Monthly Archives: February 2024

Early Morning Light

27 Tuesday Feb 2024

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“Every morning / the world / is created. / Under the orange

sticks of the sun / the heaped / ashes of the night / turn into leaves again.“

One can always count on Mary Oliver to evoke so viscerally the life force at the core of the natural world.

Amidst all the terrible news accosting us every day from the Middle East, the corrupt Russia wing and cruelty of the MAGA Party, the disheartening murder of Alexei Navalny, and everything Trump, it’s important for each of us to find ways to restore our sense of balance and higher values every day. One of my great pleasures that helps me to do this is my long early morning walks in my neighborhood – often before the first light. Despite being in Los Angeles, it feels as if I’m out in the country given the wooded character of my surroundings. I especially look forward in this time of year to the arrival of spring.

This week I was surprised to inhale for the first time this year the fragrant scent of the blooming of flowers. Instinctively I found myself feeling the happy expectation of and a sense of renewal sprouting in the grasses, trees and dormant flower beds.

I think too, when this season begins, of these verses from the Biblical Song of Songs (2:11-13 – translation, Marcia Falk):

“For the long wet months are past, / The rains have fed the earth / And left it bright with blossoms

Birds wing in the low sky, / Dove and songbird singing / In the open air above  

Earth nourishing tree and vine, / Green fig and tender grape, / Green and tender fragrance”

I offer here a number of images that I photographed in recent days as the sun was rising in the east. In about a month, I’ll offer images of spring as more flowers appear in the land.

What Winning the War Would Look Like

22 Thursday Feb 2024

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A veteran journalist wrote to me (and I assume to many other leaders in the American Jewish community) earlier this week requesting my thoughts about what “winning” the Israel-Hamas War might look like. This is my response:  

Dear …

Thank you for asking.

First, it’s important to emphasize that I’m not an Israeli citizen. My kids don’t serve in the Israeli military. I don’t pay Israeli taxes though I contribute financially to multiple Israeli causes that promote democracy, justice, religious pluralism and peace in the Jewish state. Only Israeli citizens have the responsibility to determine the nature of Israel’s policies in war and peace and on matters of security as they are the ones who must live directly with the consequences of the decisions they take. Yet, I have thoughts that I have every right to share with Israelis and Israel’s leadership about Israeli policies that I believe compromise Israel’s own liberal and enlightened principles as articulated in its Declaration of Independence. Not only that. I also have that right because what Israel does affects directly the security, standing and identity of Diaspora Jewry as is now so very clear post-October 7. The dramatic rise in the United States and around the world of antisemitism, anti-Zionism and anti-Israel sentiment challenges our Jewish security and identity.

In answering your question I’m hard-pressed to imagine a “win” in this war. Too many Israelis are dead, injured and traumatized. Too many thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians have died and been injured and southern Israeli communities and the Gaza Strip lay in ruins. Gazans are facing widespread famine and disease. Israeli society, despite the unity of the people in the initial few months of this war is still deeply polarized between right-wing super-nationalist settlers, extremist ultra-Orthodox Jews and their sympathizers as opposed to the majority of Israeli citizens who are politically, religiously and culturally centrist, center-left or center-right.

For the Jewish people to claim any kind of a “win” in the context of this awful war after October 7, however, I would hope that the following would materialize, sooner rather than later. I am well aware of the obstacles within Israeli public opinion based on a new survey published by the Israel Democracy Institute on Tuesday, February 20 as reported by Haaretz (I attach that article below with a few notes of introduction).

Here is what I believe, taken all together, that would constitute a “win” for Israel in this war:

-The return of all Israeli and international hostages to their families and communities as soon as possible;

-The defanging of Hamas as a military threat to Israel and as a brutal autocratic extremist Islamic governing authority over Gaza that subjugates its own people and has brought about the destruction of Gaza and the death and injury of tens of thousands of its own citizens;

-A ceasefire agreement based on the above;

-Massive humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza to stave off famine and disease;

-The holding of new Israeli elections ASAP resulting in the formation of a moderate and centrist ruling coalition government that includes at least one Arab Party – without Benjamin Netanyahu anywhere near the Prime Minister’s office and without super-nationalist, settler, racist right-wing and ultra-Orthodox political parties as part of the ruling government coalition;

-The holding of new refashioned Palestinian Authority elections ASAP and the formation of a moderate, non-violent and compromising government coalition – without the inclusion of Hamas or any militant political party that rejects the right of the Jewish people to a state in the Land of Israel-Palestine;

-Israel’s public endorsement of a pathway to the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in East Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinians to the State of Palestine and not Israel;

-The restoration of Israel’s international image as a nation that values democracy, pluralism, justice, human rights and peace with the Palestinian people and Israel’s neighbors;

-The Arab League’s acceptance of the State of Israel and the establishment of full diplomatic, economic and cultural relations between all western-aligned Arab nations and the Jewish state;

-An international commitment to assist the Palestinian Authority (and not Hamas) in rebuilding Gaza, and an international commitment to assist in rebuilding southern Israeli communities devastated by Hamas’ terrorist attack on October 7;

-A dramatic decrease in antisemitism abroad especially in the United States and on college and university campuses that has spiked dramatically since October 7;

-An impetus for young liberal American Jews to learn Israeli history, culture and politics and spend time living in the Jewish state thereby affirming their emotional and moral ties with Israelis and the Jewish state.

If Israelis and Palestinians, with the support of the United States, Arab League, UK, EU, and UN could embrace all the above, it would be a “win” for Israel, for the Palestinian people and for the western world.

Introductory notes to the following Haaretz Poll of Current Israeli Opinion:

Current Israeli public opinion is far from acceptance of many of the positions I list above. The details of the most recent poll – including Israeli Jews and Israeli Arab citizens – are reviewed in the following Haaretz news item.

It has to be understood when reading the details of this poll that Israel is still at war and the hostages are still being held by Hamas. Israelis are rightly focused on these immediate challenges and the majority of the population is not projecting too far out into the future. However, Israeli dissatisfaction with PM Netanyahu’s extremist right-wing super-nationalist government has grown dramatically since October 7. Saturday night protests that characterized the pre-October 7 period over almost a full year are growing weekly and calling simultaneously for negotiations that would lead to the return of the remaining hostages and for new Israeli elections.

