Three Foreskins

What with my radio show expanding to 2 hours and the first week of my tour guide course (more on that another time; suffice to say that I'm soaking up so much information that my brain hurts) I had a busier than usual few days last week.

I did make time to go to 3 brises (how do you pluralize that?) also known as ritual circumcisions, obviously on newborn boys. Islam does a version on girls, horrendous as that sounds and is, but we Yiddles just whittle away at the males, which apparently protects against a host of nasty diseases like HIV, although that's not why we do it. As with Shabbat and kashrut and the laws of family purity and/and/and..... there's a bunch of modern, scientific support for what we've done simply as a show of faith for a few millennium. I guess Whomever (note the capital W) asked us to comply with all these laws was actually and unbeknown to us doing us some favors, as well.

But, as usual, I digress. The first bris was that of our nephew's son, and they gave him my late father-in-law's name in the hope that he not only live a long life but a very accomplished one. As with so many joyous occasions in this country, it was also a victory of life. The baby's mother lost her cousin and uncle in a terror attack a few years ago, murdered the night before the cousin's wedding. The Spero/Applebaum family will never be the same, and every addition to their family- and our mutual one- is cause for celebration.

The next was the bris of the child whose parents I met a few years ago when the husband and I took a course together on building tolerance in Israeli society. (Great course, we all like each other. Wish we could extrapolate the relationships of the 20 of us of to the rest of the country. Oh, well.) She was in the midst of years of surgeries, including brain, for injuries suffered in a car crash which she barely survived and which cruelly terminated a pregnancy, leaving them with a toddler daughter. Well, despite her complete lack of abdominal muscles (she has mesh holding her body together) a son was born to them, an absolute miracle, even made the papers. That was one bris I was not missing, not a dry eye in the house when the blessings were said.

Last but not least was the bris of my cousin's first grandson. He's the cuz closest to my age and the only one to make aliya, pretty much because his 2 oldest sons came to do army service and refused to return to America. So they're all now here and these 2 boys- I guess to sweeten the move for their parents- married and both had babes this last month, one girl and now the little guy. These are the first children born to their family in Eretz Yisrael- that they know of -in about 2000 years. Pretty big stuff.

Since no less than Avraham Avinu had his bris (see the Torah portion for yesterday) too, I suppose it was an appropriate way to spend the week. I certainly had my fill of bagels and lox.

Now I'm going out to take 12 Christian German pro-Arab women on a tour of the Gush to try to show them a side they're not at all familiar with. This should be interesting. That covenant that the bris implies is the one connecting the Jews to this place promised us so long ago. But something tells me that they may not get it.

Sigh. Wonder what their grandfathers did in WWII, and when I let them know that I would not have been born had my dad gone to Auschwitz as did a good chunk of his family. And all the while wondering how much they even care now. I do so want to believe in the inherent goodness of mankind, a la Ann Frank. Surprise me, please.

To Believe or not to Believe, that is the Question

I just read Debkafile, the website that has sources in Israeli intelligence. According to prevailing wisdom, they are right about 50% of the time, which makes them essentially worthless. I mean, how do you know which 50% is correct and which isn't? So by all rights I shouldn't read it, but just like one is drawn to the slot machine- with a lot lower odds- I find myself checking in every couple of days. Ya never know. More than once I read something there and days later it was validated in the mainstream media. Not that the msm is so reliable, but at least it means that the disinformation is consistent. Or whatever.

Today they are reporting that Syria has called up their reservists and put their hospitals and civilian defense systems on alert. So what am I supposed to do with that tidbit? Clean out the bombshelter? Stock up on water? Say Psalms? Eat cheesecake because what the hell, might as well have a pack it on before the cockroaches munch on what's left after the chemical/biological/nuclear fumes dissipate? All of the above?

So since this added info is not adding to my general state of mental health, I should probably stop reading the site. My problem is that I'm an information junkie. Not necessarily news- I stopped that long ago- but I do like knowing things so that I can make my own mind up about them. That's why I just watched the Ann Coulter interview (I think Donny Deutsch went overboard, she's no anti-Semite, she's just a believing Christian. It's not the same thing, in my mind, anyhow) and read the Bar Rafaeli interview (she clearly has more beauty than brains, what a self centered twit) and am in the middle of a color book (not coloring book). It's so that I'll understand what different colors represent in cultures and tradition before I buy a new bedspread and reupholster my living room chairs. (For example, never do a kitchen in purple; it's the color of royalty and mystics, neither of whom hang out in the scullery. Yellow, however, wakes people up and whets the appetite so go with that.) The color of my room could have far reaching effects so I have to be careful.

Why do I believe the color stuff? Dunno, just makes sense to me. So if that's my guideline, then on reflection Syrian aggression makes sense, too. Sigh. Guess in that case I'll have to buy some H2O sixpacks and recite some 'yea's, 'thou's, 'art's and 'Lord's.

I'll hold off on the dessert, though. Don't want to explain to anyone that I can't fit into my skinny skirts because I thought we were heading for Armegeddon . That's too bizarre. Even for me.

The Irony Age

We spent yesterday afternoon trekking back and forth to the Eitam Hill, one of the 5 new outposts that were established by those who have not yet given up on the idea that Jews should be able to live in all parts of Israel. No one is under any illusions about the viability of these places in the short term. (Meaning, no way this government is going to let some ideologues- nasty word- interfere with their pathetic groveling to our enemy to please, please take our land away from us and establish another terror state there. Excuse the run on sentence; what are the chances that former English teachers of mine are reading this blog, anyhow?)

So we walked, and walked, and I was happy that the sciatica that has plagued me for nigh, over 2 months now, has mellowed into just an occasional tingle and numbness, and that we were collectively doing a little tingle to counter the national numbness that has affected the vast majority of Israelis who despise this government but can't do much about it. For me it's all about my kids and exposing them to the good people who are dedicated to this country in the ways that count. So we went.

Today's news carries a quote from some defense official claiming that our activites distract the security forces from fighting terror. Perhaps he should direct his concerns to the Prime Minister who has, in a "good will gesture to moderate Abbas", agreed to release nearly 90 terrorists from jail today, including the guy who handed Saddam's incentive cash out to families of suicide bombers. Me thinks that may actually be more detrimental to the ongoing battle against terror than some enthusiastic Zionistic teens and young families who go up on vacant hills. Not to mention that the forces out there to either protect us or evacuate us- depending on orders- are not the terror fighting units. But maybe that's just my illogical thinking.

It does makes for good copy to blame settlers once again for everything. Getting kinda stale, though.

Off to take a bus from a tour group through the Gush today. Hope I can sit for a bit.