choosing life

The Sinai Lesson

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Tonight is Shavuot (at least as I am writing). It is the holiday on which we celebrate the first fruits of the Spring harvest and the revelation at Sinai. It is one of the least observed of our holidays even though it is Biblically mandated and has an important message. It reminds us that at our core we are a people with a mission. We are a people who listened and accepted the revolutionary idea that there is meaning to our being beyond the limits of our bodies. Whatever you believe about the narrative in Exodus that recounts the Sinai experience complete with a golden calf and shattered tablets, we have accepted its truth and its commandment: that there is a higher law whether filtered through historical writings or delivered from a Divine Source right into the hands of Moses our teacher.

Some people think there is only one way to live the mission: black hats, black coats, covered hair, fidelity to ritual and halacha. I think every individual has the right to find their own way and there are many paths that lead to Sinai. When Tom O’Brien and I taught at FAU Lifelong Learning, we would end our session with a slide with an image of a path in the woods with the words: “Walker there is no road; the road is made by walking.” I don’t remember where we found it, but it has always spoken to me about how we make our way through life by living it with appreciation and purpose. Life is a gift. It might also be an accident but it’s still not to be taken lightly.

The Sinai lesson is that the paths we forge are not for our sole passage but that the generations that came before us and the generations that will come after us are depending on how we walk and where we put our feet. The Shavuot story reminds us that we all stood at Sinai; we all heard the words and accepted the obligations. We are called Israel – the one who struggles with what it means to be human or to put it in traditional language – what God wants from us. And If truth be told, we are having a hard time with it right now. How to defend ourselves and still look ourselves in the mirror, How to stand up to hatred without hating back. How to listen to the voices in our community and nation that we don’t agree with and not write them out of our circles.

You know I am speaking about Israel and her current government. You know I am speaking about the United State and our current administration. You know I am writing this to myself because this holiday we begin tonight says: We can do better.

I Am Lord of Memory*

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Eileen and I went to see Judy Collins the other night at the Brevard Music Center. She confidently walked on stage in a bright pink long dress with a black sequenced jacket. She proudly announced that she was 85 and from mid orchestra she was looking good. She peppered the concert with a lot of good stories and corny jokes. One of the many things I did not know about her was the relationship she and Leonard Cohen had. She credits him with “pushing” her to write her own songs and throughout the concert sang many of his more esoteric pieces. The concert was delayed for a half hour because of serious thunder and lightening but 2000 people still showed up even some June bugs or fireflies. They flashed in the dark as so many of us celebrated this night of memory.   

One of the Leonard Cohen songs she sang was “Priests”. It’s an elusive and mysterious song/poem about love, memory, loss – all that is holy. I went online to try and put the lyrics into one complete and cogent paragraph. I failed. For me it is the wedding of the haunting melody with the words; it is the marriage of the lyrics with the melody to my own memories.

This all came home to me yesterday when I learned that my friend and colleague, Rabbi Fred Pomerantz died. I knew he was having health issues, but he wasn’t supposed to die. I don’t know whether he loved being a jazz musician first and a Rabbi second or there was no way to separate the two. He was a drummer and the beat of his life and career were intermingled with great joy and deep pain. This is not the place to eulogize him, but it is the place to remember the intersection of our lives from Cincinnati to Closter. It was filled with laughter and tears, it was complete with searching and finding, questions about how to live so that the days of our lives didn’t become material for a soap opera. He was creative, funny and unique all in the service of our people and our Judaism.

Judy Collins isn’t that much older than Freddy or me. She stood on that stage for over an hour and a half and amazed me with her stamina. Sure, she had cliff notes; sure, she turned to her musical director to ask him for details she temporarily forgot; sure her voice has changed. But that’s life – it is all about change – nothing remains the same – and nothing can be taken for given or granted. And it was refreshing to be with her as she proudly celebrated who she was at this stage of living.