It is estimated that the current Israeli coalition government would win only in the low 40s the number of Knesset seats (as opposed to 64 today out of 120 total Knesset mandates) if a new election were to be held today and that the opposition led by Benny Gantz of the National Unity Party would win close to 70 Knesset seats. However, PM Netanyahu has no intention of resigning or calling for new elections not only because he wants to hold onto power but also to stay out of jail should he be convicted of the three crimes of which he has been indicted. The political parties in his right-wing government know that if the government were to fall each likely would find itself with fewer seats in the next Knesset and consequently outside the future ruling coalition government. There is little to encourage any of those parties to call for new elections before the next scheduled election in October 2026.

It is likely that once the dust of the fighting in this war begins to settle there will be room for Israelis to consider more expansively what might be Israel’s future with the Palestinians and the wider Middle East.

This is clearly a fraught time and most everyone in Israel recognizes that there is no return to October 6. The massacre on October 7 and the ensuing war may well be regarded historically as among the most important inflection points in the 75-year history of the State of Israel. Those of us who love Israel and believe in Israel’s promise despite everything that has happened since October 7 must do everything we can to stay close to our Israeli brothers and sisters while advocating alongside those in Israel itself for policies that will assure Israel’s future democracy and character as a Jewish state. Too much is at stake for Israel and the Jewish people around the world to do otherwise. We need to remember as well that the State of Israel is the most remarkable achievement of the Jewish people in the past 2000 years.

Here is the Haaretz article and the most recent poll of Israeli citizens:  

Most Israelis Say ‘Absolute Victory’ in Gaza Unlikely, According to New Poll

Haaretz | Israel News – February 21, 2024

The term ‘absolute victory’ was deliberately chosen as it has become a phrase favored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during press conferences and foreign language interviews, although he is disinclined to define what that actually means

Most Israelis do not believe an “absolute victory” in the war in Gaza is likely. This according to a new survey published by the Israel Democracy Institute on Tuesday. The survey, which was conducted on the internet and by telephone, polled 510 men and women in Hebrew and 102 in Arabic as a representative sample of the entire adult population of Israel aged 18 and older.

An End to the War?

Of those polled, 51 percent of Jewish respondents and 77.5 percent of Arab respondents said there is a low likelihood of achieving absolute victory. The term “absolute victory” was deliberately chosen as it has become a phrase favored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during press conferences and foreign language interviews, although he is disinclined to define what that actually means strategically.

Among the Israeli Jews surveyed, those on the political right tended to agree with Netanyahu (55 percent), saying there is a high likelihood of achieving “absolute victory,” while the majority of the left (84 percent) and in the center (63 percent) said there is a low likelihood.

With the possibility of a total military victory unlikely in the eyes of most participants, the survey also asked their opinion regarding a political agreement to the end of war.

The question was posed as “Would you support or oppose an agreement to end the war which includes the release of all the hostages, long-term military quiet with guarantees from the United States, and a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, in return for the release by Israel of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, an extended ceasefire, and agreement to the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the long term?”

Among Jewish respondents, a majority of 55 percent oppose such an agreement, but the share of those who support it increased from 29 percent when the question was asked in January to 37 percent in February. In the Arab sample, 77 percent are in favor of a political agreement and only 9 percent are opposed.

Humanitarian Aid?

Regardless of the final outcome of the war, the question of humanitarian aid remains relevant, as the threat of famine and disease currently looms large over the population of Gaza.

With UNRWA currently embroiled in controversy, survey participants were asked their opinion regarding whether Israel should allow the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza residents at this time, via international bodies that are not linked to Hamas or UNRWA.

A majority of Jewish respondents (68 percent) oppose the transfer of humanitarian aid even under these conditions, while a large majority of Arab respondents (85 percent) support it. In recent months, there have been regular demonstrations held at the Kerem Shalom crossing, with protestors attempting to block aid trucks from entering the Gaza Strip.

Here again, there seems to be a strong correlation between political affiliation and one’s answer to the question, with 59 percent of those on the Left supporting allowing international bodies to transfer aid and 80 percent of those on the Right opposed.

Survey respondents who identified themselves as Center were almost evenly divided on the issue (44 percent support, 51.5 percent oppose, 4.5 “don’t know”).

Establishment of a Palestinian State?

On Wednesday, the Knesset voted to approve the government’s decision to oppose any unilateral declaration of the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The vote took place amid calls by a growing number of international leaders for the establishment of an independent and demilitarized Palestinian state. Respondents were asked where they fall on this question, with two-thirds of the Jewish sample opposing such a proposal and a large majority (73 percent) of Arabs supporting it.

The survey also questioned whether those surveyed believed that the establishment of a Palestinian state would lead to an increase in Palestinian terrorism against Israel.

Among Arab respondents, 41 percent thought that terrorism would cease altogether. It is worth noting that 35 percent of Arabs polled selected the “don’t know” option. Among Jews, the most common view (44 percent) was that terrorism would become even stronger.

Protests Returning?

Over the past several weeks, the once-massive protests against Netanyahu’s government, which were largely put on hold after Hamas’ attacks on October 7, have begun to return.

Survey respondents were asked if they thought the demonstrations would get back to their pre-war numbers with 60 percent anticipating they would come back and 30 percent saying they do not foresee such a return. On this issue, there was almost no difference between the percentage of Jews (60 percent) and Arab (64 percent) who believe the public protests will come surging back.

Compared to the high percentage of respondents who believe that wide-scale protests will re-erupt, a much smaller share think or are certain that they themselves would participate. As expected, those on the left (in the Jewish sample) consider themselves most likely to take part; 59 percent as opposed to 31 percent of the center and only 13 percent on the right.

What’s Next for the Northern Front?

As tens of thousands of residents from Israel’s northern border communities enter their fifth month of evacuation, the survey asked about future security in the north and their eventual return.

