America Is Calling

/ howardshapiro

IMG_5774I shouldn’t be even starting this till my High Holy Day sermon is done, but the New Year is beginning with so much drama and so much mystery and I haven’t written in such a long time that there is no stopping this from just flowing out as my fingers do the talking.

I’m amazed. If you follow the news, we probably all are. I feel bombarded. Every minute a new revelation and a new tweet; every day we just stare at the TV with our mouths open. I have a series of questions, none of them so profound that you haven’t heard them already. But I ask with the rest of the country who wrote the anonymous Op Ed piece in the Times? Is it true? Should we be worried? Will the White House demand lie detector tests? Is the spirit of Watergate coming back to haunt us? Will the American people care? Is all of this chipping away at the President’s base or do people get inured to 24/7 “breaking news” and say “a pox on all their houses”. Will they just not be concerned about what happens in the White House or will they say – enough: I’m living my life for my family and me.

I can certainly understand the frustration. But this is not about partisan politics. This is not about one side of the aisle verses the other. This is about honesty and decency; this is about American values; this is about the Mitzvah of doing and acting; this is about believing you can make a difference. This is about the words John McCain told his supporters and the country as he ended his Presidential aspirations with a truly inspiring concession speech.

“And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties but to believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.  Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.”

Those words are New Year words. Those words are a celebration of our individual and collective power. Those words are worthy of prayer status. To believe that you matter is faith. To believe that the New Year is filled with promise and potential is what Rosh Hashanah is all about. The Shofar is about to proclaim: Rise and Awake. The future belongs to you. We make our own history; we shape tomorrow.

Shana Tova – A Good Year, sweet and true.

 

 

 

 

9 thoughts on “America Is Calling”

  4. The OpEd is true. It’s no different than the books that have been written already and Woodward’s book.
    The Big O spelled out how to counteract it today in his speech at the University of Illinois. He pointed out that 25 and under is now the largest voting block in America. If young people want to change what’s happening, they can do it with their vote in 60 days. I’m with them.

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  6. Your thoughts are, as usual, apt.
    When I think of our American history and experience, It astounds me that so little progress has been made since our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were enunciated. The lack of “progress” was best enunciated by George Santaylana when he famously said;
    “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
    Amen to the frustration of lack of “progress”. The lack is one that we all share from acts of omission and commission.
    The resolve should be to do “something” don’t talk about it.
    Happy and healthy to all.
    Larry

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