Between Judy and Fred it reminded me that no matter how old or how young, our challenge is to make a sacred noise, to sound the bells, to beat the drums, to hear the music of Divinity or the Universe pulsing through our cells. The challenge is to love it all; appreciate the moment; grow the good; minimize the bad; celebrate the remembered and forgotten. Be all you can be even when it isn’t all you were.

Right Freddy?

*From “Priests” by Leonard Cohen

Israel Diaries 8

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At the Mount of Olives

Waze was having a tough time finding a better route to the airport. There was a demonstration on the road. Every Saturday night, as Shabbat ends, they begin to gather. Drums, signs, flags, young, old: Make a Deal Now; Bring Them Home Now. All the vehicles were being channeled into one lane as the demonstrators made their way to the residence of the Prime Minister. We were eventually returned to our hotel and sent to the airport through East Jerusalem. No worries (except we did) and we got to the airport on time. Of course the VAT office on the main floor was closed but it seems there is always some reason you can’t get your Value Addeed Tax refunded. I hope my donation goes to a good cause.

But back to the demonstration. This what I love about Israelis. There is a concept of civic engagement and a belief that your voice is important. You can make a difference no matter how much the cards are stacked against you through a convoluted and probably outdated political system. They are not alone -we have our own peculaarities in our democracy: think Electoral College and the lunacy that winning the majority vote doesn’t guarantee one the Presidency.

We came in hard times. Don’t think we didn’t think twice about postponing. There were plenty of reasons to do so including United Airlines cancelling all our flights two days before we were supposed to leave. But we couldn’t have come at a more important moment. Time after time people thanked us for being there. They need to feel and see our support. I am not talking politics when I say “support”. I mean Jew to Jew – people to people – you are not alone.

So I am going to leave you with that enigmatic picture above. According to Google the letters are in Mandarin Chinese and mean “Jesus Is”. They are Christian pilgrims following the footsteps of Jesus. A few moments later, they took out their shofars blowing long and loud blasts with an admirable amount of expertise. Some lay on the ground; several had visible tears. It was surreal and also reassuring.

Just like our visit. It was a hard time, a strange time, an important time, a sad time. Leaving Israel with lots of questions and a fear for the future but with love and hope and most of all the blessing of having been together three generations – what a gift.

Israel Diaries 4

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Our security guard put on Tefillen.

We are on our way to the Gaza Envelope. That means we are visiting the sites that were directly attacked by Hamas on October 7th. They are within miles of the Gaza border. We have Rafael (our security guard) with us today; we have helmets with us today; we have had a security briefing on what happens if there is a red alert. (Siren that warns of incoming mortar or missles). Perhaps I am totally naive, but I am not overly anxious.

Why are we going? To learn; to bear witness; to show solidarity; to understand what was and what is; to experience a small piece of the nightmare of 10.7. As we were driving down from Tel Aviv, Rafael put on a Kippah and Tefillin. My guess is that Rafael is in his twenties; when Eileen was introduced to him, she said, “You’re too cute to be a security guard.”  I am going to try and ask him how he identifies religiously.

It is many hours and many experiences and many tears, anger and laughter later. We are back at our hotel in Tel Aviv. I need time to process it all. Our first stop was Kibbitz Nir Oz and then the Nova Festival Site. Both were ground zero for the morning of October 7th and visiting them you mourn, remember, witness the pain and have too many unanswered questions.

At the end of the day, we visited an Army base, home of the engineer corps of the IDF. They asked us not to take pictures of their faces or parts of the base. They are responsible for exploring, discovering and clearing the tunnels in Gaza. We walked through one of their training facilities and provided and shared a barbecue dinner. The picture above is one of the volunteer cooks and me. Quite an experience and a better way to end our day – showing our appreciation and gratitude to these young men and women who are on the front line defending Israel and us.

There are signs all over Israel: We Are Stronger Together.