Respondents were given two possibilities for ensuring a safe return home for northern residents: an internationally mediated political agreement that distances Hezbollah from the border or an all-out attack on Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

There was a large difference between Jewish and Arab responses to this question, with 53 percent of Jewish favoring an all-out attack and 69 percent of Arabs supporting a political agreement.

Among Jewish responses, a majority (61.5 percent) on the left support the diplomatic option that distances Hezbollah from the border, a view they share with about half of those in the center (51 percent). On the right, a solid majority (65 percent) are in favor of an Israeli offensive.

“Without enforcement, talk of two states is hollow” – Op-ed by David Makovsky, The Times of Israel

18 Sunday Feb 2024

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Opening Notes:

In the wake of October 7 and in the midst of Hamas holding more than 130 Israeli and international hostages, the fighting in Gaza and the devastation of Palestinian communities in the Gaza Strip, few in Israel are thinking seriously about a 2-state solution and the end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as much as they may yearn for such an outcome. Intense skepticism about peace always animates populations in the context of war, especially one that has lasted as long as Israel’s War of Independence. The trauma inflicted on Israelis by the Hamas’ butchery, massacre and gang rapes of 1200 Israelis and Hamas’ criminal hostage taking on October 7 followed by Israel’s massive military response to destroy Hamas and the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have traumatized both Israelis and Palestinians. But an end to this war and the return of the remaining hostages will come and hopefully sooner rather than later.

October 6 is long gone and in Israel’s rear-view mirror. The Jewish state cannot return to the former status-quo in which every few years, in response to Hamas firing thousands of missiles into uncontested Israeli settlements, Israel responded in a campaign called “mowing the grass” (i.e. taking out some of Hamas’ fire power but leaving Hamas’ infrastructure in tact). Perhaps I’m being overly optimistic and seeing only the half-full glass, but taking a 10,000-foot view I remember well the devastation and loss of Israeli life brought about by the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and only five years later the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement and then the Jordanian-Israel peace agreement. I remember as well the violence of the first Intifada and Israel’s military response that led eventually to the Oslo peace process.

Saudi Arabia and other western-oriented Arab nations told US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken last week that they want peace with Israel and the development of a western alliance led by the United States against Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other Shiite Iranian-backed militias, but the price Israel must pay is to agree to establish a path to a Palestinian state. Of course, the problems are manifold, not the least of which is that the Likud Party platform (the party of Benjamin Netanyahu), written in 1977, states: “The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”

The “Greater Israel” position that a Jewish state must control all land from the river to the sea has always been Prime Minister Netanyahu’s position, despite his dishonest lip-service to President Obama in 2009 at Bar Ilan University where he said that he agreed to a Palestinian state. He has never favored the establishment of a State of Palestine next to Israel. He worked consistently to dismantle the Oslo peace process, expand the settlement enterprise (against international law), divide the Palestinian people by supporting Hamas, and seeking to make a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.

Palestinian ideological extremism that doesn’t accept Israel on any land between the river and the sea also is a major problem, and Hamas’ influence is a serious road-block to any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

The idea of a “divorce” between Israel and a future state of Palestine roughly along the Green Line (i.e. the 1949 armistice line) was promoted in the Oslo process and gained majority support from Israelis and Palestinians at the time. While some Israeli leaders still think a 2-state solution along these lines of divorce is still possible, another option has been developing called “Eretz l’Kulam – A Homeland for All,” known as a “Con-federal Two State” model (for details see https://www.alandforall.org/english/?d=ltr).

In both proposals, security is the over-arching concern for Israelis and Palestinians. Consequently, Hamas cannot be part of a ruling coalition of Palestinian governance. Nor can the extremism of Israel’s racist super-nationalist parties be central in any Israeli government. Non-violence must be an operating principle for both peoples. The Palestinian state would have to be demilitarized with security cooperation established between the two states.

No one can impose a solution on Israel or the Palestinians. Making peace will depend on visionary leadership amongst both peoples. Neither PM Netanyahu nor PA President Mahmud Abbas can lead the way. Neither has the vision, courage or the support of their peoples. New elections and new coalitions must come first. Getting from here to there consequently will be especially difficult. Yet, we’ve seen before in modern history that substantial transformative thinking led former enemies to make peace after WWII between the United States, Germany and Japan and after the decades-long violence in Northern Ireland. Why not between Israel and the Palestinians?

What is certain is that the status-quo is unsustainable. It may be from the ashes of this massive tragedy of massacre and war that a phoenix will arise and new possibilities will emerge to offer hope for a better and more peaceful, secure and just future.

The following article appeared in today’s The Times of Israel by David Makovsky and is worth reading. Makovsky directs the Project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is the co-author with Dennis Ross of the new book Be Strong and of Good Courage: How Israel’s Most Important Leaders Shaped Its Destiny. He is also the host of the new podcast Decision Points: The U.S.-Israel Relationship.

“Most Israelis would support a deal if they thought it would succeed, but first they’d need to overcome their genuine reasons for skepticism.

The Biden administration hopes to use a hostage release deal to pivot from the Gaza war to a broader historic regional breakthrough between Israel and Saudi Arabia, notching a crucial strategic victory against destabilizing forces in the Mideast. With its public upset by Palestinian civilian casualties during the post-10/7 Israel-Hamas war, the Saudis have now made irreversible movement towards a Palestinian state a prerequisite for such a breakthrough.

In this context, the Washington Post reported on Thursday that the US and several Arab states are in rapid-fire discussions to develop a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace plan with a “firm timeline” for the establishment of a Palestinian state. While this is likely a trial balloon – perhaps initiated by Arab officials – and it is far from clear if the White House will sign off on the specific dates or a detailed plan for a Palestinian state, some want a quick demonstration of progress to dampen tensions expected to rise during the month of Ramadan, which starts on March 10. The timeline for an actual agreement is short due to the upcoming American elections: the Biden administration wants to seal a Saudi deal before summer when the presidential campaign is in full swing.

This plan has, unsurprisingly, upset many in Israel, who feel this would effectively reward Hamas for its massacre of Israelis. In both the Post article and some other analyses, the Netanyahu government and Hamas are presented as the only real hang-ups to a grand deal that would reconcile Israel and many Arab states while achieving a two-state solution. 

