Passover 1963 from “1968 Changed Everything”

Mark is home from college for spring break. His uncles, Ira’s brothers, Lester and Herbert Gordon, his aunts, Irene and Anne, and their five children are at the table.  Everyone is dressed up for the holiday, suits and ties and special dresses bought for the occasion. The men wear yarmulkes. In contrast, Mark is wearing torn dungarees and a T-shirt, with nothing on his head. In the past, Ira and Evelyn tried and failed to get him to change into something more appropriate. They’ve given up the fight.  That includes his wild uncut hair.  During previous Seders, other than his clothing, he’s been tolerable. But they are not sure what to expect tonight.

The evening starts out fine. The family performs the same rituals every Pesach.  It’s a happy time. God is ordinarily not a big part of their lives, but on Passover he’s in the room with them.  The women and children sit straight and formal, reverent for God’s sake.  Mark slouches, which he rightly claims is a Seder commandment.  With the exception of Mark, who is bored, everyone quietly listens as Ira and his brothers pray.  Ordinarily, they are modern Americans, acting and looking like everyone else.  Left over from their Hebrew school days, when the brothers competed for their father’s praise, which of them could daven faster has heroic implications.  It is their form of showing off.

But not all is show.  When the Gordon brothers put on yarmulkes, they are not fully in a room on Long Island.  Even if their mother wasn’t at the Seder, they would be showing off.

For God!

As they pray, they are visiting an earlier time and place. A soft echoing melody can be discerned, chanting as their father had chanted, and as their grandfather and his great-grandfather had chanted. They daven with exactly the same voice, the same beat, with a familiar hum.  In this process, the voices of their father and grandfather are returned to them. There are other ways to be connected to people who have come before. The dead visit us in recognizable physical characteristics, the same eyes, the same lips, the same smile. Jay raises his eyebrow when he is curious, exactly like his grandfather did, and Jay never knew him.

Prayer is a sacred place to meet, for, in their imitation, the departed are reincarnated. Father and son, father and grandson together again, together in obedience, together in their sway.

Soon enough, the rest of the family gets busy. From one to the other, the potatoes and then the parsley are passed to the person next to them and dipped in salt water.  As the dish is handed to them, cousins thank cousins almost formally, like they are participating in a ritual supervised by God. They are not as absorbed by the process as Ira and Lester when they daven, but they, too, feel joined to generations beyond the room. Even the children feel uplifted, inspired by their parents’ formality.  They are not simply passing potatoes and parsley. They are doing something important.

Not Mark.  He waves the potatoes and parsley off, but then he decides he wants a piece of boiled potato and throws it in his mouth, making funny faces at his aunt Irene’s three-year-old daughter.  Several times during the prayers, he whispers to CC and the two of them giggle.  Ira notices but says nothing. He repeatedly looks to his brothers for support, which he gets–sympathetic kind eyes. Ira breaks up the matzo and hands it to everyone to take a piece and pass it along. Mark takes a bite of his matzo as soon as it is handed to him, before everyone else at the table can say the prayer thanking God for the matzo. Soon after, Mark begins sipping and then gulping wine—again not at the prescribed moment, after boray pree, when everyone sips their wine together.  He pours himself some more, with a disingenuous innocent expression on his face.

Being oblivious to the expectations that once dictated his holiday obedience puts Mark in a very good mood. During the earlier years, he was a child.  Now, doing whatever he wants, when he wants, is his way of saying he is an adult.  He’s so taken with the charm of his independence that in his mind he is having a great time. Everyone is conspicuously ignoring him, but that doesn’t bother him.    As the Seder moves along, Ira can no longer ignore him.  He glares at Mark repeatedly.  Mark avoids making eye contact.

Customarily, Ira calls on each member of the family to read a section of the Haggadah.

“Mark, you read this . . . in Hebrew,” Ira says pointedly.

Mark reads the Haggadah out loud in Hebrew. During his Hebrew school days, he used to read Hebrew with ease, but he is struggling now.

“‘Raw—shaw mah who Omer? Mah ha—avodah ha—zos law—chem?  Law—chem v—low.  Ul—fee sheh—ho—tzee et—atz—mo min ha—kilal ka—far bah—ee—car.  V—af ah—tah ha—keh—hey et—she—nahv veh—ay—mahr—low bah—ah—voor zeh aw—saw Adonai lee bTzay—see me—mitzrayim.  Lee v—low low.  Ee—loo ha—yaw shahm. Low ha—yaw nee—geh—al.’”

Ira admonishes him. “You’re a little out of practice, aren’t you?”

Mark doesn’t answer.

“Now the English.”

Mark begins, “‘The wicked son, what does he say?’

“Wicked?” Mark asks.

“Continue.”

Mark obeys. “‘What is this service to you? By saying, “to you,” he implies “but not to himself.” Since he has excluded himself from us, he denies the foundation of our faith.’”

Preparing himself, Mark stares back at his father.  Then looking at CC, he playfully rolls his eyes. She smiles sympathetically but tries to hide this from her father.

“The wicked son.”  His father repeats. The room is tense.

“Mom, when are we eating?” CC asks.

Normally, at this point, awaiting the meal, everyone is starving.  But it isn’t hunger alone.  There is the anticipation. The Seder meal is like Thanksgiving.  Nanny used to cook the whole thing, but when she no longer was able, Evelyn took over, using the old recipes.  Together with Beryl, their live-in maid, they began shopping and cooking two weeks before. Yes, it’s the taste of the food. But the meal is meant to be momentous, like the Norman Rockwell painting of Thanksgiving. The gefilte fish, the matzo ball soup—Rockwell would have done a mean Pesach dinner painting.  He would have been in good company. The Last Supper has been painted a thousand times.  Did Jesus have matzo ball soup?  Unlikely, but for thousands of years, this meal has had deep meaning for Christians as much as Jews.

Ira loves presenting its significance to the family.

“It was the first time God showed us we were his chosen people.  That is what the Seder is about.  God chose us!”

Mark adds in a sarcastic tone, “He kicked the asses of the Egyptian’s gods.”  His rhythm carries him forward. “Yes he did.   The Jewish God came through.” Ira is boiling but he remains silent.

Soon after, they begin everyone’s favorite song, “Dayenu.”  As always, it is sung with gusto. A few of the cousins add weird harmonies, especially Donny, who has a great voice. That adds to the fun.

Elu hostey, hosteyano, hosteano, me mistraiem, me mitstraiem, hosteano. 

Dayenu! 

Dai, Dayenu

Dai, Dayenu

Dai. Dayenu

Dayenu Dayenu

Mark interrupts them, speaking loudly.  “You realize what we are singing?  It’s a war song.  A victory song.”

The family’s smiles evaporate.

“What?” Ira barks at him

Mark replies victoriously, “Read the English translation? Dayenu means ‘It would have been enough.’”

Ira takes on the challenge. He reads the translation.

“‘If He had brought us out of Egypt. Dayenu.

“‘If He had executed justice upon the Egyptians. Dayenu.

“‘If He had executed justice upon their gods. Dayenu’—right. So what’s your point? We’re appreciating the gifts God has given us. We are celebrating that our God is the most powerful God, the only real God.”

