Bob Schwartz

Return again, return again, return to the land of your soul.
Return to who you are.
Return to what you are.
Return to where you are born and reborn.

Ashamnu אָשַמנוּ (We Have Transgressed)

We abuse, we betray, we are cruel, we destroy,
We embitter, we falsify, we gossip, we hate,
We insult, we jeer, we kill, we lie, we mock,
We neglect, we oppress, we pervert, we quarrel,
We rebel, we steal, we transgress, we are unkind,
We are violent, we are wicked, we are extremists,
We yearn to do evil, we are zealous for bad causes.
For all of these sins, O God of mercy, forgive us, pardon us,
and grant us atonement.

Al Cheit  עֵל חֵטְא (For Our Sins)

For the sins we have committed through arrogance and selfishness:
For being obsessed with our own concerns,
For choosing rudeness over common courtesy,
For loving our egos.

For the sins we have committed by defrauding others:
For using people in pursuit of our ambitions,
For manipulating the love of others,
For gossiping.

For the sins we have committed through denial and deceit:
For creating theories to rationalize our behavior,
For faking emotions for our own benefit,
For using the sins of others to excuse our own,
For claiming that ends justify the means.

For the sins we have committed through greed and overindulgence:
For using force to maintain our power,
For poisoning our planet,
For remembering the price of things but forgetting their value.

For the sins we have committed through hardening our hearts:
For accepting poverty as inevitable,
For staying silent when we should speak out,
For resenting the young and ignoring the elderly,
For abandoning proper outrage.

For the sins we have committed through hypocrisy:
For condemning in our children the faults we tolerate in ourselves,
For condemning in our parents the faults we tolerate in ourselves,
For neglecting our promises.

For the sins we have committed by narrow-mindedness:
For passing judgment without knowledge,
For denying our baseless hatreds.

For the sins we have committed against You through sex and love:
For confusing love with lust,
For pursuing fleeting pleasure while disregarding lasting hurt,
For withholding affection to control the ones we love.

For all these sins, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.

Leonard Cohen mural in Montreal

The Days of Awe (Jewish High Holy Days) are coming to a close with Yom Kippur. It has been my practice to share words of wisdom this time of year. There seems so much foolishness around right now that wisdom is a tough sell.

(And, by the way, if your finger is pointing to the most obvious big fools, consider that we are all fools. The difference is not just degree but self-awareness. Remember the log in your own eye.)

Leonard Cohen (1934-2106) is one of the most astonishing poet/songwriters of a generation. He took inspiration from many sources, including his native Judaism. For Yom Kippur, an obvious example is Who By Fire, his version of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer recited on that holy day. I’ve posted about that before.

Shortly before his death in 2016 he released the track You Want It Darker. It contains a direct reference to a profound expression that appears multiple times in the Torah: Hineni. Here I am. In the Bible it is in answer to a call from God. In the song, it is equally stark, coming from a man unwell and near death: Hineni, hineni/I’m ready, my lord.

The song is a poem, so subject to interpretation by the creator and by us, the listeners. It inspires in me a number of thoughts, including this: Light and dark, defiance and acceptance, help and abandonment, are the nature of things. Things as they are. We are reminded in this holiday to practice teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah—turning/repentance, prayer and charity—and we may try. We work to relieve suffering, eliminate folly and light candles. But suffering abides, we are also fools, and we may negligently or purposely allow the candles to go out, or even snuff them.

It is a new year. It is Yom Kippur. Here we are.

If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker

Hineni, hineni
I’m ready, my lord

There’s a lover in the story
But the story’s still the same
There’s a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it’s written in the scriptures
And it’s not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame

They’re lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle class and tame
I didn’t know I had permission to murder and to maim
You want it darker

Hineni, hineni
I’m ready, my lord

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the love that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Farce: A comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.

I need laughs right now. Real repeated laughs. Not just a smile or “isn’t that witty.” Laughs that make me feel good and forget, just in case there is something going on in the world that is best forgotten, even if for a half hour. Maybe you need that too.

I don’t laugh at plain physical comedy and slapstick. What I laugh at is physical comedy combined with outrageousness. That is funny. That is farce.

The Goes Wrong Show (Amazon Prime) is a BBC series from the creators of The Play That Goes Wrong, a West End and Broadway theater hit.

The series has a very simple premise. The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society undertakes some very ambitious plays that far exceed their talents and production abilities. With each play, things go horribly wrong, but the amateur actors carry on earnestly in the face of catastrophe. We in the audience are the beneficiaries of these theatrical disasters.

Farce is not for everybody, and this may not be for everybody, but please give it a try. You have nothing to lose but incessant wallowing in the dour and depressing alternative of the news. All episodes of this first season are recommended, but my current favorite is A Trial to Watch.

One more thing. You may be tempted to watch some of the many clips that are available. My unusual advice is don’t. Much depends on set up and premise, without which these clips look only like little comedy bits. With complete set up and premise in the context a full episode, you will get why, at least for me, this is the funniest show on TV.

