreditable, licentious, lecherous, reprehensible, sexist, misogynist, racist, supremacist, Islamophobic, homophobic, poisonous, odious, toxic, evil, bad, criminal, wrong-doer, amoral, immoral, ignominious, worst, catastrophic, calamitous, ruinous, disastrous, devastating, damaging, destructive, back-stabbing, double-crossing, two-faced, unfaithful, faithless, sacrilegious, soulless, disloyal, cheater, thief, fraudulent, scandalous, despicable, rancid, grievous, churlish, rude, ill-mannered, bad-tempered, cynical, appalling, profligate, ignorant, inflammatory, degenerate, debauched, imprudent, alarming, clownish, reckless, dangerous, murderous, violent, extremist, unworthy, unfit, dysfunctional, incompetent, ineffective, ignorant, foolish, stupid, irresponsible, unaccountable, culpable, failed, subversive, illiberal, authoritarian, fascistic, anti-democratic, lawless, autocratic, authoritarian, seditious, traitorous, treasonous, insurrectionist, un-American.”         

        

Next week, President Joe Biden will present Medals of Freedom to 17 Americans from the worlds of Hollywood, sports, politics, the military, academia, civil rights, and social justice advocacy. The White House said: “The honor is reserved for people who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal public or private endeavors.”

In a quick review of the 17 individuals being honored, their accomplishments are significant. They are all deserving of the recognition they will receive. As we celebrate them as a nation, I thought about the nature of heroism. I offer here a few thoughts:

“Who is strong? The one[s] who subdue [their] passions [evil inclination].” (Mishnah Avot 4:1)

Comment: The heroic has little to do with physical strength. Rather, strong people do not succumb to negative emotional and psychological forces, destructive passions and urges. Jewish tradition does not emphasize the primacy of physical strength as a virtue. Rather, Judaism emphasizes willful self-control over one’s passions. The ethical literature cites three types of dominion: “Rulership over one’s country, one’s household, and oneself.” (Tosafot –  medieval commentaries on the Talmud) All three require justice, punishment of evil doers, and the strengthening and support of those who strive to do good. In pursuit of these three kinds of dominion, passions that distract us from behaving ethically and with kindness, such as anger, greed, selfishness, vengeance, and lust, must be controlled. Judaism, however, does not condemn outright the yetzer hara (the evil inclination) when it is channeled into building a home, creating art or an ethical community, and forming organizational structures devoted to the common good.

“There’s no question of heroism in all this. It’s a matter of common decency. That’s an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is – common decency. It consists in doing my job… heroism as ordinary people doing extraordinary things out of simple decency.” –The Plague, Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Comment: Camus wrote his signature 1947 novel The Plague only two years following the close of the Second World War and the Holocaust. His redemptive, affirmative, and hopeful novel, written in the wake of such overwhelming suffering and despair, is well worth reading now. According to Camus, every deed of loving-kindness and common decency constitutes a heroic act.

“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say: “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.” Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.” –Fred Rogers (1928-2003)

Comment: Fred Rogers was such a hero himself. His “Neighborhood” included everyone and his teaching of generations of America’s children the simple principles of behaving fairly, with kindness, and love towards all established a model of heroic decency that is so easily corrupted by bad actors and bad leaders. The demonization of the “other” was utterly foreign in Mr. Rogers’ “Neighborhood.” His kind affect was a model for generations of adults and children living in a diverse and pluralistic society and world.

“In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, un-glamorous, un-publicized jobs.” –Daniel J Boorstin (1914-2004)

Comment: Boorstin critiqued the culture of celebrity and fame as false heroics. In my four decades of service as a congregational rabbi and teacher, I used to ask my 10^th grade students (15 and 16 years-old) who were their personal heroes. Most often, they mentioned their parents and grandparents, teachers and coaches, extended family and family friends who inspired them – people they knew personally who lived their lives according to higher moral and spiritual values, who cared for them and others. At times these young people also cited social justice leaders and other courageous people who made a difference in the quality of life of others in their communities, amongst their people, and across the nation, quietly and without fanfare, based upon their vision of a better, more just, fair, and compassionate world. At their young age, they were already wise.

Also posted at the Times of Israel –  https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/who-are-our-heroes/