Happily, Mark replies, “Read the next two.”

Ira begins “‘If He had . . .’”

He stops.  Resentfully, he looks at Mark.

Mark takes over, reading triumphantly:

“‘If He had slain their firstborn.’” He raises his voice. “‘Dayenu. It would have been enough.’”

The room is silent.  No one knows how to react.  Mark continues loudly,

“‘If He had given to us their health and wealth.  It would have been enough. If He had drowned the Egyptian army. Dai ye noo.’”

“There goes that song,” Evelyn whispers to CC and Jay.

“And that’s my favorite one,” Jay adds. Jay and his wife, Dora, look at each other, not knowing whether to strike back.

Ira takes over. “So, not just America is an imperialist nation. The ancient Jews were.”

He hesitates before continuing.  “They were slaves. They defeated their oppressors.  God did it.”

Everyone is waiting for fireworks.

“And we go wahoo.  That’s terrific.” Mark snaps at his father.

“It is,” Ira snaps back.

“So the road to Vietnam is ancient.”

Everyone in the room is staring at Mark angrily.

Ira’s voice is raised. “You are full of it, Mr. Pacifist. I’ve seen you watching war movies,” Ira retorts.  “When the good guys wipe out the bad guys, I saw how happy that made you.”

“That was before.  I don’t watch them anymore.”

Ira voice is raised.  “ What you told me yesterday. ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is a war song.”

“It is! Why do we glorify war? There is nothing else to celebrate?”

“Let me tell you something. During the war, the copilot on my plane was from a French family.  He used to sing the ‘La Marseillaise,’ France’s national anthem, before every flight.”

Badly mispronouncing his French, Ira sings the refrain:

 

  Aux armes, citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, Marchons!
Qu’un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

 

“You ever watch Frenchmen singing it?  They’re not like us with Hebrew. They understand every word. You know what words are making him proud?”

 

To arms, citizens

Form your battalions

Let us march, let us march!

That their impure blood

Should water our fields!

 

CC takes Mark’s hand and her father’s.

“Let’s just sing it again.  The heck with the Egyptians. The heck with the French.”

“The heck with war,” Mark says to her, demanding seriousness.  She drops their hands.

Ira shouts at him, “We were having a nice happy celebration.  You’re the one who is the warrior.”

They all look around the room, checking one another out, anything to avoid looking at Mark.  They don’t look at Ira, either.  As New Yorkers with subway experience, they are well practiced at seeming oblivious. Jay starts singing “Dayenu.”  The rest join him, at first tentatively, but by the end the usual gusto returns.

They’re happy they have weathered the storm. Mark is still in the room. But soon they come to the part of the Seder where they are to dip their pinkies into their wineglasses and ceremoniously let a drop of wine land on their plates as they pronounce the 10 plagues.  They usually chant this in Hebrew, but Mark repeats the ritual with a loud voice.  Chanting in English, he calls out each of the ten plagues that God rained down on the Egyptians as he drops the wine from his pinkie as if it were blood.

“Blo-o-od.”

Mark throws his pinkie at the plate so that his drop of wine splatters.  The others at the table do not continue. They stare at him.

“Froooogs.”

Another drop of wine.

“Lice.”

A drop of wine

Ira stops him. “We get your point.”

Mark continues: “Killing—of—their—firstborn,” he chants, as if it is a song.

A drop of wine.

There is nervous silence at the table. When the food comes, the spell continues. No one is hungry with the celebratory hunger they have known. The uncles and aunts and cousins try their best to recapture the holiday spirits, joking and talking like nothing has happen.  There is the usual discussion about the matzo balls.  Light or heavy?  There are proponents of both.  Nanny’s were always heavy, substantial—a meal in themselves.  Evelyn’s are modern. Hers are light.  She explains to her sister-in-laws that otherwise, starting out the meal, they are too filling.

Until now, even with Mark’s irreverence over the last few years, the eating part of the Seder has remained a happy occasion. He could be ignored.  It was possible even to laugh at his jokes. This year also, hoping to rescue the evening, there are satisfied expressions on everyone’s faces as they taste the soup, eat the brisket, finish up with honey cake, and, best of all, pass around the candy that only appears after the Seder.  Barton’s and Barricini’s chocolates, chocolate-covered jelly rings and marshmallows.  Ira watches the children gobble it up, taking special satisfaction that he can afford such luxuries.  When he was growing up, his parents’ table lacked these goodies. Once or twice, there was a box of Barricini’s.  They were each allowed one chocolate, so he had learned what the cherry-filled chocolate looked like. No such problem here. Even Mark is happy with the abundance of delicious candy.

Seeing that he has calmed down, hoping the worst is over, Ira makes one final attempt to enlist Mark. He speaks with kindness in his voice. “Mark. If you want to be part of the family, you need to embrace us.  That includes our Seder.”

“But it’s all about war.” Mark answers, trying to be reasonable and fair.

“No, it’s about us getting freed from slavery—God coming to our rescue.    Like Hanukkah.  The Maccabees fought and won, and God made the oil last seven days.  It was a sign from Him that He was there.  He’d been with them all along.  God’s being there for you means everything to a soldier. It did for me when I was flying during World War Two.  The miracle of the oil lasting seven days told the celebrating army that God had guided them to victory. It’s always been a happy holiday.  Can you get into the spirit of that?”

“Yeah, Purim.  Another war holiday.  It wasn’t just Haman who got foiled.  The Jews killed seventy-five thousand Persians. Happy? Yeah.  Killing our enemies.”

“Where did you get that?”

“Look it up!” he shouts.

“Your grandmother is here.  Can you think of her for a moment?”

Nanny is sitting silently.  Her handkerchief dabs at her lips.

Silently, the thought flashes through CC’s mind. Mark, don’t do it.  Don’t do it.

He does.

“Why, is she going to pinch me?”

“That is quite enough for one evening,” Ira tells his son.  “If you don’t want to celebrate Passover, stop coming to our Seder!”

Mark gets up from the table and heads for his room. Evelyn is not far behind.

“I won’t,” Mark shouts from the staircase.

“Good!” Ira shouts back.

And he doesn’t for many, many years.

 

 

 

Carol’s Funeral: Chapter 26 from 1968 Changed Everything

Chapter 26

Goodbye

Solemnly the rabbi delivers a message Jeremy has heard at every funeral he has gone to.

“From dirt we came and to dirt we return.”

The word dirt throws him into a rage Dirt? Dirt? Why didn’t he say we return to the earth. Even dust would be better. Jeremy is in a stupor at Carol’s funeral in his usual way. His mind is pinging with all kinds of thoughts.

If only she had listened to him and been cremated. He could have spread her ashes at the top of the Ferris wheel in Coney Island. He and Carol rode to the top– the ocean on one side, miles and miles of Brooklyn on the other, apartment houses, churches, synagogues, factories, looking tiny like toys. They were both so happy. They made their vows there.  Years ago when he told Carol he wanted his ashes thrown from there, she laughed, especially when he went into details about the rest of the funeral he wanted.  Everyone attending  would be on the Ferris wheel as it circled, offer a prayer as the ashes were swept away by the wind.  He thought it through. It could really be done. The Ferris wheel could be rented. Why not? Carol laughed when he told her the details of his plan. Told him he was still a child.