 






















































































































































 

 

Israel Diaries 2

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Israel Diary 2

 

Under Their Vines

It is early in the morning (like I mean middle of the night), and I thought that by sleeping till 6:30 AM yesterday I had conquered the jet lag. Hubris. I actually played a game with myself when I woke a bit ago; I guessed what time it was without looking at the clock and I agreed to be satisfied if it was past 4:00. I lost.

The rest of our crew arrived yesterday at various times. They spent the morning sleeping and we went to visit an old friend who used to live in Nahariya and is now in a “Mishan” (Assisted Living Residence) in Ramat Aviv, just outside of Tel Aviv. She Is a textile artist and specialized in Judaica. We discovered each other when we were searching for someone to create a wall hanging in memory of Eileen’s mother, Beatrice. When we shared with Adina Bea’s life and her values and told her that Bea’s Hebrew name was Brachah (Blessing), she proposed to create a piece that incorporated the prayer for peace that includes as part of the text her Hebrew name. The prayer’s text is surrounded by vine and fig leaves as in “And everyone shall dwell under their own vine and fig tree, and none shall make them afraid.” (Micah 4:4). It hangs on the north wall of Temple Israel’s sanctuary.

The weather is beautiful in Tel Aviv. So we sat outside on her patio only big enough for two chairs and a table – but there was room for a small garden between the privacy wall and the patio. There was a vine growing. It looked like zucchini to me but Adina who had only lived there for 3 months thought it might be watermelon. We agreed we would just have to wait and see.

And that is somewhat the mood among so many of the Israelis we have met. It is a wait and see but live your life praying for peace and unafraid, at least on the outside. The beaches of Tel Aviv are full of young people playing soccer and soccer volleyball, running, surfing, enjoying life. The restaurants are full even if the hotels are not. This may be an observation that is skewered by my living in Palm Beach County but I have seen more pregnant women in our two days here than I see in a month in WPB. And there seems to me to be pride in their swelling bellies almost a statement about the future.

Tomorrow we meet our tour guide and head start our “tour”. We will be in Jaffa; we will be examining the grafiti wall art that has been created since October 7; we will be in Hostage Square meeting with families; we will welcome Shabbat there and pray again for a better future.

Let’s see if I can go back to sleep.

Hello Again

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We were in New York a few weeks ago.  Saw two shows and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art squeezing into two exhibits: Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty and Van Gogh’s Cypresses. The exhibits and the shows were radically different: Parade – about the Leo Frank lynching somewhere outside of Atlanta in 1915 and A Beautiful Noise – the story and music of Neil Diamond from Sweet Caroline to Coming to America. We can talk about Parade in a different post.

Eileen and I were captured by A Beautiful Noise; loved the music; you could sing it; loved the glitter and the sequins; felt so good, so good, so good. Things I did not know: unlike many contemporary actors and performers, Neil Diamond never changed his name. He was born Neil Diamond and still is. He didn’t pick up the guitar till he was 16. Many of his songs are deeply personal mirroring different stages of his life. And so much of it is about acceptance and loneliness. I hear his music differently now: self-reflective and even soul searching. You got to get past the façade of bright lights and shiny costumes. Just like when you love someone you love not only their persona but also the person they are within, with all the beauty marks and all the flaws, with all the strengths and weaknesses. You see, I am not a music critic, and I am not a psychoanalyst. “I am I said, to no one there and no one heard at all, not even the chair…” We all want to be heard, noticed, felt that this one life we have is impactful.

Some of us sing; some of us tell stories; some of us write; some of us nurture; some of us teach; some of us provide; some of us heal; some of us listen, some of us create; some of us grow things; some of us paint. And some of us struggle and can’t find the road back. It might be ridiculous or ludicrous to pair the two but the Van Gogh exhibit at the Met wants “in” to these words. The image at the top of this is Van Gogh’s “Country Road in Provence by Night”. He was obsessed with these cypress trees. He calls them “flame like” and even writes, “no one has yet done them as I see them.” Maybe it’s the loneliness theme. I often wondered do you have to be lonely or besieged to be creative. Is suffering the secret ingredient in the paint on the palate?

