Meanwhile Years Later

      Things often aren't what one thinks . When I was a kid in school there was a boy a few years older than I was who I thought had a really cool name and came from a pretty frum family. While I still think that his name was really cool,  I realize that he had a more sordid family background than one might think. He had several siblings who went off the derech in radical ways and a brother who I had heard had been in a bad car accident who I found  out years later had really committed suicide. Its always sad when the bubble of illusion is burst and all that is left is cold harsh reality. As a kid you think that everyone you know has it easier than you do and then you find out years later that they really , really did not. Funny how that is.

9/11/11

where has the time gone? the events of 9/11/01 are as clear to me now as they were ten years ago.  on  the morning of  9/11/01 i was at work when two planes flew into  manhattan and destroyed the world trade center. i was at work when another plane hit the pentagon and yet another plane went down in pennsylvania. everyone at work crowded around a vintage 1976 tv and watched in disbelief as the first tower fell and then then the  second. though by the time i was watching it both planes had hit the trade center,  it barely registered that there were actually two planes  even though i later realized that i had watched the instant replay of both planes hitting the trade center.
i know several people who escaped the world trade center that day. they were the lucky ones.
i stared in disbelief as i saw the photos of thousands displayed all over manhattan looking for the "missing" people. they most certainly are missed but they are  not alive either.
for days after 9/11 there were sirens. for at least a week after you could still see the smoke as the world trade center continued to burn. for weeks there were war planes overhead in all of the five boroughs of new york city.
i lost three pounds on 9/11/01. i couldn't eat for weeks. whenever i put food in my mouth it tasted like sawdust. the world as we knew it was forever changed.
it wasn't until november that i was mentally able to see the destruction at the world trade center site. even then there were throngs of people gathered to  view the devastation.there were signs beseeching onlookers not to take photos of the destruction. no one heeded that request. i took pictures, but the truth was that by then it was just a big pit. not much else was left, beside the stench.
i took pictures of the "missing" people. i took pictures of the shrines  individuals erected in union square in memory of those who were murdered. i found out from photos of the "missing" that i  knew a few people who had siblings that died in the world trade center.
it was hard to endure those frummies who were happy this event happened to the united states because they thought that this would make the united states understand israel better. what fools. all events of terror are horrible. and actually the destruction of the world trade center does ellipse many other acts of terror because of how many people were murdered. the zealous fools would say that because israel has less people that proportionally that its the same but i don't agree. a life is a life and 3,000 were lost at the world trade center at one pop. i don't advocate comparing tragedies in any event. acts of terror are acts of terror. no need to compare.
i pray for peace. i pray that 9/11 will remain the only terror act of its kind in the united states. peace and love forever.

dancing at auschwitz

these two videos i have just posted are just amazing. they bring tears to my eyes. such  triumph. this man has survived the horrors of auchwitz,  was  able to have a family and  to return to the sight of such terror and show that the best revenge is living well. he survived , had children and grandchildren and is still able to smile and laugh and dance.

we have no prophets in 5770

there are no prophets in 5770. this seems obvious, but not to everyone, especially those who seem to have a pat reason for every disaster that has befallen human kind lately.

when i heard that people were saying that hurricane katrina happened because of the gaza pull out i was sure someone was making that one up. why would poor blacks in new orleans who probably never have met a jew in their life be the receptors of the punishment for the israeli pull out from gaza? its too pat. one can connect every dot to form any conclusion one wants. i don't buy it.

after the disaster in haiti someone told me that they thought this happened because the people of haiti practise avodah zarah. well isnt that a simple solution.

others like to say that the holocaust began in germany because reform judaism began there. well, what about the fact that at the same time sara schnierer started the bais yaakov movement to counter the spiritual decline and many of her students were brutally murdered al kiddush hashem.

the problem i have with all these "reasons" for these tragedies is because they make life too simplistic. furthermore, we do not have any prophets in modern times, so there is NO WAY of knowing that any of these conjectures of these rabbis are real or not. there is however a reason we do not have prophets these days. this i do know. probably because if we knew the true reasons for these tragedies we wouldn't be able to handle it or perhaps no one would listen to them anyway, so its better they are not around for us not to listen to. or we would be too petty if we knew the real reasons these tragedies have befallen mankind. oops! we are being petty which is exactly why we dont have prophets or know the true reasons for any travesty .

all this finger pointing is rather useless. bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people and though we have to believe there is a reason it is not necessary for us to know what the reason is . sometimes its best to just put one's faith in hashem and assume he has his reasons but we as people aren't wise enough to understand them. THIS is what i was always taught.