Yet Israeli reservations about a Palestinian state go well beyond Netanyahu and are based on real and urgent concerns, security chief among them. This must be dealt with seriously by linking progress on Palestinian statehood to meeting clear security benchmarks, without which instability is certain. An American effort that does not take this into account risks misreading Israeli politics and the concerns of a majority of Israelis across the political spectrum. 

Israeli support for two states, a strong majority in the heady days of the 1990s Oslo process, has eroded for years. The national trauma of the slaughter of 1,200 Israeli innocents – some beheaded, burned alive and raped – on October 7th and the ensuing war further hardened public opinion. In January, 59% of Jewish Israelis rejected a two-state solution as part of a package of US guarantees, normalization with Arab states, and long-term military peace. Support for two states is tied to perceptions of its feasibility, and Israelis have grown increasingly skeptical: a month before October 7, only 32% of Israeli Jews thought Israel and a Palestinian state could coexist peacefully, down 14% from 2013. 

The core reason for this opposition is more practical than ideological. Many Israelis support the idea of a compromise for peace but are wary of abandoning the status quo without an agreement with a partner they trust will provide real security and actually end the conflict. While a dedicated minority view the West Bank as biblical patrimony which cannot be ceded, in January 2023 over 60% of Israelis were willing to accept mutual Israeli-Palestinian recognition of the other’s legitimate claims, an end to the conflict and the end of future claims under a two-state solution. If Israelis thought a deal would work, a majority would support it. They understand that, if successful, a two-state solution is the best way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state. 

For now, though, most Israelis associate two states with a profound security risk and prefer the status quo, despite its dangers. That concern is well-founded: for the past 30 years, Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian arena has often – albeit not always – led to violence, not peace.

Though Israel withdrew from West Bank cities during the Oslo process, the second Intifada erupted soon after US-led peace talks broke down in 2000. Over 1,000 Israelis were killed, many of them in suicide bombings. Withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 saw Hamas evict the mainstream Palestinian Authority (PA) from there in mere days in 2007 with a small core of heavily armed fighters, then spend 16 years developing rocket factories and a sprawling subterranean fortress unimpeded. This was a crucial point. When the chips were down, nobody stopped Hamas from outmuscling and outmaneuvering the PA. Israel has been living with Hamas control ever since. The year 2007 was not a moment in time. Rather, it changed the very trajectory of Gaza control. 

Beyond the Israeli-Palestinian arena. withdrawal from the Israeli security zone in southern Lebanon did not bring peace with Hezbollah. Instead, it let the group consolidate control despite a war with Israel in 2006, ignore UN Resolution 1701 to develop an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles, some precision-guided, and deploy 6,000 Radwan commandos near the border. A second critical turning point from which Israel did not recover. Israel was forced to evacuate 60,000-80,000 civilians from its northern border region shortly after October 7 for fear of a similar attack.

A fail-safe mechanism

The failures of Gaza and Lebanon, underscored by Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s continued unrelenting denial of Israel’s right to exist, shattered the premise – key to any peace deal – that withdrawal makes Israel safer. The lesson for Israelis is simple: without durable and substantive enforcement of demilitarization of a future Palestinian state, any political solution to the conflict will be under permanent threat. 

To be sure, Palestinians have ample reason to distrust Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly endorsed a two-state solution in 2009, but later renounced it, and several key figures in his cabinet oppose a Palestinian state on ideological grounds. Continued settlement expansion has also damaged perceptions of the feasibility of two states.

While this government likely cannot be swayed, American strategy needs to separate ideological opposition to a Palestinian state from the larger group of Israelis whose resistance stems from security concerns. To convince a majority of Israelis to support a two-state solution and evacuate West Bank settlements, there must be a fail-safe mechanism to ensure a Palestinian state remains demilitarized. Vague principles are insufficient.

Ensuring success for a future Palestinian state requires fixing the asymmetry between strong non-state actors and weak states that drives chronic instability in many Middle Eastern countries. Too often, those who fire the shots call them. The first step, which Israel is already doing, is to remove Hamas’s military capabilities and weaken it enough to be contained by Palestinian security forces.

Then, a future Palestinian state must provide dignity and sovereignty for the Palestinians and be strong enough to deal with extremist actors like Hamas, without militarizing and posing a security threat to Israel. This is a delicate balance without international parallels: none of the 15 demilitarized states worldwide are in conflict zones. But it is not impossible. 

Past proposals for demilitarization outlined a Palestinian state without an air force, armor, or heavy weaponry, but with strong internal security, police, and counterterrorism forces to maintain internal order. Israeli-Palestinian intelligence and occasional operational cooperation would continue. The key ingredient is a third party capable of simultaneously guaranteeing demilitarization and survival of the fledgling Palestinian state. This third party would oversee border security to prevent arms smuggling, verify demilitarization by checking for weapons factories and more, and deconflict between Israeli and Palestinian forces. After all, the US wants a Palestinian state to look like Costa Rica, but with good reason rooted in experience, Israel fears a non-careful withdrawal means a Palestinian state will be a dangerous mini-Iran. 

The six Arab states that have peace with Israel could theoretically serve this function, but there is no evidence that they want to be seen as using force against fellow Arabs. And if most Arab states will not even condemn the October 7 atrocities, what would those guarantees be worth?

Without a very serious ‘coalition of the willing’ of significant states prepared to confront bad actors, the US or NATO seem to be the only options. The US maintains a military presence in dozens of countries like Germany and South Korea on their request without eroding their sovereignty. 

The idea of deploying American troops or NATO will be unattractive to Americans and Israelis alike. Americans want to avoid dangerous foreign entanglements and Israelis have no desire to complicate US-Israel relations: they are proud that Israel defends itself by itself, and do not want American lives at risk. Israel could serve as the initial guarantor and eventually turn over authority, since it will want the ability to intervene if the PA proves unable to contain Hamas. This would likely be interpreted as an extension of the military occupation, however, and could be politically unacceptable. Hence, the need for a transition.

