I’m not the best source on Jewish liturgy but I remember that at Yom Kippur they open the doors of the ark, the cabinet of the law, and later warn you that the doors are closing. The days of atonement are coming to an end, this is your last chance to come to grips with all the vows you broke in the year before and get ready for the year ahead. Soul-ravishing… Today the Times cracked opened the doors of American consciousness a little further..
It published Walt and Mearsheimer
in the letters column, pointing out that Jeffrey Goldberg, who trashed
them up and down the town last year, has now borrowed their argument.
When will the Times see fit to invite these important scholars to speak out on the Op-Ed
page? Americans want to hear their analysis of the latest Iran fear-mongering!
Just as important, the Times published a letter from Jacob Bender. I’m
going to reprint it in full; it’s better than anything else you’re
going to read here:
Sixty years after Israeli independence, it is time for Jews to
acknowledge the painful truth: the Jewish state was born on the forced
expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinian people.As an
American Jew who lived in Israel for many years, and who has worked
with Muslim organizations for the last decade, I believe that our
recognition of this agonizing history would help open doors to peace
between Israel and Palestine, and could lay the foundation for
Jewish-Muslim reconciliation.In the third century, Rabbi Hama
bar Hanina wrote, “Great is repentance: it brings healing to the
world.” This ancient Jewish teaching can guide us as we seek to bring
peace to what Martin Buber rightly described as “a land of two
peoples.”
Amen. And further evidence that 40 years of temporizing on the ’67 borders, by both sides, has led to the inevitable, Let’s talk about ’48 and the creation myths.