Unhappily Jeremy stares at the chassidic rabbi. He’s put Jeremy in a nasty mood. It isn’t just that he used dirt instead of the earth.  He looks like he slept in his clothes. He is not a dandy like the Chassidim in Williamsburg with their sable fur hats, proudly waddling along the avenues to the synagogue. This rabbi looks like the Jews Jeremy has seen in documentaries about the holocaust. They were so ugly. He shouldn’t have had that thought. He felt enormous compassion for them but also disgust. Acceptable or not you feel what you feel. It’s not under your control.  That is how he excused himself. He didn’t like that non-Jews saw them like that.

Jeremy had half forgotten Carol’s mother came from a Chassidic family. She broke from them, tossed out all of their ways. But here she is with this rabbi.

Last night Jeremy wrote and rewrote something about Carol. Had a thousand thoughts which he kept revising. He decided  he might read it at the gravesite. He takes it out of his pocket.

Necessities commanded her interest, not theories. She did the heavy lifting, tore through the daily details required for us to function.  The bed was always made by 10 AM. The dishes washed after dinner. No exceptions. She went to the nursery to buy lawn fertilizer. She pushed the spreader. She was proud of our lawn. So was I. The house had to be beautiful as if we were having guests. I’d tell her it was unnecessary. She knew I didn’t want to help her. “Go. Work on your masterpiece,” she’d tell me. And when she read a chapter or two she sometimes told me it was a masterpiece. Or she wouldn’t but it was more important than her work.

She was the one with great lyrics. She knew how to find the words. She couldn’t care less if it was sung on the radio. She just wrote it.

Hey you with the broken smile

Come on over and stay for a while.

 Hey you with the hunger in your eyes

I recognize that look on your face

A shattered heart still searching for grace.

Disappointed? I know it’s not the way you planned.

Darling, save your words

Because I know that’s the way it happens.

You wouldn’t be the first

To be standing

With your heart left in your hands.

He loves the melody. He considers singing it. Decides not to. It would be weird. Carol’s mother doesn’t need weird. Not today. He continues reading

“She seemed not to mind putting me first. There wasn’t a choice growing up. It was ingrained in her. Not from anything taught to her. From her experience.  Before he stopped, her father drank more than he should. Her mother needed her help. It wasn’t work. She enjoyed helping her. Her mother’s appreciation was abundant, her love. And her father? She understood whatever he did or did not do. Her devotion to her parents blossomed in the approval she gave to herself each time she was helpful. That was very often. It kept her on an even keel. Yes, sometimes when there was heavy lifting, rage at her misfortune blew all of that away. But that was rare.  She never thought about an alternative. You do what you must do and move on to the next thing you must do. And then you do that. It wasn’t tzedakah, righteousness, giving charity as you are commanded to do. It was what she had to do. Kindness overflowed to those she loved.”

That was Carol. Jeremy can feel it, perhaps more now, as he recalls it, than when she offered it day after day.

Jay comes into his mind, CC’s brother. He lived his life doing what was expected. CC said he seemed content.  For a brief moment Jeremy’s contempt for him disappears, but then  returns as he flushes his new perspective  away. He returns to what he has written.

“Day to day she was perfectly happy with her life. She told me that.  It didn’t take much. The satisfaction she felt when she finished a chore. Mopping the floor, doing macramé, fertilizing the lawn, it didn’t matter. Because it was done well by the end of the day, her exhaustion made rest a luxury she had earned. Her deep, deep sleep. She hardly moved in the bed. That contentment wasn’t a trick she learned from a book, or from anyone’s suggestions. She went to sleep cherishing her rest. Her exhaustion was her sleeping pill. Now she is resting in peace.”

His reading stops. The usual. His thoughts bolt out.

People say that all the time. The right words bring comfort. It sounds idiotic to Jeremy. She is dead not resting. He crumbles up the paper. No way he will say anything today. That part about her father’s drinking. Carol would have been humiliated.

Then he decides he wants to hold on to the paper. He tries to straighten it. He folds it as neatly as he can. Puts it back in his pocket. He won’t, he can’t speak but he feels like he should be doing something. Only it is too late to do anything.  There is nothing to can do.

Again he looks at the pine box. If only he could see her smiling at him, one of her really nice smiles. Sometimes she would say in a certain way. “You’re my Jeremy.” Not often, but when she did he loved hearing it even if he seemed to be busy with other things. Later in the day it would come back to him. The way she said that. It is coming back to him now. If he could see that smile one more time.  He tries to picture it in his mind. He can’t.

He should have done more. He could have.  It wasn’t fair. He’s had that thought before, many times, but this time  his usual excuse isn’t working. Yes she loved him and gave and gave but that is because Carol was Carol. She couldn’t be any other way. That’s how she loved. She loved loving that way. She would have done the same for someone else. It wasn’t him. It was the way she loved.

But right now that thought doesn’t relieve his anguish.

Would she really? Was she doing it to get him to love her? She knew he didn’t. Not the crazy way people in love are in the beginning. Not the way he loves CC. Is that why she couldn’t do enough for him. If he loved her the way he loves CC she wouldn’t have had to try so hard. His mind races forward like a flooding stream.  Remorse grabs hold of him. He can’t get enough air. He takes a deep breath. It doesn’t help. He needs more air. He can’t get it.

Fortunately, there is a shred of relief. He grabs at it. He did love her. The amazing guttural sounds she made when she came. “I’m coming. I’m coming.” He loved those moments. Loved them. Loved them.  Loved her. That was real. Enormous. He can almost feel those moments as if it were happening now.   She knew how much he loved that. There was quiet between them. Contentment. They were one. That can’t be taken away from him.

He tears up but not enough. He wants to sob, to sob like he did in the hospital. That is not there. He feels angry.

Again the same thought. She deserves better than this Chassidic rabbi her mother brought from Brooklyn. His anger blots out his sadness. Carol didn’t like when he got angry. It happened too often. He tries not to be angry. He can’t. Again he can’t get enough air. He stares silently at the pine box holding her body as it is lowered.

People probably think I’m a cheapskate runs through his head. He’s been to Christian funerals. All those flowers, the magnificent finished woods of the caskets. Silk lining surrounding the departed.

He hates that there are strangers at the funeral. He’s embarrassed. They should have had a private funeral so he wouldn’t be distracted by the nonsense being public evokes. That son of a bitch, Professor Malev is at the funeral. Malev probably voted him out of the program. But maybe he wasn’t one of them. He would not have shown up today if he was.  More than anyone else  he is the one Jeremy worried might see him as cheap. But Malev is Jewish. He’d know that the pine box is obligatory. Remembering that,  Jeremy is able to dismiss that thought.

