Making a Change

I can't deal with bad news. I want change. I want good for the world. I want to do my part in making that happen.

WHERE WE STAND?
Someone has got to begin. But who? Who will be the next Nachshon? Nachshon was from the tribe of Yehudah who -when the newly liberated Hebrews were trapped between the advancing Egyptian army led by Pharaoh and the Sea of Reeds-  didn't wait for the sea to actually split, he jumped in and upon his jumping, the sea split. Nachshon was stuck between a rock and a hard place, but relied on faith that (1) Moses' prayer would be answer and (2) action must follow the prayer.

Its very difficult for one person to make a difference. I can send $.50 a day to some starving country and pray my brains out that all of it gets to the needy person. But after hearing of all the shady humanitarian "efforts" out there, its pretty demoralizing. I mean, does anyone care where the flotilla to Gaza got its funding? Does anyone care that its efforts were not even half-headed? The items in the boat was not needed! They could have saved themselves time and effort by going the regular route.  There needs to be a bigger movement -a movement from individuals towards true peace and harmony for world.

Some one once asked, "why are evil people so quick and successful?!" My guess is because good people are like a cool breeze. a flowing brook. Relaxed and chilled. They don't intend harm on others most of the time, they mind their own business. They are basically bland! Holy, yes, but bland.

Evil people, on the other hand, to me are like hot stuff! They are forever thinking, plotting, moving. Like a heated organism, they move quickly and are constantly in motion-in thought, speech and in action. People like that can run rings around the good person. Even as a child, I found the villains more interesting in movies! And the villain in movies, truly, requires more acting abilities, I think.


So how do you fight this fire?


GET JEWISH on the World!

No, I don't mean convert.

I mean get hot and heated for good things, for G-d, for humanity without loosing your sense of right and wrong. Love and fear is needed here.

Just the way evil is hot for its affairs; so we, the ones who want good in the world, must get heated for good things.  But someone needs to lead. Someone who knows their camp.   As a Jewess, I can say that this is what is attempted to be infused in the Jewish world, that the child love G-d so much, understands that following the commandments are basically acts of love for G-d, but also has a butterfly effect in cleansing the world -and wanting this--in their will ,in their essence.  There is a teaching that everyone must carry two notes in their pockets. One note that says "I AM NOTHING" this note is to keep us humble, to help us remember that there is Someone above us, and that we are part of this ...Nothingness! and the other note says "THE WORLD WAS CREATED FOR ME!" This note is to remind us of our responsibility, our ownership of the world.

If we feel not only responsible for the world, but we feel that this is ours, OURS! Then we would have more zeal in caring for it.  Its not enough to stress "responsibility" because that word makes one think of "burden" "heavy" "seriousness".  But if we felt and knew that the brooks were OURS, the mountains - OURS, the valleys - OURS, the creatures that crawl - OURS! the animals, the birds, the beasts in the fields, OURS! When we feel that we own it -a sense of proprietary hold, then its a different ball game when someone comes and messes with our stuff.

And so children are taught measures. How much and when. When we are conditioned to get fired up for good, we can potentially turn evil! We can go over board, like Nadav and Avihu who burned a "foreign fire" to the Holy One because they were so fired up with love. They neglected the rules, and opted for blind, drunk love. And so measures are needed to temper our behavior: how much giving is good? how much holding back is good? How much dominating is good? How much invisibility is good? How much creativity is good?

(((evil))((good))((evil)) 

Its like an orange. Good is somewhat encased in the surrounding peel, the surrounding evil. It requires stealth, to always manage to zoom in and get the good (i.e. know what is good, appropriate and doing it), and flick off the peel. It requires cunning.  It requires living consciously -not with too much distractions. And all this can be gotten from going to your local library and ready that Holy book.

THE FULL BODY EXPERIENCE

So where do we begin? We've got to start within ourselves of course.



Starting with the man in the mirror! I like that.

Truly! We all have a masculine side and a feminine side. The feminine side is the left side: understanding, withholding, being invisible;  the masc. is the right side: wisdom, charity, giving, dominating. Those of you who read feminine =being invisible and feel offended -stop reading right now!

