I have been watching the commemorations of the 75th anniversary of D-Day. It has been touching, poignant and important. I loved the red, white and blue flyovers the Normandy beaches and seeing Queen Elizabeth on the podium in Portsmouth. I was grateful that President Trump was respectful. But the stars of the moment were the surviving veterans themselves. Some of who had never been back to this place that changed the course of history and saved the world from Nazi tyranny and atrocities. This place that claimed the lives of thousands of young, brave men who sacrificed themselves for us, yes for the lives we lead and the future our children can look forward to is indeed sacred ground.
I tried very hard not to personalize this celebration of courage. Until I heard the clip of the President being interviewed on British TV by Piers Morgan when he said that he never was a fan of that war, ”I’ll be honest with you. I thought it was a terrible war. I thought it was very far away.” I can’t believe he really said that. But then again we are becoming calloused to the things he says.
Vietnam was very far away. It took me three plane rides to get from Newark, NJ to Ton Son Nhut, Saigon. I wasn’t a fan of that war either but I didn’t have bone spurs that kept me from serving. Funny they don’t seem to keep him from playing golf. I was lucky though. I served as a Chaplain and even if the war had little or no meaning my role there did. I could feel what it meant to the Army, Navy, and Air Force soldiers that there was a Jewish presence there. Someone cared; someone listened; someone brought a taste of what Judaism meant to them wherever they were.
We didn’t win that war. We didn’t even have the high ground morally or politically. We sort of knew it then but we sort of didn’t also. They told us we needed to stop the Red Menace. They told us we were fighting to preserve the freedom of the South Vietnamese. We didn’t want to believe that we were killing children and that dropping Napalm from the sky was a necessary evil.
How different were the wars and how different the experience of the returning soldiers. But none of that takes away from the 90 plus year olds who returned to Normandy and to the place where they waded ashore or dropped from the sky to fight for us. And none of that takes away from the rows and rows of crosses and stars in the American cemetery. And none of that takes away from the most fundamental of all facts: America salutes you.
This is not a criticism; this is not judgmental. This is me just saying the truth that is in my heart.
It is a good day to try to write. Morning has broken but the skies show no sign that there is sun lurking behind the cloud cover. The clay tiles of the roofs across the street are outlined against a grey that is of no particular color or interest. Everything is still on this Memorial Day 2018, except my memories.
It’s April. I almost forgot even though last night on Jimmy Kimmel they were doing April Fool’s pranks. I guess it didn’t stick because it was my second choice, having changed the channel from Colbert when he put his face behind the grill and began his “midnight confessions”. All these late night talented comedians and commentators are part of my bedtime ritual like the evening “Shema”. Some of the time I put the TV on a 30 minute automatic shut off mode; on good nights, I just trust I can fall asleep without their white noise.
Here’s my problem. I can’t think about anything else to write about except what is happening to our country. How scary it is to live not knowing if you are at the beginning of a “new and improved” era of fear and repression. I had a meeting the other night at my house of a group of people looking for effective ways to make their voices heard and make a difference in the political climate of confrontation and name calling we seem to be inhabiting. The people in power right now believe that they can bully us into silence and by the sheer weight of their tweets paralyze us from acting. They disparage everything I was taught as pivotal to the great American experiment of democracy.
One source says that this is the first time in over fifty years that the first day of Hanukkah and Christmas coincide. The Jews are excited. Maybe even more excited than when Hanukkah and Thanksgiving came together in 2013. That’s when two women from the Boston area coined the phrase “Thanksgivikah.” Of course “Chrismukkah” is even older than that. It comes from the once popular TV show “OC” when Seth Cohen coined the phrase to reflect his interfaith upbringing. In 2004, the phrase “Chrismukkah” was one of Time Magazine’s words of the year! That same year the New York Catholic League and the New York Board of Rabbis issued a joint statement condemning the union of both holidays.
rabbiunplugged 