The painting isn’t as famous or as intense as Starry Nights, but it speaks to me about the life we have been given and the road we all are invited to take – one that winds through and by the trees. There are probably many paths, and they change as we grow, age, mature, become. The challenge is to recognize it, stay on it, celebrate it, affirm it, walk it with as much joy as we can muster no matter what God/Life/Chance/Luck bring us. Van Gogh died of suicide. Neal Diamond has Parkinson’s. What do we really know?

Waiting

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I’m waiting for Kohler to call me back. The kitchen faucet spray button has fallen off and I can’t get it re-attached. Neither can the very nice person at Ferguson who looked at it and said, “here is the model number and the name of the faucet. Try calling Kohler and see if they will replace the head.” After several attempts at sending me to their website, the automated voice command told me I had a 12-minute wait. I didn’t take that as a promise. Eventually they offered me one of those call back options when the next available customer service rep was available during normal business hours.

I am optimistic but realistic. So much about life is about waiting. On my good days I can transform my waiting into anticipating. Like right now I am anticipating that this is an exercise in futility. It turns out I am wrong. It turns out I have to take back all the negative thoughts I had about getting a return call. And I have to take back all the predictions that they wouldn’t do anything about my issue. Andrew called me back just now and asked that I send them a picture of the broken piece to their email address. They say they are replacing the head! Ten to twelve business days. I can wait that long.

And then the phone rings again. Well, it doesn’t actually ring. Cell phones sing; cell phones buzz; cell phones chime; they make tonal music. But it doesn’t matter. In an instant the minutia of kitchen faucets became inane. The other side of the line (although there is no line anymore) was in crisis. It jolted me back to how tenuous our existence. How true the Yiddish saying that roughly translates into: We plan; God laughs. How we think we are in control of our lives, and we can expect things to evolve in the order we have programmed – but – we all know – life is unpredictable, and the art of living is managing the unexpected.

That brings us back to waiting. We expect our lives to progress in an even course. My Aunt Molly whose life was filled with sadness would say: Don’t kid yourself- we are all just waiting for the other shoe to drop.  In Jewish tradition we know about that other shoe just as we know about waiting. Some of us wait in-between eating milk and meat. We wait after a loved one has died before resuming our everyday routine. We wait for Yom Kippur to end so we can break our fast. We wait for the Messiah to change the arc of history. We wait for humanity to live up to its potential.

There is an argument about the characteristics of waiting. Do we just wait and anticipate that there will be a Divine intervention, or do we fill our waiting hours with learning moments finding patience and clarity as we hone into a new perspective about ourselves and the quality of life around us. Waiting it turns out is not passive. It gives us room to grow and time to process the unexpected. Waiting gives us opportunity to change paths; to deepen our experience of the now; to be surprised or disappointed; to feel.

I’m getting a new faucet. It’s the little things, you know.

I

A Garden is a Place of Worship

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I am watching my garden grow. It takes a lot of patience. It also takes a lot of care. It has taught me that I’m not so good at waiting; I’m also not so good at getting down on my knees and weeding. I’m pretty good at watering and fertilizing but don’t ask me how many little pellets per square foot – for me it is a good deal of intuition and faith – well really – hope. All the professionals tell me that this year has been tough. The winter had a hard freeze when the temperature hovered around zero and the hydrangeas rebelled. So, it is a slow return to summer’s glory.

I expected a rainbow of colors by now. What I got so far are these yellow Yarrows. (Although to be fair the purple Irises have been both faithful and reliable, but they are unhappily very short lived and I saw a few buds on some blue geraniums.) It is quite a spiritual exercise, this waiting and watering, watching and worrying, weeding and wishing.

