treppenwitz

Prophets and Losses

Here we go again (inspired by the ever insightful Elisson)...

It seems like there can't be a tragedy anywhere in the world without some religious leader making a public pronouncement that it was G-d's punishment for some real or imagined transgression. 

Since, thus far, G-d has not allowed me a peek at His master plan for the world, I have no idea whether these pronouncements are true or not.   But for those of you who claim to have the 'inside track', I need to ask a favor:

Just once I would love it if those of you who claim to have G-d's cell phone number would let us know before He smites something?  I mean seriously, if you're really plugged into the Big Guy the way you claim to be, how hard would it be to stand up at the plate and 'call the shot' before the Pitcher goes into his windup? 

I'm not talking about something general like, "A large city in California will be devastated by an earthquake because of liberal depravity".  That's a given!  :-) 

Seriously though, if you announced on, say, a Wednesday that Las Vegas was going to be reduced to smoldering rubble over the weekend... and it actually came to pass... that following Monday you'd run out of ink and paper before you finished signing up all the new converts to your religion! 

And lest anyone think I'm pointing exclusively at the televangelist crowd... I remember about 4 years ago when a couple of dozen of celebrants were killed (and hundreds more were injured) in the collapse of a Jerusalem wedding hall.  Within moments of the news being broadcast, some Rabbi had made the pronouncement that the collapse was G-d's punishment for men and women dancing together at the wedding!  All I could think when I heard this was: Why was this guy walking around in a rumpled black suit and living off Government handouts?  If he had this buddy-buddy relationship with G-d he could hit the Creator of the World up for the winning Lotto numbers once in a while, right? 

So, the point of this little tirade is that I wasn't particularly surprised that in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, several Monday morning prophets made similar pronouncements about how it was G-d's Intention to smite the Sodom and Gomorrah known as New Orleans.

The only thing that has surprised me is how much real and virtual ink these idiots have been given.  People, people... please don't give these frauds any more publicity than they are already getting. They live for this kind of stuff!

One of my daily reads, the lovely and talented Lachlan, posted about how an Evangelical group claims that G-d 'destroyed' New Orleans "because of the gay festival that was to have taken place in the city over Labor Day Weekend." 

Now, I am loath to weigh in on the side of iniquity (kidding Lach!), but this post-hoc pronouncement begs the same old questions:

First of all, if these prophets are so tight with the Almighty, why wait until after the fact to spill the beans?  Don't tell me it was because they thought the Homosexuals wouldn't show up if G-d's hand was tipped too soon.  I think I'm pretty safe in saying that if ever there was a group of people less likely to change their weekend plans because a guy in a bad toupee declared that they were going to be smitten (hmmm... it doesn't sound nearly as bad in the past tense, does it?), it would be the Gay and Lesbian community. 

Next, pinning the tragedy that has befallen New Orleans (not to mention the surrounding areas) exclusively on the Gays ignores New Orlean's, shall we say, casual historical relationship with propriety.  Over the past few centuries there has been a pretty fair amount of heterosexual debauchery going on there... and it's moniker 'The Big Easy' wasn't earned for it's accessibility to the handicapped.  I'm actually a little surprised that the motto on the Louisiana license plates isn't "Show us you Tits", with the plate itself bordered in Mardi Gras beads.  So c'mon guys... if you're going to paint some blame, bring the wide brush!  :-)

Which brings us to the last issue on the agenda which is the countless thousands of people who turned out to be collateral damage in G-d's most recent alleged act of vengeance.  Even if you subscribe to the more general theory of New Orleans' being worthy of divine punishment, there are still a huge number of people who haven't been flashing their breasts at anyone with a spare necklace.  What about those 'good' people who got punished along with the 'bad'?

Those who know their Bible should understand that G-d has made it pretty clear how he feels about killing innocent bystanders.  After He destroyed the entire world with the great flood, He promised never again to carry out universal retribution.

