I don’t know about you but every day that I get up in the morning and see the sun rising I know I am blessed. I don’t know about you but every day when I get up in the morning and get out of bed without pain in unexpected places, I feel lucky. I don’t know about you but anytime my nose runs or my throat tickles or I cough I fleetingly ask myself is this COVID. We live in unsettling times. There is almost no such thing as normal. We think we are in control of what will happen tomorrow or the day after and the airlines throw a curve ball, or the weather does a number, or the rapid test shows two lines, and you are screwed.
It’s not that I am in a bad place. Not at all. I am aware how amazing my life is and that I live in interesting times. Not that they are perfect. Not that they aren’t worrisome. Not that sometimes I feel like we are living on the edge of a precipice. And tomorrow is either free fall into an unknown abyss worthy of depiction in a movie about the apocalypse or we are on the border of a new epoch about to soar into horizons we can barely imagine. There are so many things I don’t know.
I don’t know what it felt like to live as a Jew branded with a yellow star or cone or hat in some European ghetto or Middle Eastern Mellah. I don’t know what it felt like to live as a serf on land that was not my own in a time when life was valued by what you could produce and not by who you were. (Although we are not so distant from the same kind of yardstick). I don’t know what it was like to live without antibiotics or modern medicine when a simple cut could end your life. Or maybe I do – maybe we all do. This pandemic has certainly humbled us and taught that the simple act of covering your face can keep you safer. And things we once took for granted like sitting in a theater or dancing the hora (I just came from a beautiful wedding) or dining inside a restaurant can’t be taken for granted. Neither can attending a 4th of July parade.
I don’t even know what there is to say about all these guns. I don’t know why anyone needs semi-automatic weapons. There are no dinosaurs roaming our streets. There are no lions lurking in the tall grasses. There are no marauding masses breaking down the barricades. Most of us live in relative safety. Why the guns, the guns, the guns? The politically correct thing is to applaud the “bipartisan” gun bill just passed. But this is what I know. It is not enough. Not enough. Not enough. And I feel powerless to make effective change. I know: VOTE. I know: SPEAK OUT. I know: GIVE MONEY/TIME. But in the words of the prophet called Pete: “When will they every learn; when will they ever learn?” I don’t know about you but the fireworks didn’t do it for me the other night.
rabbiunplugged 
Dear Howard. It is not enough. As The Atlantic pointed out last night, all of us are being held hostage to all the people in the us who own assault weapons and other automatic or semi-automatic weapons. NOBODY but the military need such weapons of mass destruction.
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Thanks Rabbi. I am frustrated as well. As a guess, maybe 65-70% of the population apparently do not know what to do either. How about voting? Maybe if we asked the incumbent of which ever party we belong to, to submit a proper gun control bill before November in order to get our vote? How about asking every candidate for election to have a gun control bill ready to submit if they win their respective election? We require new drivers (cars could be considered lethal devices in some peoples hands) to have a substantial Insurance premium, sometimes paid for by their parents. Why not for gun purchases? The Insurance rate for high powered cars is normally higher than for lower powered cars, so the rates for gun purchases could reflect the same ratio. No matter how old one’s car is we are required to have Car Insurance. Why not the same for guns? The saying change equals growth, might apply here. Thanks for your thoughtfulness. Dean
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I live less than 10 minutes away from Central Avenue in Highland Park where the massacre took place on July 4 I am beyond sad beyond angry there are no words to think that we allow kids to buy guns meant for killing masses of people. I don’t know what to do for the people in my community that are grieving there is a two year old and now lives with his grandparents because both of his parents were killed in this terrible massacre there are children will suffer PTSD for the rest of their lives and from some thing it could have been prevented I don’t know anything and I am grieving for myself and for this community and for the world
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In so few but eloquent words, you have hit so nany buttons. Well said and unfortunately, too right.
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We, too, could not reconcile fireworks and celebration the other night….for one of the few times in my life we didn’t go see the fireworks – used to be my favorite! In the course of our lifetime, our country has changed into something so different….hardly recognizable!
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Agreed, I’m grateful most of the time and life over the centuries has had innumerable challenges. But, this July 4th, I felt that America is a disaster between SCOTUS and semiautomatic weapons readily accessible thoughout these United States.
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I also get his blog. He makes a lot of sense, raises the same issues I think about. Thanks for thinking of me with this.
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I wonder how much worse these massacres have to be or how much more frequent, for the pendulum to swing a little further and legislation be enacted that might make a difference.
But I also feel like losing connection with people, during Covid or with technology makes us have colder hearts as a society and makes the vulnerable more susceptible to acting out.
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