I never heard of Marc Hamer till I read a piece in the NYT.  In his latest memoir: “Spring Rain: A Life Lived in Gardens, he writes, “a garden is always a place of worship even if it’s a really crappy one.” If I can extrapolate from his words: Worship is believing that there is a power (or Power) in the universe that promotes growth. Some people believe that power listens to prayer. Some people believe that power invites us to find the oneness that unites the flower and the seed. In Hamer’s reflections, “kneeling in the garden is like bowing to the world that made me.” It is acknowledging – there is a place for us. It is hands and heart united in gratitude.

I believe in my garden, but I have a fair amount of garden jealousy. I pass neatly coiffed landscapes with defined beds and barely a weed to be seen. That’s not mine. At least not yet. But it won’t be that way forever. Eileen just bought me a new weeder that hopefully makes the process palatable. It’s Wirecutter’s favorite and called a Woodcraft Weeding Hoe. (Father’s Day you know and who wears a tie these days anyway.) I tried it out this morning. Here’s the challenge – is that a weed or wildflower?  And what do you do with the mulch you have now dug up.

Never mind, it is good therapy. If I can keep the red ants and chiggers away from me, it is a healthy form of meditation. Never mind, I love how it is never static, always changing, always becoming. I love how the dirt under my fingernails (no matter how thick the gloves) is a prayer to creation and all that is yet to be.

God Strings

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I was going to call this Two Weddings and a Funeral but it turns out that it is a South Korean Romcom about a gay man and a lesbian woman who marry to protect their secret lives in a society filled with taboos and judgement. I actually had my numbers wrong. I was thinking of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” the British comedy with Andy McDowell and Hugh Grant. The plot is predictable, the ending happy and the stars ever so young.

All of this is in my head because our summer is its own movie: two weddings, three graduations and one memorial celebration of life. All of them involve a plane or two and are forcing us to make both physical and digital folders for all the arrangements. Not complaining here at all. The first graduation (Jacob, your turn for a shout out) has just ended. And I was so aware as I watched the ceremonies all over the Duke campus, how blessed we are, living the Shehecheeyanu moment. (For those readers who are Hebrew challenged and find the word hard enough to read and almost impossible to pronounce: it translates ‘who has kept us alive’.)

We take that blessing so lightly. Maybe it’s the belief structure around it, praising/blessing God for being so personally interested in us, watching over us, preserving us, and allowing us to reach this moment. Maybe it’s the familiarity or the frequency. Jewish tradition invites us to say the blessing on so many occasions from a New Year to the first night of any holiday to new life events. For me I think it’s the theology: Does God need our blessings? Or do I need to bless. Meaning: I need to recognize the specialness, sanctity, uniqueness of the moment. Does God need our praise or do I need to stop and mark with gratitude and humility how lucky (read ‘blessed’) I am to be alive, aware, and sentient at this time.

I came back from the weekend and the next morning took a Yoga class. At the end of Savasana (the final resting pose in many Yoga classes), the instructor read a teaching about God and Oneness. It taught how many of us tend to think of God in dualistic terms. That there is God and there is us. God is up there or out there, and we are down here, separate from each other. But all that is illusion. There is only oneness. There is only “existence” and as we live in God so God lives in us. We are connected to each other, to the world, to the cosmos both inside and out. We may perceive moments and events as separate, but they flow into each other and out of each other as the waters in a bubbling stream.

All of this is my way of saying Shehecheeyanu again. Not just for the life events of this summer but for every moment. Our being is a gift. Life is a gift and gratitude is the foundational posture upon which a life of meaning stands. So, thank-you to our 3 graduates: Corey, Maya and Jacob. You remind me how sacred life can be. You remind me we are connected in ways astounding and holy. I think I will call them God Strings.

“SO”

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I so did not want to begin this long overdue blog with “so”. But here goes.

