off the derech

bumped up against the "left frumkeit" bloggers and figured i'd add my ten agurot. (two cents)

in all generations there are people who have left, different generations have different dynamics. no two snow flakes are the same.

my own proximity to the holocaust (not known as such until i was in my teens in the seventies) might give a different twist to my beliefs and disbeliefs.

the t.v. shows i saw as a kid: my favorite martian and the fugitive, might provide me with a different language than one you are comfortable with.

i was born a cohen and "fell in love" with a woman forbidden for a cohen and if not for that circumstance my reaction to my modern orthodox torah upbringing would have been different.

i stayed with torah (continued to wear a yarmulka 99% or more of the time.) until i was 23. i lained the parsha often enough that the words still skip off my tongue 30 years later. i had spent enough time in yeshiva to achieve a facility with talmudic texts and to learn that a certain soul thirst could be quenched with a "successful" shabbat.

israel, zionism and the holocaust played major roles in my jewish outlook.

when i read the atheism of young people i am skeptical. y'know those two dimensional pictures that appear three dimensional if you look at them right. well that's what god is like to me. part optical illusion, part reality, all perception.

we are all scientists and artists to different degrees. the scientist within me (minority) sees the value of insisting on evidence and denying the unseen. the artist(s) within me (majority) sees the value of enriching myself, by allowing my dreaming, creative self to assert the added dimension of insisting that carbon, hydrogen and oxygen do not suffice to create life, but a teaspoon of "magic" is needed as well.

the holocaust is a valley of death, not even a shadow, but an eclipse. i cannot deny the survivor his denial of god's existence. i cannot deny the survivor his assertion of god's existence. but when i go down into that valley i leave depressed and so i try to avoid it.

israel. i idealize the diversity of new york city's union square. a (realist) person would acknowledge the history that yielded and yields that diversity. the campaign of europeans against the indigenous. the slavery and after effects. the wealth of america vis a vis the rest of the world. the border control (porous, but still a factor). so the peaceful diversity has an element of illusion to it. nonetheless it is impressive and a logical goal.

israel's lesser diversity falls short. given the muslim reality, the goal of diversity is subject to (infinite) a lengthy delay. my less than realistic dreams or policies supported by a few dissenters rather than the conventional wisdom, regarding israel, will wait til later, or be discussed elsewhere.

the children killed in this gaza campaign is deeply troubling. the holding of gilad shalit by hamas is deeply troubling. my own emotions are so overwhelming that policy statements are washed away in their flood.