View from Denver

At a time when I thought it obvious that nothing else matters like “who shall live and who shall die” — at a time like Rosh Hashanah — I learned that “nothing else matters” means something else to Steve Bannon and to the Jewish attorney general of Michigan, Dana Nessel.

Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the esteemed Ponovitcher rov, was asked why Jewish law states that one must leave a cemetery by a different route than the way one came. He responded, “Can any thinking person leave a cemetery the same as when he came?”

Pete, sweet Pete. Pete’s Fruits and Vegetables is not the same without you. Your sons are not the same without you. Your grandchildren are not the same without you. The Greek community of Denver is not the same without you. The Jewish community on the East Side of Denver is not the same without you.

When the human being, living in a world of woe, yet blessed under a blue sky, next to an ocean or with mountains in sight, is pained, speechless or baffled, the cup of Kiddush (santification) and the cup of Havdalah (division) are one and the same.

Am I simply living on the wrong side of the tracks? Or is it cynicism? Perhaps I am seeing the present distorted by rose colored glasses from the good old days? Is it economic — society has robbed many of the good life? Maybe I never noticed before? Maybe nothing has changed?

“Genocide” is an intent to exterminate an entire group, and an effort to actualize the intent. Israel has no such intent. It went to war in Gaza as a matter of self-defense. By definition, self-defense cannot constitute an intent to exterminate an entire group. When Israel declared war on Hamas after Oct. 7, it was not for revenge, not for retaliation, not tit-for-tat. It was for self-preservation.

Last Friday was June 5. My guess is that June 5, as a date, made no more impact on most people than June 4 or June 6. I am sure that June 5 is someone’s birthday or anniversary, but at one time the entire Jewish people and, for least a year or two, the entire world knew and understood June 5.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been sued by the Trump administration, an action that has unleashed a slew of non-sequiturs. But first, a brief introduction. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit, was founded in 1971 by Morris Dees to counter anti-black racism. The center spent a significant segment of its early years calling out and bankrupting the Ku Klux Klan. This was an important, worthy and creative effort.

We live in a culture of no consequences. From the international to the local, action is contemplated, the consequences are not. But there are always consequences, and when they inevitably come, they come as a shock because, in a culture of no consequences, they are entirely unanticipated. The nations of Western Europe prioritize social welfare and the environment at the expense of defense. And why not? There are no consequences.

As Shavuot approaches and the anniversary of the revelation of the Torah looms, it is inspiring to contemplate the teachings of those who mastered the Torah on a level that is beyond us. One such master was the Vilna Gaon, the “Genius of Vilna,” Rabbi Elijah son of Shlomo Zalman (d. 1797).