To dirt we return. Again, again, again that word. Dirt! He looks at the pile of dirt taken from the gravesite. Stones, sand, clay, mud– DIRT! Fucking Chassid. Low, class. An ugly guy. He’s an embarrassment to the Jews. Once again,  videos he has seen, the Jews in the concentration camps come to mind. The skeletons, the mass graves as they are shot. Wasn’t  their fault but people seeing Jews like that. Yes people with muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, the prisoners at Auschwitz are, totally innocent, victims, deserving our love and support.  But they are grotesque. He isn’t the only one who sees them as grotesque.  He read an interview with a woman who was freed from Auschwitz.   She saw the look of disgust on the face of an American G.I. when he stared at the prisoners. She was embarrassed, humiliated. She had never felt that in all the time she was imprisoned. But she saw how ugly all of them were, how ugly she had become. Carol deserved better. A proper acknowledgement, some way of announcing her importance. Kirk Douglas’ Spartacus. That was a Jew to be proud of.

He hated his mother’s funeral, hated seeing her. Before she died his mother kidded him when they talked about her funeral. He didn’t want to talk about it. She insisted that they talk about it. So he told her his ideas. She said they were funny.

“So you think there should be fireworks. Like July 4th?

“No nothing like that, but something.”

“Jeremy I am going to be dirt. You are going to be dirt. Your father is going to be dirt The future of every living soul, every living thing, the grass, the birds, the buffalo, all become dirt.”

So that is  why that word got to him! His mother’s words. She had sounded sanguine as she spoke about dying. Like she was about everything. Grounded. Plain truth. Anything else a waste of time. Death is death. Dead and gone. End of story.  When she spoke about it, she sounded brave. Spitting at death. Shouting at it. Not fearing it. Quietly acknowledging it. He wishes he could have his mother’s perspective right now. Carol would have wanted that. She would have loved that. Be real. Move on. You have a life you gotta live.

“Look, her lips,

Look there.

Look there.”

Jeremy doesn’t know where those words are coming  from, but he never does when he hallucinates. Words from a person unseen. He tries to picture Carol’s lips. He can’t. He remembers his mother’s blue lips when she died.

He was right to hate his mother’s funeral. She had it all wrong.  And now he’s hating Carol’s attitude. There should be fireworks. He hated how Carol never fought back, that she wanted to die silently. She liked that line, go quietly into the night. Except she got it wrong, “Do not go gently into the night.” It doesn’t matter. The Irish whoop it up.  At wakes, drink their way through death. Maybe they have the right idea. Except it isn’t only at wakes. So many Irish men have wrecked their family’s life.  His own love of marijuana jumps into his mind.

He looks over at Alyosha in Carol’s mother’s arms. Alyosha won’t look at him. He walks over to him, tries to take him in his arms. Alyosha cries, reaches for his grandmother. Jeremy makes crazy, funny sounds. It often works. Not this time. Alyosha is looking for his mother, reaching for his grandmother. Jeremy gives him back, walks away. Carol loved him so much. He’s now an orphan.

Alone, Jeremy stands silently, making no eye contact with Carol’s cousins, no eye contact with his own cousins, with anyone. He is in his own world.  After a quick glance at his father, the tears come more freely. Not enough to wash away his sadness, but he feels some relief. He knows how much his father loved his mother. As much as anyone can love another person. His father’s self-control was awful, but that didn’t lessen his love. He was an awful husband, cheated again and again but she was the love of his life. His mother knew that. She told him that. Carol didn’t tell him that. She couldn’t.

That Carol had to put up with CC, knowing she wasn’t really loved, not like she had once dreamed of being loved. She had made peace by telling herself that Jeremy couldn’t fall in love like that with anyone, at least not anything lasting more than a week or two. It was her excuse, a gift to Jeremy.  He didn’t mind having his conscience quieted by her forgiveness in those final weeks, but today it isn’t sticking.

She knew he loved CC like that. It hurt her deeply. It took away her will to live. She had always clawed back when the lupus flared up. Kept it from turning into real illness. But not this time.  She saw him with CC at the football game. He is now sure it began then. After she saw them she  got sicker and sicker. The tears stream down his face. The only relief is agreeing with his mother. Carol is nothing. My mother was nothing. I am nothing. We are all nothing. We will be dirt far longer than the years we are alive. We will be dirt forever.

He looks at the other people at the funeral. The rabbi made sure to bring a minyan. Had them shlep with him six and a half hours nonstop from Brooklyn to Buffalo. The Chassid are amazing. The importance of   responsibility. Tzedakah. Righteousness. His anger at the rabbi subsides.

Jeremy vaguely recognizes one of Carol’s cousins from Brooklyn. Jeremy and Carl have more than once schmoozed at family affairs. Carl sat at their table at a bar mitzvah. Carl approaches Jeremy.

“Seems like I just saw her. Did it happen quickly?”

Jeremy murmurs, “No.”

“Was she in pain?”

“No.”

“Well at least we can be thankful for that.”

Jeremy doesn’t answer, but he is looking at Carl with hatred. Thankful? Thankful?  He wants to shout, but doesn’t.

Carl walks away. The hatred remains until it is replaced with Jeremy’s regret. Carl meant well. Jeremy is angry at himself for his anger. Carol woud have been angry at him.

Jeremy becomes numb. He is standing alone. He hears the Kaddish. His mother was always there when as a little boy he stared at the children playing outside.

“Come on, Move your bupkiss. Get some fresh air.”

Jeremy knows the prayer by heart. After his mother’s death he and his father went to weekly services to say the mourner’s Kaddish. His father stopped after a month. He told Jeremy there was no point. “She’s gone. Gone is gone.” Jeremy continued for eleven months as prescribed by Jewish law. He was twelve and didn’t doubt God was watching him. So it wasn’t just ritual. He was praying. Talking fervently to God. It was only later, in college, that he refused saying the Kaddish at a funeral. It felt silly praying to a god that doesn’t exist.

Jeremy begins to chant.  Carol would have wanted this. She prayed to God. She was certain God was there. There is also a tid bit of a feeling which goes off and on that he is speaking to God. It’s there when he begins.

v’yitromam v’yitnasei

v’yit-hadar v’yit-aleh v’yit-halal

sh’mei d’kud’sha

l’eila min kol birkhata v’shirata

tooshb’chatah v’nechematah

da’ameeran b’almah, v’eemru

He reads silently to himself.

Blessed and praised and glorified

 and exalted and extolled

and mighty and upraised,

and lauded be the Name of the Holy One.

Blessed is He.

Beyond any blessing and song,

beyond any  praise and consolation that are uttered in the world.

 Now say Amen.

His cynicism returns. “Boy they don’t want to take any chances that God might be offended.”

Then he murmurs the words in English, this time out loud.

“Blessed and praised, glorified, exalted and extolled, honored, adored and lauded be the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He.”

He stops for a moment, then continues

“Beyond all the blessings, hymns, praises and consolations that are uttered in the world; and say, Amen.”

Somewhere in the middle of that he’s begun again to connect to God. Not completely, but there is something, something alive. He’s half way there.

They come to the final verse.  He remembers the ritual. He takes three steps back, bows his head to the right then straight ahead, then to the left, then straight ahead he bows. He speaks in Hebrew as he did as a child

עֹשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם בִּמְרוֹמָיו

הוּא יַעֲשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם

עָלֵֽינוּ וְעַל כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאִמְרוּ

        He prays desperately, frightened.