When G-d wanted to 'whack' the real Sodom and Gomorrah (I'm using the anglicized pronunciation because of the broad audience here), He allowed Abraham to draw Him into a fairly important negotiation.  Without spelling out all the 'handelling' that went back and forth, suffice it to say that G-d finally agreed that, for the sake of ten righteous people, He would spare the entire population of those cities. 

The bad news for Sodom and Gomorrah is that other than Lot, his wife and two daughters, the place was fresh out of righteous people.  But that doesn't tarnish the point that G-d was willing to give Sodom and Gomorrah a pass if there had been even ten good people! 

So are these false prophets really telling us that there weren't ten good people anywhere along the gulf coast?  My guess is that there are a lot of good people sitting in shelters right now eating Red Cross box lunches who might resent the implication that they weren't worthy of being spared.

Again, I have no clue why G-d allows (or perhaps refuses to prevent) suffering in the world.  But I have a hard time believing that the entire gulf coast was subjected to the meteorological equivalent of carpet bombing by an angry Old-Testament G-d. 

If man, in all his limited capability, can deliver a cruise missile into a third story apartment (second window from the left) from beyond the horizon, I have a hunch that G-d also has the ability to carry out a surgical strike if and when He is so inclined.

This isn't to say that G-d isn't capable of visiting fire and brimstone (or a hurricane for that matter) upon the entire U.S. gulf coast.  But unless you are prepared to call the shot before the devastation begins... you had better be prepared to be judged for trying to make yourself into a prophet on the backs of countless good people's losses! 

[I already have a feeling (prophecy?) that this post will probably coax a few raving lunatics out of the shadows... but I really don't care.  Typepad, in its infinite wisdom, has bestowed upon me the ability to smite any comments that don't find favor in my eyes.  So be warned.... lest ye be smitten!   :-) ]

OK... Who's good at math problems?

Please consider the following:

1. A long week in which nobody in the family has had any usable free time (even for reading).
2. A harried husband who has shirked most (if not all) of his household duties (i.e. dishes, yard, etc.).
3. A frazzled wife whose wish for her business to grow has once again confirmed the wisdom of the old axiom 'Be careful what you wish for'.
4. A couple of neglected older kids who have taken advantage of their parent's scattered attention span to completely ignore their own chores.
5. A precocious toddler who has decided to enter the 'Terrible Twos' a few months ahead of his peers.
6. A dog that has picked up some of her American 'cousin's' bad habits and has begun digging up our lawn at every opportunity.
7. A house that is in such complete disarray (more than usual... really!) that we don't even know where to begin to put it back in order.

Using these factors/events, please compute the probability that David will be posting a 'Photo Friday' this week?

Please show your work.

Shabbat Shalom.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Zahava got a phone call from an old friend yesterday that stirred up some fond memories and made a small cultural connection.

For those who are not immigrants, this 'making a cultural connection' is something that expats do amongst their compatriots... reminiscing about small cultural touchstones from 'the old country'

In this case her old friend (who moved his family to Israel shortly after we moved here) had been thinking about September 1st being 'Back to School' day here in Israel.

For the past decade, one of the fixtures of 'back to school' season in the US has been a brilliant TV commercial for Staples (an office supply super-store).  The ad shows a father posed like an ice dancer on the back of a shopping cart full of school supplies.  The cart is sailing gracefully down an aisle of the store with the Andy Williams Xmas song, "It's the most wonderful time of the year" playing merrily in the background.

The kicker comes at the end of the ad when the camera pans to the sullen-faced kids following their father down the aisle as though they were being led to the scaffold.

I have always loved this commercial, and I can see why Staples never felt the need to update it.  It perfectly sums up the elation that parents feel at the end of Summer vacation (to finally have the kids out from underfoot), and the kid's feeling that their liberty is coming to an untimely end.

This phone call from Zahava's friend put a smile on both our faces... not just because we shared a funny parenting moment, but also because we shared a nostalgic expat cultural reference that most of our countrymen/women wouldn't 'get'.

I have to admit that as I kiss the kids good-bye this morning and wish them good luck on their first day of school, I'll be mentally singing, "It's the most wonderful day of the year...".  :-)