I asked the birds about their plans for Rosh Hashanah, now that the temples would be closed. Not sure how observant or knowing they were, I explained that the name of the holy day meant “head of the year”, that is, the new year. It begins the ten days, called the Days of Awe, that end with Yom Kippur, the “day of repentance”. Sometimes we fashion Rosh Hashanah as the birthday of the world, the anniversary of creation. This year, instead of dressing up in fine clothes to mingle and sing, we will be on Zoom. Maybe we will dress up, maybe we won’t.

Will you be on Zoom for Rosh Hashanah, I asked. Will you dress up? Will you gather together to sing? Will you repent? Will it be awesome?

I got my answer.

Stones along the way

Today I collect
only green stones
along the way
tomorow brown
the next day red.
Is there a system
a pattern an explanation?
Why those colors on those days?
Why not?

© Bob Schwartz

The only way Donald Trump Jr. got a “bestseller” is to publish it himself and make it free.

I admit to being a little curious about what Donald Trump Jr. had to say in his book, just published a week ago. So I went to Kindle, figuring I could at least read a sample for free.

What a surprise! The entire book is free on Kindle, at least to the many customers who are part of the subscription Kindle Unlimited program, which allows you to read a large selection of books for free. It turns out that Junior’s Liberal Privilege is one of those.

This made me more curious to learn which reputable publisher had actually signed him up to write this book and then offered it free. Again surprised, but maybe not, the publisher of this “bestseller” is…Donald Trump Jr.

I still haven’t opened the book, and may not. If I do, any urge to share will be outweighed by our need to focus, as much as practically possible, on the true and the good. It’s been challenging enough constantly hearing, reading and repeating the words of Senior, who remains a genuine threat. Junior seems to have inherited his father’s unlimited sense of self-importance. But really, he’s just a pipsqueak with a beard.

It is a diabolical bit of black magic, but history sadly tells us it sometimes works.

First, the demagogue destroys trust in everything and everybody. When it comes to trust, this creates—as strange as it seems—a level playing field. That is, if you can’t trust everyone, you might as well trust anyone.

Second, the demagogue says: If you might as well trust anyone, why not me? I’m no less trustworthy than anybody else.

A logician can blow holes a mile wide in this, but people are not logicians, they are people. People “think” with their feelings (it is common for Trump to reach conclusions about what he “feels” where others would usually offer thoughtful support).

Where suffering could be alleviated by thinking and truth, demagogues offer feelings and lies. Where chaos is self-inflicted, demagogues offer promises of order. Where trust is eliminated, demagogues say “trust me.”

A prime part of American exceptionalism is how relatively new the nation is. One result is that for many Americans their sense of history goes back three centuries or less, for some just a few decades, if there is any sense of history at all.

It is ironic in one way. America, even with defections, is still a Judeo-Christian society. Both traditions look back in belief and scripture at least two millennia. That should be a clue that things have been radically different over time, that things of then are not things of now, and that things of now will not always be thus.

Everything changes.

Much of the world knows this experientially. Not only do countries east and west have long histories. Those histories are steeped in changes, some benign, some malign, all a part of natural impermanence.

All things must pass.

America justifiably wants to keep the best of itself and its institutions. That desire has been made more pointed by two overlapping phenomena: a leader who cares nothing for the best and well-being of America and a virus that cares nothing for the best and well-being of América.

The nexus of these has America desperate for the way things were, in ways little and big. Those ways are both existentially significant or trivial. The significant and existential ones should not be lightly abandoned. But as we fight for the way things were, we must acknowledge right now what most nations know from their complex histories: whatever that was or this is, it isn’t forever.

One reason not to lie constantly, or not to ask others to constantly lie for you, is that someday you may find the truth useful.

On a Saturday afternoon last November, Trump was whisked away from the White House to Walter Reed Medical Center. No explanation was provided, at least not a plausible one. There was some excuse that it was the first half of an annual physical continued in April, but this split examination defies standard medical practice.

As for Trump’s health, he is obese, is known to have a terrible diet, and gets practically no exercise (golf with a golf cart doesn’t count). Despite that, his former White House doctor Ronny Jackson was stunned by his good health, saying that he could live to be 200 if he ate better.

Today we have revelations that Trump’s doctor rode with him to Walter Reed—an unheard of practice—and that Mike Pence was also at the hospital, leading to the conclusion that whatever was going on, some temporary transfer of power might be needed.

Trump has directed his current doctor to deny that the visit concerned a number of serious conditions (this doctor didn’t mention how long Trump might live). Above all, however, neither the doctor nor anyone else at the White House will tell Americans precisely what went on at Walter Reed.

Leaving us to speculate that it was in fact very serious. Because if it was not serious, why cover it up? You say it wasn’t serious, but why would we believe you now?