As usual his thoughts intervene. They used to praise good Jews as God fearing. No way he can live peacefully with that. He knows a reborn Christian who sees God’s love. God fearing is the best we can do?

That thought does it. Whatever was, or could have been, he’s again not connected. He has only his thinking which he has worshipped all these years as his God. The other God is nowhere.

Another hallucination. A mocking voice. It is CC’s.

“Wittgenstein.”

It gets louder. “Wittgenstein? The King of doubt?”

         “Fuck you CC.” he whispers to himself as he walks away from the grave site, watched by the others as the funeral has not concluded. Nothing is working. Neither his anger nor his thoughts can blot out his despair.

     Carol, where are you?

 

A Plea for Balance: The Situation In the Ukraine is Far More Complicated Than We are Being Told

 

 

Whatever the cause, wars’ consequences are the worst behavior human beings are capable of displaying. It’s always the same, rape, pillage, maiming and human beings killing other human beings on a massive scale.  War makes clear that we are animals once the restraints of civilized expectations are removed.  However noble the intentions claimed, however interesting battles can seem in history books, war’s horror is so evident that it cannot be sanctioned, explained, or justified in any way. Not now. Not ever.  Putin and the Russians should be universally condemned. But we can also assume that by now some of the Ukrainian soldiers have matched the Russians in performing terrible deeds. War unleashes grotesque impulses on every side.  All the more reason that we are entitled for our news to be told with more than the simplicity of a good guys vs. bad guys narrative.

 

Putin’s contention that Ukraine is part of Russia is being treated as a reincarnation of Hitler. Not entirely ridiculous. We should see him as a potentially dangerous man, a bully preying on the weak. He rules a large country. He has attacked a small one. That hasn’t happened in Europe for a very long time. His neighbors, especially former satellites, have good reason to fear Russian aggression. They were imprisoned by Russia until the Soveit Union crumbled. Nevertheless, treating Putin as a mad man avoids this war’s particulars. Here are simple facts. Khrushchev who led Russia from 1953-1964 was, in essence, a Ukrainian. Although ethnically Russian, he was born and raised close to the border of the Ukraine. His father worked in the Ukraine, and his early career and political successes were all in the Ukraine Communist Party. He expressed his fondness for them repeatedly. Leonid Brezhnev who followed him was a Ukrainian. He led Russia from 1964-82.  Chernenko, a Ukrainian was Brezhnev’s chief of staff. He also led the Soviet Union from 1984-85.  During the Brezhnev era, the head of both the KGB and the Defense ministry were Ukrainians.  In essence, for a very long time, Ukrainians ruled Russia. Gorbachev led the Soviet Union from 1985-92. His mother was Ukrainian.  In the west he is thought of as our hero. He ended the Cold War. He ended Communism.

 

Another fact: Gorbachev felt that Russia was correct to take back Crimea. Within the Soviet Union many Russian were furious, when in 1954, Ukraine aficionado, Nikita Khrushchev gave it to the Ukraine. Crimea had been a part of Russia from 1783 until Khrushchev’s gift. It wasn’t just Crimea that Gorbachev disagreed with our point of view.  Gorbachev was furious with the United States for going back on many of their agreements regarding the resolution of the Cold War. Before he died he also made clear that he thought Putin is a trustworthy leader defending Russian interests. For his support of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, he was banned from the Ukraine.

 

A simple question: If the Ukraine is unequivocally not part of Russia how did the Russians allow so many non-Russians to lead their nation? Obviously for many of those years the Ukrainians were considered Russian. Not that there weren’t plenty of tensions and a history of bloodshed between them, just as there is between Mississippi and Massachusetts.  But briefly, in 1991, the Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power in the world. A huge number of Russia’s nuclear weapons were in the Ukraine. Not something we would expect Russia to do if it considered the Ukraine a foreign nation. We have all heard of the Chernobyl disaster in Russia. Actually Chernobyl is in the Ukraine. Putin claims that for a very long time we have been trying to pry the Ukraine away from Russia. Of course we have.  Does that mean Putin was entitled to go to war when Ukrainian leaders wanted to complete the break, become a member of NATO, part of an alliance specifically designed to oppose Russia.

 

Putin is not a good guy. I’m inclined to believe those stories of poisonings of his political enemies, whether he personally ordered them or not. I suspect his gang of supporters has done many other terrible things.  Probably the recent air plane crash killing Prigozhin, the leader of an army who, for a while, sought to overthrow Putin, was not an accident. There is nothing to like about the political process in Russia.  They are not able to rise above violence as a way to settle political disagreement. This is not the United States where we tar and feather political opponents, tell an incredible number of lies, try to destroy those who are hated, but by using our mighty media, not literally by killing them. For now, and probably for the foreseeable future this means Russia is less civilized than us. We saw when the Serbs and Crimeans went to war how barbaric political battles became. Long time neighbors killed each other. We saw the same in Saudi Arabia. A journalist opponent of the rulers got killed, his body chopped up, put in suitcases. During the Viet Nam era, nations in South East Asia  had numerous killing fields. Many Latin American nations solved political dispute with violence. European kings and princes once regularly beheaded opponents. Except for our Civil War we have managed to avoid that. Still, there is a lot to dislike about the way our democracy has been functioning in recent years. The first casualty of war is truth.  On that basis what has been going on in America is a war. Those on the Left are demonized by those on the Right and vice-versa. Lies pile on top of lies from both the right and left. The Democrats tried to immobilize Trump’s election with the Russian collusion lies. Trump tried to throw out the election in 2020 with his lies.

 

The Ukraine is presented similarly with propaganda that is inevitable in wars.  Flag waving is the only acceptable attitude. Our side is heroic. The Ukrainians are venerated. They are noble, kind, brave, suffering human beings, not far from sainthood. Every time Zelenskyy speaks to legislators in the west he gets standing ovations.   Presumably, the foul behavior of the Ukrainians in the past, has long since been forgotten. These are very fine people. Their enemies, our enemies, are crazy animals. They are rapists, murderers, and beasts. Their soldiers are stupid to agree to the suicide demanded of them. When they bring orphaned Ukrainian children for care in Russia we claim they are kidnapping them. When the Russian people show their support for Putin, our explanation is that they have been duped. We cite Putin’s critics as evidence that he is barely holding on to the leadership of Russia.

 

The lies of our politicians and our media are intolerable. They have completely lost our trust.  But Russia’s political process is worse. Far worse. It has not returned to a society where the KGB once grabbed people out of their apartments at night, never to return. And people were too frightened to object. Nor has an iron curtain been erected keeping its people imprisoned, shooting those trying to escape. Russia’s citizens can leave their country and travel freely. They have access to the West’s media.  The process is very flawed by our standards, but it is not helpful to characterize their politicians as madmen, and dismiss their claims as outrageous. We are entitled to hear the whole story when we go over why the Ukraine was attacked.