These critical details should not obscure the main point. Recent history indicates any discussion of a two-state solution without an accompanying enforcement mechanism is a recipe for failure. The US needs to push for a Palestinian state that actually works: otherwise Hamas and other violent extremists will overtake it and October 7 will repeat itself.”

About Aging and Joe Biden’s Fitness to Lead

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

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Over many years I have collected thousands of quotations on countless themes. In light of the current national discussion about aging as Joe Biden runs again for president as the oldest chief executive in our nation’s history, I thought it worthwhile to share a few thoughts about getting older that have been left to us by writers, artists, philosophers and commentators over the centuries. Hopefully, these can remind us about the positives that come with aging. For those who think that Joe Biden is too old to be president (I don’t – see below), I suggest sending them this list to offer a wider perspective about what, hopefully, will be the destiny of us all, to age gracefully, with dignity and with our intellectual wits and moral compass largely intact.

First, however, I want to say a few words about the negative attitude of many younger people about Biden’s decision to seek a second term. Some 80 year-olds are, indeed, wise to retire and commence the last period of their lives with family and friends, doing whatever they choose that is productive, relevant, creative and meaningful for them. Others who have the wherewithal still, who have their wits and are wise based on a lifetime of experience and learning, who want to continue to work and contribute and are able to do so physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually, they should be encouraged to do so without the second-guessing of younger people who presume that aging means broad-based diminished capacities for everyone over a certain age, whatever that age may be.

Traditional religions revere the elderly for their life-experience and wisdom. Unfortunately, in our western youth-oriented culture, too many people who aren’t yet seniors themselves and don’t fully understand what seniors are able and not able to do assume that anyone older than 65, 70, 75, or 80 automatically can’t measure up to what is required. Though some aspects of our lives are indeed diminished when we age, there are other strengths that make up for what is over and gone. Every older person has to make the decision for him/herself about what they are able and willing to do, and though some professions, businesses and organizations make that decision for them based on quantifiable and justifiable standards, especially when the health and well-being of others are directly affected, many occupations ought to remain open to those who still have capacity and a proven recent track-record of accomplishment.

Joe Biden is one of those who still has the capacity to lead the nation and free world (see my last blog post “Let’s Stop the Bed-Wetting!” – Feb 12) and the op-ed I included there by Dr. Haran Ranganath “Biden Seems Forgetful, but That Doesn’t Mean He is ‘Forgetting'” (NYT – Feb. 12).

I mentioned in that blog that Biden “appears” old due to his arthritic back problems, a life-time of compensating for a stutter, and a quieter and slower speaking style. Those who know him believe he is focused and fully in command of the facts and policies on multiple issues facing this country and world. The NYT’s Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman said this week on MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber that he spent an hour with Biden recently and he detected no diminished intellectual capacity whatsoever, a view that even former Republican MAGA Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy acknowledged privately. Biden’s advisors concur with both Krugman’s and McCarthy’s observations. The DC media bubble and even Jon Stewart in his offensive – IMO – attack on Biden on his maiden re-voyage of The Daily Show on Monday night are having a field day since Special Counsel Robert Hur’s gratuitous, unprofessional and unqualified attack on President Biden’s mental acuity.

I agree with many political pundits who say that it’s high time for Biden to appear everywhere, before the press, on late-night television, etc. and show the country that he still has what it takes to be president. Hopefully, the State of the Union will begin to put to rest the public perception about his mental capacities and the two old guys running for president can be evaluated on the basis of policy differences, competency, decency, morality, mental health, what is good for American democracy and the vast majority of the American people, and for a stable world order led by the United States.

Rob Reiner put it far more succinctly than I did above when he said: “Here’s the truth. Biden is old. But he is a decent moral person who is incredibly effective at governing. Trump is old. But he’s a pathologically lying criminal who is incapable of governing and will destroy American Democracy.”

Here is some food for thought on aging over the centuries:

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” -Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007)

“No one is as old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” -Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

“One does not get better but different and older and that is always a pleasure.” -Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)

“Today we are wasting resources of incalculable value: the accumulated knowledge, the mature wisdom, the seasoned experience, the skilled capacities, the productivity of a great and growing number of our people—our senior citizens.” -John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” -Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825)

“The compensation of growing old, Peter Walsh thought, coming out of Regent’s Park, and holding his hat in his hand was simply this, that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained – at last! – The power which adds the supreme flavour to existence – the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light.” -Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

“One who greets an elder is as though he has greeted the face of the Shechinah” (the feminine divine presence of God). -Genesis Rabbah 63.6 (300-500 CE)

“In the aged is wisdom, and in length of days understanding.” –Job 12:12 (between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE)

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” -Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“The art of fresco was not work for old me…one paints with the brain and not with the hands.” -Michelangelo (1475-1564)

“All I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three I learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. In consequence when I am eighty, I shall have made still more progress. At ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things: at a hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvelous stage: and when I am a hundred and ten, everything I do, be it a dot on a line, will be alive. I beg those who live as long as I to see if I do not keep my word. Written at the age of seventy-five by me, once Hokusai, today Gwakio Rojin, the old man mad about drawing.” -Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849)

“What is old age? A sense of isolation, a feeling of holy rage, developing into what I have called transcendental pessimism: a mistrust of reason, a belief in instinct. … the feeling that the crimes and follies of mankind must be accepted with resignation… a retreat from realism, an impatience with established technique and a craving for complete unity of treatment, as if the picture were an organism in which every member shared in the life of the whole.” -Kenneth Clark (1903-1983)

“The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquility of the evening. Old age has its pleasures which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.” -W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

“No human loves life like the one that’s growing old.” -Sophocles (497/496-406/405 BCE)

“Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be, / The last of life, for which the first was made.” -Robert Browning (1812-1889)

“When we’re young we have faith in what is seen, but when we’re old we know that what is seen is traced in air and built on water.” -Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959)

“There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning.” -Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)

“For age is opportunity no less / Than youth itself, though in another dress. / And as the evening twilight fades away / The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

“Age is never so old as youth would measure it.” -Jack London (1876-1916)

“The art of growing old is the art of being regarded by the oncoming generations as a support and not a stumbling block.” -Andre Maurois (1885-1967)

“Seek not to follow in the footsteps of the old; seek what they sought.” -Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age.” -Sophia Loren (1934- )

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” -Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993)

Let’s Stop the Bed-Wetting!