 Those who read masculine =dominating =and feel "Yes, this I want!" stop reading right now!

For the rest, let me explain:  Have you ever seen a father with his child? The way he gets all engrossed in the child? That's masculine force. Masculine usually entails enveloping, completeness, no boundaries, etc. Like wisdom -its infinite, or water- it has no boundaries (unless you put boundaries on it, it will just spread out), charity -there is no set amount of giving required -but you can give and give until you yourself are broke, Dominating -there's another one that can go and go and go and if not tempered can lead to slavery, oppression, etc. These things must be tempered. We've got to start with the Man -the masculine- in the mirror!

WISDOM

There is a sad phenomenon that I see these days. Conspiracy theorists. Not all of them are sad, but many that I've seen, tries so hard to know, to be in the know, that they will take on and believe (or at least report) even conflicting conspiracies -just to show that they are in the know. They feel they are safe because they have knowledge. It doesn't matter that things are conflicted, it doesn't even matter that they are not changing their own lives one bit because of this knowledge.

Beware!   Evil feeds on this.  Someone wrote a very nice piece on it.  Aldous Huxley. His concern was that there would be such a flood of information that no one would know which is correct and which data to discard! This would lead to inaction because no one is sure what is right. They get so stunned by the "bilderbergs" or whatever other group out there, that they can't rouse a group to action.  Or they'll see a creeping danger approaching, but have too many conflicting data to really zoom in on any conviction on A matter.

(Another man, George Orwell, I think went the opposite route. He wrote a story called 1984, in which people simply manipulate by the use of words of lack of words to describe something. As in, having no word for "freedom" and so its just not thought of.)

CHARITY
Same goes.  Tempering is needed. Not too much and not too little. In the case of charity -"charity saves from death" however, some people are too afraid to give. So they withhold -especially when the economy is bad. They forget the purpose and effects of charity (or maybe their purpose is different, than my purpose!)  Then others give too much -too much of their time, of their money. (yes, the revisiting of the mammy syndrome).

DOMINANCEDominance can be too little as well and too much which leads to derailment of one's will and slavery/oppression respectively.

Once these measures are decided, now we can turn to the feminine side....

SIDE NOTE:

I just want to point out that Black folks are not encouraged to dominate a field.  They/we are not encouraged to display wisdom -sometimes it seems we are being chutzpahdik if we show a bit of knowledge to some people. And charity is scoffed at -especially the everyday type charity to the beggar on the street.  All these masculine parts are being stripped from Blacks, not only by bigotted whites (not all whites now. Sorry racists!) but also by hateful, "we're supposed to be at the bottom of the barrel" Blacks.  Its no wonder some try to call Black men, boys! But nevermind, we must still start with the man in the mirror.


I suspect the saving grace of the Black community has been the over doers, the mammys, the grave diggers as they are called. That type of power (everything has a force) that type of charity, I suspect, bouyed the community from utter destruction. But we are at a new horizon. A new place. Blind charity, blind giving to the point of mammyhood -indescriminate, slavish, service to others -any other but our own- can only go so far.  This is not to spit at there efforts. But now its time to stand up.  Charity indeed saves -and has saved- from death. But we no longer need to survive, now we need to live! A different form of charity is needed.

I also want to point out that Jewish guys are also called "good Jewish boys"! And I hope that that changes as well.

The one who is actually called man -is usually the white, non-Jewish guys.  And sure enough, they are expected to dominate, to be the wise ones, to be the generous giving ones, etc

And then there are the women. Since women are visibly feminine, it seems that we are not even given the honor of having a masculine side! No dominance, no wisdom -supposedly.  We are simply put aside in many cultures. Nevertheless, we still have our masculine side that needs fixing.

START WITH THE MAN IN THE MIRROR...END WITH THE WOMEN IN THE HEART
The change does not end with just the man in the mirror.  There is still the feminine side to tackle. The understanding, the withholding, the invisibility.

to be continued...

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