 

Half Ukrainian, half Russian, before he died, Gorbachev grieved over the war. He saw the two people as brothers with a long historical bond. Gogol was Ukrainian. So was Trotsky.  Sergei Prokofiev, the great Russian composer, was born in the Ukraine. Fiddler on the Roof, which we all assume was about a Russian shtetl took place in the Ukraine. Little Odessa in Brooklyn described a neighborhood of Russian and Ukrainian people freely mingling. People moved there to be among their own. My wife’s grandfather always described himself as Russian. It now turns out he was Ukrainian. Sholoim Aleichem was Ukrainian. There are monuments to him in Lviv and Moscow. Solzhenitsyn’s mother was Ukrainian.. So were the genius Russian pianists Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels, violinists David Oistrach, Nathan Milstein. Soviet Cosmonauts Georgy Beregovoy, Leonid Kizim, Anatoly Levchenko, Anatoly Filipchenko, Anatoly Artsebarsky, Igor Volk, Pavel Popovich, Verkhovna Rada, Georgy Dobrovolsky–all were Ukrainians.

 

A good many Western Ukrainians, apparently a large majority, have considered themselves European and hated Russia over the centuries. But what is and is not the Ukraine has been literally all over the map throughout its history. Parts of the Ukraine, Galicia and Polhynia were ruled by Poland. Like Russia today Poles didn’t think of the Ukraine as a real country. From the point of view of ordinary citizens in that part of the world, they have not been that far off. I knew this Hungarian Americans family who see themselves as totally Hungarian They spoke Hungarian. They were Hungarians. It now turns out they actually lived in what is now the Ukraine. Parts of today’s Ukraine were considered Czechoslovakian, other parts Rumanian.

 

 

For much of their history most Ukrainians didn’t think of themselves as part of a Ukraine nation. They were Hungarians Poles, Russian, Slavs, Tartars, Cossacks. Not just in the Ukraine, the idea of what is and is not a nation hadn’t been clear in much of Europe until the 19th century. It was then that being part of a “nation” ascended as the dominant way of viewing territories. Just as Venetians, and the Milanese started thinking of themselves as Italians, and Prussians and Junkers began to think of themselves as German, Ukrainian nationalism believed they should be part of their own nation.   It was an idea, a call to action rather than something that actually existed. But clearly it was a dangerous thought if you were Polish.

 

The Poles tried to suppress Ukrainian nationalism wherever it popped up. They closed down Ukrainian speaking schools. They tried, not always nicely, to turn the Ukrainians into Roman Catholics. Although throughout its history other peoples occupied their lands and considered the Ukraine part of their country, Ukrainian intellectuals starting thinking of themselves as  Ukrainian. They were spreading an idea, a nation of Ukrainian people.

 

Russia was equally hated They also tried to suppress Ukrainian nationalism. But that was not their worst sin. In the 1930’s Stalin viciously tried to impose collective farming, shooting any one opposed. This led to the greatest non-wartime famine in history. A million Russians starved to death and four million Ukrainians.  Many Ukrainians greeted the Germans in World War II as liberators. They joined them in the slaughter of Jews at Babi Yar. Not only Jews. In 1943, Ukrainian nationalists with the Nazi’s help, also slaughtered 60,000 to 100,000 men, women and children of Polish origin who were living peacefully in villages in the Ukraine.

 

Putin often speaks of the Ukrainians as Nazis, seemingly a ludicrous accusation considering that their leader is Jewish. Yes, a charmer from show business, a television personality is the public persona of the Ukrainians nation’s cause. He was elected by a majority of the Ukrainian people. But a minority of Ukrainians are Nazi affiliated. And they have occupied a prominent role in their society. The 1943 killing of Poles were initiated and directed by a radical Ukrainian nationalist Stephen Bandera and his Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its military arm, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

 

 

Led by Stephen Bodera the murders were committed with incredible cruelty. Many were burnt alive or thrown into wells. Axes, pitchforks, scythes, knives and other farming tools rather than guns were used in an attempt to make the massacres look like a spontaneous peasant uprising. In the blood frenzy, the Ukrainians tortured their victims with unimaginable bestiality. Victims were scalped. They had their noses, lips and ears cut off. They had their eyes gouged out and hands cut off and they had their heads squashed in clamps. Woman had their breasts cut off and pregnant woman were stabbed in the belly. Men had their genitals sliced off with sickles. All the horrible things described about the treatment of Jews during that era were also done to the Poles

 

In 2016 the Polish parliament instituted the National Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against citizens of the Second Republic of Poland, at the same time labelling the massacres an act of genocide. But there has been no public apology. Indeed, Bodera is seen as a national hero. A Ukrainian stamp commemorates his heroism. There is a 22 ft statue of him in Lviv in front of the Stele of the Ukrainian Statehood a towering monument to Ukrainian identity. Although their common fear of Russia has, for now, united them, the issues between the Poles and Ukrainians is far from over. In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament  passed a law allowing people who denied the heroism of Ukrainian national resistance fighters to be punished. The Poles passed a bill making it a criminal offence to deny the “crimes of Ukrainian nationalists”.  Zelenskyy has gone to a Polish Church, supposedly as an act of contrition for what the Nazi Ukrainians did to the Poles. But the towering statue remains. Bodera is a hero.

It should also be noted that these wonderful people were the mainstay of the Nazi’s death camps. Ukrainians were said to outnumbered the Germans 10 to 1 at Sorbitol. It was similar in other death camps. Not every nationality would have been able to supply so many guards equal in cruelty to the Ukrainians that herded the Jews.  And while Zelenskyy, during his election campaign, intended to clean up Ukrainian’s notorious corruption with his dream team of reformers, the dream team was gone after a few months in office. He made peace with a rotten bunch of people.

 

In complete contrast Russian speaking Eastern Ukrainians were the mainstay of the Ukrainian underground fighting the Nazis. Since 2014 Eastern Ukrainians have been fighting the rest of Ukraine in a civil war seeking independence. There are reports of them committing war crimes, just as there have been reports of the Ukrainian army killing unarmed prisoners. I assume the reports are not fiction.

 

 

I must admit that I am not a long time scholar of the Ukraine. I am using Google and Wikipedia, and news articles, so some of my information may be tainted by the sites. I am new to the subject and find it difficult to separate fact from fiction. And I will admit a contrary streak in me has caused me to find information tarnishing the current angelic presentation of Ukrainians. I welcome factual corrections. However, regardless of my iconoclasm, and probably some mistaken facts, my main purpose is to emphasize how complicated the situation is. Even in educated quarters there has been little attempt to move beyond official attitudes. Part of that uniformity has become part of political correctness. It’s dangerous to stand alone. So very possibly I am exaggerating Ukrainian evil to level the playing field. But I will not apologize for wanting readers to take a better look at official attitudes.

 

Perhaps the complex issues are best illustrated by Russian Olympic champion ice skater, Victor Petrenko. Born in the Ukraine to Ukrainian engineers, only Russian was spoken at home. He was sent to a Russian speaking school in the Ukraine. Despite being born and educated in the Ukraine he never learned to speak Ukrainian fluently. After he was an Olympic champion, as an adult he organized many charitable events for Ukrainian children including a campaign to help those effected by Chernobyl (once more, in the Ukraine not Russia.)