12 Monday Feb 2024

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Sure, I wish Joe Biden was a bit younger, but his 81 years and his forgetfulness, as described by Dr. Ranganath in his op-ed “Biden Seems Forgetful, but That Doesn’t Mean He Is ‘Forgetting’” (NYT – February 12 – reprinted below), is NOT an indication of his inability to do the job of President. Biden’s life experience, understanding of America and the world, his constructive policies addressing the economy, inflation, climate, infrastructure, workers, and America’s standing in the world all recommend his re-election. Biden’s remarkable record of achievement in the first two years of his presidency, before the House was taken over by right-wing extremists who don’t believe in governing, compromise, or doing well for the American people, is second to none since President Lyndon Johnson.

I understand the “forgetting” as opposed to “Forgetting” that Dr. Ranganath discusses. At the age of 74, I have the same problems as does most everyone as we get older. I forget names, films I’ve seen, books I’ve read, and words seem stuck on the tip of my tongue far more often than they once were. Biden is clearly susceptible to this kind of “forgetting” too, but not the latter “Forgetting.” He is still sharp on matters of policy, politics, and world affairs. He assembled an excellent group of advisors as opposed to the clown show that surrounded Trump. And though Biden has made his share of mistakes, he has been a competent executive and, according to people who work closely with him, he has all his marbles and is able to focus and be strategic about what he and his administration say and do. He also is willing to work across the aisle for the sake of the common good and has proven that he can do so effectively in the spirit of compromise.

I know I’m not alone when I confess, however, to being worried in this political season by lots of things – but one of them is NOT Biden’s competency or moral character. I do worry about unrelenting popular perceptions concerning his physical stamina (yes, he’s old and he has a back problem which makes him look physically vulnerable when he walks and therefore more elderly. Those who know him say, however, that he is healthy, strong, and tough as nails even as his empathy is real and ever-present). I worry about the Arab-American community’s decision to not vote for him in 2024 because of his support for Israel against the vicious Hamas. I worry about the young progressive hard left’s lack of political pragmatism and that both groups will stay home or vote for a third party’s vanity exercise and throw the election in key states to Trump. I worry about the MAGA right’s autocratic sycophancy, the Republican Congress’ incompetency, cowardice, and hypocrisy, and the bigots of every stripe that have been given the green light by Trump and the right-wing media bubble to infect the political bloodstream of millions of Americans.

Despite all my worries as a traditional Democrat, I was heartened in listening to Ezra Klein’s important conversation with Simon Rosenberg from a month ago on Klein’s podcast. Rosenberg is a longtime Democratic political strategist who argues “that the Democratic Party is in a better position now than it has been for generations.” Do listen here – https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-simon-rosenberg.html

I also recommend reading Dr. Charan Ranganath’s article on aging, “forgetting” and “Forgetting” that follows. He is a professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of the Dynamic Memory Lab at the University of California, Davis.  

Special Counsel Robert K. Hur’s report, in which he declined to prosecute President Biden for his handling of classified documents, also included a much-debated assessment of Mr. Biden’s cognitive abilities.

“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

As an expert on memory, I can assure you that everyone forgets. In fact, most of the details of our lives — the people we meet, the things we do and the places we go — will inevitably be reduced to memories that capture only a small fraction of those experiences.

It is normal to be more forgetful as you get older. Broadly speaking, memory functions begin to decline in our 30s and continue to fade into old age. However, age in and of itself doesn’t indicate the presence of memory deficits that would affect an individual’s ability to perform in a demanding leadership role. And an apparent memory lapse may or may not be consequential depending on the reasons it occurred.There is forgetting and there is Forgetting. If you’re over the age of 40, you’ve most likely experienced the frustration of trying to grasp hold of that slippery word hovering on the tip of your tongue. Colloquially, this might be described as ‘forgetting,’ but most memory scientists would call this “retrieval failure,” meaning that the memory is there, but we just can’t pull it up when we need it. On the other hand, Forgetting (with a capital F) is when a memory is seemingly lost or gone altogether. Inattentively conflating the names of the leaders of two countries would fall in the first category, whereas being unable to remember that you had ever met the president of Egypt would fall into the latter.

Over the course of typical aging, we see changes in the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, a brain area that plays a starring role in many of our day-to-day memory successes and failures. These changes mean that, as we get older, we tend to be more distractible and often struggle to pull up the word or name we’re looking for. Remembering events takes longer and it requires more effort, and we can’t catch errors as quickly as we used to. This translates to a lot more forgetting, and a little more Forgetting.

Many of the special counsel’s observations about Mr. Biden’s memory seem to fall in the category of forgetting, meaning that they are more indicative of a problem with finding the right information from memory than actual Forgetting. Calling up the date that an event occurred, like the last year of Mr. Biden’s vice presidency or the year of his son’s death, is a complex measure of memory. Remembering that an event took place is different than being able to put a date on when it happened, the latter of which is more challenging with increased age. The president very likely has many memories of both periods of his life, even though he could not immediately pull up the date in the stressful (and more immediately pressing) context of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Other “memory” issues highlighted in the media are not so much cases of forgetting as they are of difficulties in the articulation of facts and knowledge. For instance, in July 2023, Mr. Biden mistakenly stated in a speech that “we have over 100 people dead,” when he should have said, “over one million.” He has struggled with a stutter since childhood, and research suggests that managing a stutter demands prefrontal resources that would normally enable people to find the right word or at least quickly correct errors after the fact.

Americans are understandably concerned about the advanced age of the two top contenders in the coming presidential election (Mr. Biden is 81 and Donald Trump is 77), although some of these concerns are rooted in cultural stereotypes and fears around aging. The fact is that there is a huge degree of variability in cognitive aging. Age is, on average, associated with decreased memory, but studies that follow up the same person over several years have shown that, although some older adults show precipitous declines over time, other “super-agers” remain as sharp as ever.Mr. Biden is the same age as Harrison Ford, Paul McCartney and Martin Scorsese. He’s also a bit younger than Jane Fonda (86) and a lot younger than Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett (93). All these individuals are considered to be at the top of their professions, and yet I would not be surprised if they are more forgetful and absent-minded than when they were younger. In other words, an individual’s age does not say anything definitive about their cognitive status or where it will head in the near future.

