The world seems to run in extremes. On the one hand are those who never exercise. Doctors admonitions and the examples of people whove thrown their health away make no difference. But there is another extreme.
For some people, exercising a few times a week is not enough. Exercising every day is not enough. They must exercise twice a day. Otherwise, theyll collapse, they say. Too much stress. In the gym before 6 a.m. then again, on the elliptical, in the middle of the day.
On the one hand, $40.5 billion is a pretty good deal. Thats how much Israels Teva Pharmaceuticals paid for Allergan PLC. I cant even conceive of $40.5 billion. Its like a light year an inconceivable distance, not to mention millions of light years. But there is another extreme.
For some people, $40.5 billion is not enough. Before Teva bought Allergan, it courted Mylan NV. For that company, the Teva offer was no good. Its executive chairman was rather proud of himself when he scuttled the deal. Result? Mylans stock dropped precipitously.
On the one hand, Tisha bAv is a terrible fast. Actually, I do not get very hungry. Whats terrible are the thoughts, the remembrances, the readings: steeping oneself in the inhumanity visited upon the Jewish people over the centuries.
One book I pull off the shelf each Tisha bAv is The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War, by Martin Gilbert. It is not just history, statistics, places of murder, methods of operation. Into the inconceivable abstraction of six million, Gilbert introduces specific cases. People. Names. Victims. Individuality.
After a while I put the book down. I can read no more.
I open at random to page 330:
The workers returned along the road to Griva; Maja Zarch recalled the sequel: As we approached the gates, an oppressive silence enveloped the ghetto. At the gates a drunken guard met us. He was rejoicing as his job had been well done.
Walking through the gates we saw puddles of blood, broken bottles and chairs strewn all over the place. This sight bore testimony to the fact that this last lot of people had put up a useless resistance.
We walked on, only to see sights that defy any description. Childrens bodies lay around, torn in half with the heads smashed in. We were stunned, speechless. Is it possible that such inhumanity to man by man can exist?
We returned to our barracks. It was like a morgue. . . . I will spare you what comes next.
But there is another extreme. Tisha bAv connects me to my people, my conscience, my duty, my commitment, more than any other day or experience in the entire Jewish year.
On the one hand, $1,000 an hour is not enough to pay many people, given the pressures and time commitments they work under. But there is another extreme. The same people work for less than $1 an hour, if that. When a meaningful volunteer project takes years to complete, the money isnt there and the money doesnt count.
On the one hand, we are very sensitive to linguistic overtones that are not meant to insult, but are perceived to insult. Therefore, there are no more Negroes. There are Blacks or African Americans. There are no more retarded. There are developmentally disabled. There are no more cripples. There are the disabled.
But there is another extreme. Under the federal Gun Control Act, a person adjudicated to be mentally ill by a court will, at least in theory, have his name reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System federal database, so that this person cannot legally buy a firearm. However, the man who devastated families in Louisiana by shooting up a movie theater purchased a gun legally, even though a judge had ordered him to a mental hospital. The process of reporting such a person to the federal database can fail in part because of the terms by which such mentally incompetent people are referred to the terms are not clear enough. Extreme euphemisms can lead to the death of innocents, as it did in this case. The killer had been ordered to a mental hospital by a judge, but that information did not reach the database.
On the one hand, to work as a writer, ones grammar and syntax must be perfect. But there is another extreme. The person who arguably has had the greatest influence on English usage is semi-literate. A recent headline in The Economist reads, Not déja vu all over again a nod, of course, to Yogi Berra.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