 

In June 2008, he was elected to the Presidium of the Ukrainian Figure Skating Federation. In 2022, amidst Ukraine’s ongoing war against Russia, Petrenko was fired from his post as vice president of the Ukrainian Figure Skating Federation (UFFK) and expelled from the organization for taking part in an event in Russia that was organized by Tatiana Navka a Ukrainian ice dancer who won gold for Russia in 2006.  She is the wife of Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov.

 

One other relevant point of view. At the beginning of the war Thomas Friedman wrote an article in the New York Times, “This Is Putin’s War. But America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders” (Please use the link) He described the anger of George Kennan (the person often credited with our anti-Soviet policies during the cold war). Kennan, like Gorbachev, felt we were extremely (and unnecessarily) aggressive surrounding the Soviet Union with armed NATO allies. Friedman quoted Kennan in the 90’s: “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.”

 

Russia has repeatedly said it will end the war if its conditions are met by the Ukraine. They are:  1) Change its constitution to enshrine neutrality 2) acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory.  3) recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states (now part of Eastern Ukraine). Despite the clarity of their demands, The New York Times’ Steven Erlanger wrote September 2 of this year “Putin has said a lot of times he won’t negotiate except on his own terms, which are Ukraine’s obliteration.” Not exactly an accurate description. They have repeatedly had referendums in Eastern Ukraine, demonstrating that they are supported by the population. Perhaps, as we claim, their referendums are phony. Perhaps not, but I am willing to consider the possibility that a majority of eastern Ukrainians want to be Russians. Certainly, even before the Russian soldiers joined them, there were a lot of Eastern Ukrainians willing to fight and die for their cause.

 

It should be noted that the declared boundaries of the Ukraine, which I have noted have previously gone in all kinds of directions were made official in 1991and agreed upon by Russia. But I am not sure how meaningful that was.  Russia’s nationhood was far from secure. In that very year, during a coup attempt, their Parliament was surrounded by troops. Gorbachev, the ruler of Russia, was placed under house arrest. So, one may question what it meant for Russia to agree to the present boundaries. And as noted above, Gorbachev was furious with the United States for not living up to understandings we supposedly agreed to when they agreed to end the Soviet Union.

 

The mention of Trump often goes off in wild directions. But it is not coincidence that Trump’s first National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, was a strong advocate of better relations with Russia. So was Trump. And we know how Russia’s enemies in Washington were horrified. Indeed, with their false Russian collusion accusations they succeeded in demonizing Russia even before the Ukraine invasion.

 

On a purely speculative level, the other current alliances should be noted.  Biden has had a special relationship with the Ukraine.  His son cashed in on absurd rewards while his father was Vice-president (a million dollar a year for board seat on Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company) Burisma was being investigated by Victor Shokin their top prosecutor. Shokin seized four large houses and a Rolls-Royce Phantom belonging to the company’s owner Mykola Zlochevsky. Biden insisted that this prosecutor be terminated. In a 2018 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, VP Biden bragged that he had threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees for Ukraine unless Shokin was sacked. It also should be noted that Trump pushed in the other direction. He intended to withhold military assistance unless the Ukrainians proceed with their Biden corruption investigation. For this Trump was rewarded with another impeachment drama.

 

Perhaps the slimy everyday corruption of politicians shouldn’t tarnish the lofty issues often cited in the Ukrainian war. Or perhaps they should for any perspective that might clarify how much of the lofty current war is related to these shenanigans and loyalties. It is worth considering.

 

To return to the war’s rhetoric, Putin’s demands don’t sound like the ravings of a mad man. Perhaps, if unopposed, he would try to conquer other former Soviet territories. He was very aggressive with Georgia, but here too, the situation is ambiguous. Stalin was a Georgian. Still it doesn’t matter. Reasons can always be found for any strategy.  Certainly, the alarmed reaction of Russia’s former occupied nations in Eastern Europe is understandable. The Ukraine’s relationship with Russia is different than theirs, but if history is our guide they have reason for their concern. Both World War I and II were brought on by border conflicts. The borders of nations in that region still could be in flux. That issue was put to bed after World War II. Nations were redefined as the Soviet Empire collapsed in the 90’s. There have been skirmishes but there has been very little warfare involving major powers about boundaries.  That relative peacefulness was put in danger with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But even before the invasion many nations have been rearming themselves because we may be reentering an era when not only Russia is a menace but each nation’s neighbors.

 

If the reader is becoming confused by my support for, and alarm about Russia that their former satellites have shown, it is because I am somewhere in the middle. I am suspicious of our motives, their motives, everyone’s motives. There is reason to be suspicious, to weigh many points of view, to be especially suspicious that right and wrong isn’t the real issue as far as our foreign policy is concerned.

 

So, let me turn to that, indeed reverse where I was heading. Many have wondered if we have to win this war to counterbalance the humiliation of our retreat from Afghanistan. The war is demonstrating the superiority of our weapons. Regardless of Putin’s character, or the lack of democracy in Russia and China, we are entering a phase in history where war with them may be inevitable. It wouldn’t matter if they were true democracies or led by a king, or whatever their government is. Our focus has shifted. We have grown tired of our war on terrorism, or perhaps the danger has faded. Our focus has shifted to Russia and China. History brings powerful nations into wars of dominance. So now we have to win this war.

 

After our humiliating retreat from Afghanistan many leaders of other nations were weighing if we can be relied on. Not only can our influence be eradicated by our defeat, but our reliability as a friend must be questioned. Meaning we have to duke it out with Russia.  We can’t lose still again. If this is our motive for strongly supporting Zelenskyy I am totally on the side of our leaders.  A world where we are seen as a paper tiger is a far more dangerous world. Having so vociferously proclaimed the freedom of the Ukraine as a moral absolute we can’t back down. We may question whether that absolute commitment was necessary but once done, it is done. Certainly, greater honesty about how complicated the war is, might have brought more flexible options. It still might not be too late to broaden the debate.

 

But let me return to the moral dimensions of the war in the Ukraine. Leaving aside realpolitik, I believe the most important issue to note is that a lot more Ukrainians and Russians will be dying if the war goes on and on. We must quit presenting this war as a moral necessity, a fight against outrageous villains. Granted, if it isn’t presented that way no soldiers would be willing to die for their cause. And we wouldn’t be giving them billions of dollars, if the war was presented as simply a territorial dispute.  But if we stopped seeing it that way maybe better solutions could be found. And frankly, the cynic in me can’t help commenting that once again we are having others fight our war.

 

Since 2014 Eastern Ukraine has been at war with Ukraine trying to be allied with, or part of Russia. No one considered it worthy of a major effort on our part. We accused the Russians of meddling. They lodged similar complaints about us. Russia’s invasion changed the public’s perception and perhaps it is true that Putin’s invasion is analogous to Hitler’s early aggressions. But the fact is, this war would not be continuing if it were not for the principles we are holding sacred (i.e. fighting for a democratic nation’s integrity) Minimizing our own war dead, getting others to do the fighting has been our strategy for a long time now. It was basically true in Iraq where only 4550 American soldiers died in the 15 years we were there. 2400 Americans lost their life in Afghanistan during a 22-year war. By comparison, when we were actually doing the fighting 33,000 Americans died in Korea, 58,000 in Viet Nam and 450,000 in World War II. And now our vehemence that we are fighting a righteous war, risks no American soldiers at all. To achieve our strategic objectives, I am not against it if this must be our marketing tool. But I hope our decision makers are not deluded by their own propaganda.