I can’t speak to the cognitive status of any of the presidential candidates, but I can say that, rather than focusing on candidates’ ages per se, we should consider whether they have the capabilities to do the job. Public perception of a person’s cognitive state is often determined by superficial factors, such as physical presence, confidence, and verbal fluency, but these aren’t necessarily relevant to one’s capacity to make consequential decisions about the fate of this country. Memory is surely relevant, but other characteristics, such as knowledge of the relevant facts and emotion regulation — both of which are relatively preserved and might even improve with age — are likely to be of equal or greater importance.

Ultimately, we are due for a national conversation about what we should expect in terms of the cognitive and emotional health of our leaders.

And that should be informed by science, not politics.“

“The Runaway” – An Israeli Short-Story – Relived Today

04 Sunday Feb 2024

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In the summer of 1972 I spent two months teaching horseback riding at Camp Alonim, the children’s camp of the Brandeis Camp Institute in southern California only forty miles north of downtown Los Angeles. The large property includes 3000 acres of undeveloped land populated by oak, pepper and eucalyptus trees, a large cactus garden, an orchard of oranges, grapefruit and avocado, open wheat fields, meadows and canyons, grazing cows and horses, all resembling the terrain of the Land of Israel.  

As a member of the barn-staff, I rode a 7 year-old Rhone mare named “Princess” and led the campers on 4 rides daily – 2 each morning and 2 in the evening, except on Shabbat. At times, I took Princess out for a run on my own. She loved to gallop at full-speed, and her gait was so even that it felt as if I was floating with the wind.

          This is me on Princess – Summer of 1972

This past Shabbat I picked from my home bookshelf an old paperback called Modern Hebrew Stories – A Bantam Dual-Language Book (NY: Bantam Books Inc., 1971) that I had read more than 50 years ago in Jerusalem during my first year of study for the rabbinate at the Hebrew Union College (HUC). Dr. Ezra Spicehandler, a Professor of Hebrew Literature, was my teacher and the Dean of HUC. He was the editor of the collection of stories.

One story that especially moved me, though I had forgotten it entirely, is called הנמלט  – The Runaway by Yizhar Smilansky (1916 –2006), known by his pen name S. Yizhar. The story focuses on the experience of a beautiful white stallion who breaks free from his boorish master’s farm and simply runs.

S. Yizhar was an acclaimed and talented prose writer in the first generation of Israeli authors. Born and raised in the agricultural settlement of Rehovot, he was awarded the Israel Prize for fine literature in 1959.  He served as an intelligence officer in the Haganah during the 1948 War of Independence and as a Member of the Knesset in the Mapai Party of David Ben-Gurion from 1949 to 1967. He was a senior lecturer of education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a full professor at Tel Aviv University.

As S. Yizhar described his story’s magnificent runaway horse, I recalled Princess, the immense joy I took in her, and I ruminated over the wider significance of the Jewish people’s return to the Land of Israel and the freedom from oppression that the white horse’s liberated run represented mythically in the history of Zionism. More specifically, I considered how this story, though written in the first half of the 20th century, carries meaning today in the midst of this awful war against Hamas.

I was so moved by S. Yizhar’s writing that I wanted to share some of the story with you so you can also experience the joy of unrestrained liberation that the writer projected onto his magnificent stallion, an ecstasy that I felt riding Princess when she would take off into the wind. 

On a personal level, taking the time to read this story on Shabbat offered me a reminder not only of my beloved Princess, but that all of us, I think, need to be able to find the means to transcend the burdens that so often oppress us and a measure of release from the torments that weigh down our hearts and spirits – as this war most certainly does for the people and State of Israel.

At the end of the story, this magnificent beast “with a flame flecked tail” that had escaped his autocratic and mean-spirited master, was found, returned to the farm and secured more tightly than ever to prevent his escape again.

S. Yizhar’s name came to be associated with a political position that morally objects to expelling Arab inhabitants from the Land of Israel-Palestine – a theme that is still poignant, especially in light of today’s extremist, supra-nationalist, messianic, Israeli settler movement that gathered this past week in the thousands in Jerusalem’s large Binyemai Ha-uma auditorium to celebrate wildly and without regard to the somber mood of the nation during this ongoing deadly war, when the hostages are still missing, and so many Israeli soldiers’ have lost their lives and been injured and Gaza is in ruins with many dead civilians. This movement of Jewish extremists claims that it will do a tikkun, a “corrective” to the 2005 unilateral withdrawal of Israeli settlements from Gaza. They intend, if given the power, to expel all Arabs from the Gaza Strip and resettle it only with Jews. S. Yizhar’s story is mythic on one level but also a real-world warning not to forget that the Land of Israel-Palestine is the Homeland not only of the Jewish people, but of the Palestinian Arabs too, and though a two-state solution seems so very far away, still the dignity of those Palestinians who are not murderous towards us Jews requires our respect as we require their respect for us as a people and nation.

Here is a portion of the story as translated from the Hebrew by Yosef Schachter (1901-1994), an Austrian rabbi, philosopher and educator who immigrated to Palestine from Vienna in 1938:

“…the runaway got away…wherever he was running. The sun had risen quite high by now, and the sea breeze was blowing in strong playful gusts. But nothing stirred; everything remained motionless, purposeless, but out there, where we couldn’t see from here, something was running. Whatever was not stirring here was running out there, running like a deer, running like a lion, like the wind, running free. And on account of him, everything had stopped dead here.