So, what is motivating me? Why after almost a year have, I decided to go back to this blog? One reason: I got billed by WordPress.com for my annual subscription and the cost of the domain name: rabbiunplugged.com. So, (here’s that conjunction again) I said: either turn off “auto-pay” or get back in the groove and resume blogging. The other: I see this as a legacy piece – and when the years ahead of you are predictably shorter than longer, you get to think about these things – at least you do when you’re in my business. And I can’t but not admit that when you tell me that you miss my thoughts or ask me did I unsubscribe you, I can’t help (let’s be honest) but be flattered.

So, another beginning. Isn’t that the truth – there is always another beginning. It is almost my personal definition of faith. Every morning brings me another opportunity to both bless the moment and be a blessing. (I know a lot of you like the political commentary better than the religious/spiritual stuff – but hey: it’s me – rabbi unplugged writing.) Faith is knowing you have choices. Sometimes they are bright and colorful, and the pale pink of dawn gives way to a bottomless blue sky. Sometimes the choices are different shades of gray leaning away from the light. Sometimes we like the choices the moment presents; sometimes not. But here’s the thing: faith is knowing you have the power to choose how you will respond even if you do not appreciate the choices.

Like my knees. They have recently decided to tell me that they are tired – not so tired that they want “out” – not yet. But fatigued enough that they want help. So, I succumbed and got gel injections. They told me it would take about a week to begin to work and ease the pain of walking up stairs and doing squats/lunges/getting out of chairs, hiking and should last about 6 months. Although friends who are “gel junkies” report that they last 6 months cause that’s how often Medicare will pay, and the pain abates and returns, and this is no magic bullet.

But what is? Life, especially the getting older phase, is about managing your bodies’ changes. And that includes your mind and memory. And that includes your definition of good or well. It is somewhat relative. And that includes how you define your reason for being. Are you here to make yourself happy? Are you here to have as many toys as possible? Are you here to make your passage through this world a blessing? And how do you do that?

So, my knees say: it’s not by playing pickle ball. So, maybe in the next blog I’ll have a better answer. But “so” is a conjunction and it is good to be back in touch.

Musings

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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.

God Laughs

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According to the Yiddish proverb, this is what happens when you plan. God laughs.

It is Sunday morning. Dani and Corey get married tonight. Eileen and I flew up to NY on Wednesday to be here for Sammy’s graduation on Thursday and the graduation party on Saturday. And this is all one week after we missed going to LA for Tali’s USC graduation the week before which we watched streamed because of a Covid scare.

So many blessings and celebrations. So many new clothes to buy. The suit for tonight was the hardest; the white shirt was a close second.  That’s because I don’t fit into an athletic fit (duh) and am too thin across the shoulders for what used to be called a “regular” and too thick around the middle for most “slims” and besides they only work if they have a 35-sleeve length not 34/35. (You didn’t know it was so complicated or all this about my body.)

Of course, I left the white shirt home.

Which is one of the lessons of the day. What made me think people would be looking at me? (Well to be a little bit fair, I was officiating.) The bride and groom were stunningly beautiful and handsome. So happy and so comfortable in the controlled mayhem that accompanied pictures, the venue, the logistics, the wedding planner’s timeline – they handled it all with grace, laughter, and ease. It was amazing. The whole month has been filled with passages: two graduations, a wedding, and a confirmation. The whole month has been filled with God moments. The God I believe in doesn’t pull strings, manipulating human behavior as a master marionette. The God I believe in laughs as I plan. The God I believe in is the spirit of gratitude, appreciation. The God I believe in resides in the holiness of these passages. And every wrinkle and kink are reminders of my humanity – flawed but not sinful, imperfect but not guilty, but oh so capable of love and appreciation.

So, the shirt I found to wear was not a perfect background for my tie. But it wasn’t about me. (You knew that from the beginning.). It is about transitions and tomorrow. It is about life’s journeys, time turning and the next generation. How “lucky” (read blessed) to be alive in this moment. It doesn’t matter to me what my theology of the day is (or the color of my shirt). It matters that I can feel how profound the moment. It is what I mean when I praise the Source of creation who has preserved me in life, kept me in health and brought me to this moment.

Do I hear an AMEN?