 

Moreover, I wonder how Ukrainians will view their many deaths to come, whether they would be this courageous if there weren’t American propagandists and money running the show, promising, expecting victory. Is this another example of how American wealth gives us temporary illusions of our wisdom. We rolled into Afghanistan and routed the Taliban. They fled to Pakistan, but they knew what I fear the Russians already know. Our reliability is questionable.  Our persistence evaporates. We eventually forget why we have gone to war. I hope we will not have a twenty year war in the Ukraine, but unfortunately that might be ahead for us.  Our hands will be dirtied by the bloodshed to come even if American soldiers are not dying. Our good guy/bad guy polarization is destructive enough in our own domestic politics but extending it to a war is a worse sin. It may entangle us in a long war, a holy war that is non-negotiable, one that will bring many more deaths, rather than a truce, where concessions are made on the basis of both sides understanding the other’s grievances and legitimate desires.

 

People Are Living Like They Might Be Dead Tomorrow

             Covid did a number. I’m not talking about suicides or drug abuse or other much publicized ways the epidemic left its mark. None of that is insignificant. But, it is worth turning our attention to more widespread effects, those evident in the way a broad spectrum of people are reacting to the plague that they withstood. The most immediate effect is in attitudes.  An awful lot of people are feeling they better have as many nice days now as they can. More than ever they want what used to seem like indulgences.  Experiences, purchases, dreams of all types are more likely considered worth doing. Right now!

            Ally Bank, whose online platform started allowing customers to create savings buckets for different goals in 2020, said users create about 50% more experience-oriented buckets such as travel and “fun funds” versus those associated with longer-term planning. Delta Air Lines reported record revenue in the second quarter and Ticketmaster sold over 295 million event tickets in the first six months of 2023, up nearly 18% year-over-year. An article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal describes Ibby Hussain’s attitude.  Instead of saving for a down payment like he expected to after turning 30 and getting engaged in the past year, he splurged. First, he bought a $1,600 Taylor Swift Eras Tour ticket and then he spent $3,500 on a bachelor-party trip to Ibiza, Spain. “I might as well just enjoy what I have now,” he said.

Josh Richner said he greatly lowered his retirement contribution to afford a trip that included a $7,000 Alaskan cruise so his family could see the ice caps, which have been melting. “I’ve never spent that much on a trip before.”

             It isn’t always luxuries, pie in the sky extravagances.  Widespread willingness to spend whatever it takes is one of the current causes of our inflation.  Consumers are disregarding price leaps in groceries, at restaurants, vacations, hotels, air travel and anything else they might normally show caution about. Why save for the future? It’s now or never.

            Not just spending. That job that never matched up to what was hoped for, those countless hours given to the company in the hope of future advancement, why bother? It’s nuts. Why keep your job if it doesn’t go along with your expectations? 25 is the new 35 when it comes to work week hours. 22 million Americans now work part time. Only 4.1 million of those would prefer a full-time job. That statistic is unprecedented. It is six times the normal ratio.  The reasons are not always far flung. Earlier in the pandemic, amid lockdowns and restrictions, some workers may have had their hours cut and realized they preferred a less demanding schedule.

            There are a variety of reasons people tell themselves about why they are working less. Family responsibilities, the realization that they don’t need all the goodies they thought they had to have, having time for things that are more important to them means more than time eaten up at work. Senator Paul Tsongas has been credited with this aphorism. “No one on their deathbed ever said, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at work. No person ever says they wish they had worked harder. I never heard a dying man say, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.’” Lately, many seem to find wisdom in that. Very recently the “quit rate” has moderated after spiking in recent years but there are no statistics on how many workers are unwilling to give their boss extra hours.

            Companies making consumer products have been completely surprised by the lack of price resistance they now encounter. It is a dream come true for marketers, a chance to make a buck, a lot of bucks. Before they had to cautiously pursue price increases. No longer. The marketplace is undaunted.  Yes, there are countervailing forces. High tech people being laid off, worrisome data of all sorts. And most recently, statistics are showing that, but nevertheless people want to spend and spend. The previous assumptions of sellers no longer apply. It defies all logic. Except the logic of a widespread fear that we might be dead tomorrow.

            Will it pass? Probably. It always does. Prices will get too high. So, the desire to live it up will fade into a temptation rather than a need to plunge ahead. And very possibly old motivations will return, like keeping up with the Jones, meaning working your butt off and gathering together your savings. People will have to work to stay in the game. That’s assuming marijuana use will not keep growing. The same for Adderall and Fentanyl and alcohol.  When the meaning of life is having pleasure while you can, having as many nice days as possible, drugs provide relief from the bored malaise resulting from so many free hours. It is easy to blame Purdue for Oxycontin, and Mexican immigrants for bringing Fentanyl, and Big Pharma for the ADHD nonsense feeding amphetamines to millions, but none of this would be possible if the market wasn’t there, without widespread consumer desire for altered consciousness. Normally the willingness to party continuously is limited by the need to go back to work.

            I am assuming all of this will eventually change. More and more the focus on our mortality will fade into our unconscious and the need to pleasure ourselves will become less desperate. However, we cannot be certain that we will go back to the old ways so quickly.

            Following the Spanish Flu and the horror of World War I, the United States had inflation in 1918 and 1919. I am not an economist so I am certain there were other explanations, as there are for our current inflation. But I should add that this was followed by the Roaring 20’s. And we all know how that decade ended. Is history repeating itself?

            I am not sure just how important what I have described, fearing our mortality, is influencing our current culture. In times past, people turned to more and more prayer when they felt anxiety. Since the 80’s fears of death have led people to jog and control their sugar and cholesterol and all kinds of exotic practices and herbs they read about. That became a substitute for religion, bringing new definitions of virtue and vice.  These strategies assumed we could do something about it, prevent early disease and extend our lives by going along with the new rules. There was no certainty about exactly what needed to be done, and plenty of foolishness. However, making the effort was not doubted. Not everyone practiced this religion, but the payoff was clearly understood.  Making the effort was seen as worth it.

            Covid was different. It demanded drastic action, closing down work places, schools, shopping, travel, restaurants, movie theatres—basically the substance of our existence, something that has never happened before in our lifetimes.       Surprisingly, considering how extreme it was, many people took it in stride. Despite the nonsense pumped out by “experts”, everyone knew that no one knew what to do other than make guesses based on dubious data.  People were willing to support the extreme measures that they were told were necessary either because they were convinced, or wanted to believe, or were forced by the government to follow its guidelines. It took a huge panic for us to accept the disassembling of our lives as we ordinarily lived it.

            Many of our recent problems, such as the chaos resulting from broken supply lines and the inflationary effect of shortages, have pretty much passed. It isn’t altogether panic about tomorrow driving the live for today attitudes. Many had forgotten how sweet free time can be. They don’t want to work the long hours that defined their existence pre-Covid. They have tasted again the freedom of childhood. So what about the consequences. The hard-working Asians were eventually going to surpass us anyway.