Ah, there’s so much space for running over there! What would you know about that? If only you knew, you wouldn’t stay on here another moment; you’d be twitching to tear away at a gallop. It’s so wide open for galloping out yonder, away from this place here. Ah, yes, just to gallop, plain and simple. There’s nothing simpler and more straightforward. No obligations whatsoever, no need to arrive anywhere, nowhere particular you have to get to, no duties to perform, or what they call “objectives,” no time limit, nothing at all like that. Can’t you see what that means? Don’t you realize? No? Well look here: after all…everything’s wide open on every side, to the right and to the left and straight ahead and all around, and this sense of being free encompasses you totally, the warmth and the blue and the gold. What more can one wish for? Always there’s this gentle breeze coming in from the sea, fluttering like a lively girl’s dress even if it’s a bit dusty. Of course, but it’s a fragrant dust, with the grasses and shrubs nodding their heads in approval as it puffs by and skips away, charged with the warm, bluish oxygen. Out there at last, you can start galloping to your heart’s content, to the full stretch of your imagination, and you no longer have to follow any set path or road, keep to any rut or groove or anything of that sort. There’s nothing to stop you: it’s just wide open, open and warm and vast. You don’t have to get anywhere, reach any place; all you do is just gallop. So go galloping, young man! Gallop, son! No restraint and nobody to stop you. No accounts to render and no regrets. You just live your running to the full. You become everything you have ever wanted to be deep down inside you. Out there, whatever has been quivering inside you, whatever you have ever longed to be, to attain, comes into being in that wondrous running. Nothing to stop you. You won’t stop in the noonday shade of a thick-branched sycamore to rest among the heat-weary sitting underneath it; you won’t crouch down to munch green grass, or sip a drop of water; you won’t encroach on your neighbor’s plot or whinny to your mate. There’s only you, wide open to run your race under God’s warm sky stretching before you in utter perfection. And beneath that sky, the earth stretches in warm, dusty reaches, and at last there is breathing space for anyone who craves to breathe freely. That’s all there is: a running field that is boundless, a vast openness, shoreless like the sea, the ocean, the sky, like the limitless sky itself.

I don’t know what else there is to say, and there’s no need to either… why all the talk?… It’s only that he is out there racing, he is out there running, singing as he runs, singing out to the world, and maybe he’s not singing at all, and it’s his running that’s singing his song to him, as he swallows up the distances, his drumming hooves stirring up a light dust in the gold of the warm fields under the warm golden sky out there, outside, outside, outside…

Ah, do you know what it means to run! If you’ve never run you can’t know what it’s like. Just like somebody who’s never been swimming can’t know. Once someone has run he knows how it feels and he keeps hankering for more. How all of a sudden you are in the open. All of a sudden you’re in it. Wide open, and everything is permitted. Wide open and you’re in it. All of you inside the possible. Suddenly you are lifted into the possible like… what shall I say?… like someone plunging into the sea and he’s in it, surrounded and swallowed up by it. All of him becomes what the sea is. All self becomes the sea’s self. All that’s specifically he becomes one with the vast specific, which encompasses him effortless, endlessly. If you understand what I mean. I myself understand it. One moment I do and the next, I don’t. It isn’t at all something you can understand or not understand. Hell. No. It’s being rather than understanding. That’s it. Like… I don’t know… actually it’s like being in the sea with water all around you, and you breathe the water in, battling to keep afloat on your back whether you want to or not. And it’s all the same to the sea – your caring or your not caring doesn’t affect it the least big; it remains changeless, not even scratched, not every the faintest smile. But you care. Oh yes, to you everything matters. Your heart beats are now absolutely different. All those heartbeats of if-only-I-were change into heartbeats of here-it-is-at-last, and this-is-it. THIS IS IT. And you say: O God, let it go on, don’t let it stop! (Because deep down within you there are always those shadows flitting across your heart, shadows of doubt and disbelief. It can’t be–they say to you–you’ll see it can’t be, it can’t last, you’ll see it won’t last, you’ll pay for it before long, you’ll see how soon you’ll pay for it–and they give you a thousand reasons why, those hovering shadows. It would be much better if you could look away from them before they get a hold on you and effect you. Come, let’s ignore them). And what now?

What now? You keep running, of course. O Lord, at long last here it is. This is it, and you – incredibly – are in it my son, part of the running, swept along by the if-only-I-could which you have always yearned for. Do you know what that means? What if it means to get there? But it isn’t getting there-that I am talking about!–on the contrary, you never get there. There’s no such thing as a point or line you arrive at, that your reach and stop at, as if “there” is a kind of place you come to and say, “So far” and no further!” Nothing of the sort. There’s no such thing out there. On the contrary: yonder’s the place where there is no destination. It’s the place where everywhere you are is your point of departure, the place you start out from. It’s just like…how do I know?…it’s as if somebody had run out of dry land and had come to the sea, and one starts anew. You cross over and start from the beginning. And you’re in the new, and in what is beyond it: in the different, the newly begun, the beautiful with an air of this-is-the-first-time, in the all-encompassing, the flowing.

O Lord, how he broke loose and ran! Ran like the best of dreams. Ran, broke free, free as the fullness within him, leaving everything behind – all of us: me, you (you too, my friend!), everything, the old, the necessary, all that is held to a single plot of land, the commonplace which comes and goes mechanically, dented and used. All the “this-is-not-what-we-imagined” which has vanished. All that has been left behind and saws away as it pleases – but now, finally the beginning starts, the opening – that isn’t as yet that is just now starting off and will be and will arrive and is all involved in the possible, amen, all in the “maybe, yes,” in the maybe this time. O Lord, why not, perhaps this is the time; perhaps this is the possible. Perhaps yes. Perhaps yes. Maybe we can do it now, O my God, maybe yes.

…You must know, realize it to the depths of your soul, that such a place does exist, and it’s not beyond the mighty hills, either; it’s there for anybody who wants to go there. Away from all the highways and byways. There’s the real wide world, rich and beautiful. The whole wide world rather than some measly road…

…To be alive and not sluggish. Free and not bound. To be like the dolphin slithering through the wind-tossed sea, or soaring free of heart like the falcon into the wind, with the blue airy abyss below. To be at one with the incessant chirping of the cricket,… to be swept along in this flowing movement, this running, to be carried aloft, to beat upward and fly–beyond all fences and all enclosures and all allotments, and the duties and obligations, out into the wide open. Ah, yes.”