Thursday, March 19, 2009

What happens to a dream deferred?

Langston Hughes answered himself in poetry when he asked, “What happens to a dream deferred?”
Does it dry up 
like a raisin in the sun? 
Or fester like a sore-- 
And then run? 
Does it stink like rotten meat? 
Or crust and sugar over-- 
like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags 
like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
My dream is to go to Israel and train to be a rabbi so I can help my people navigate and negotiate the world and the heavy questions it poses to us.
Do we need to fit God in with our rational understanding of the world? Where was he when…? And why doesn’t he…?
How should we handle ourselves in a world that has proven that it doesn’t particularly care for us? How shall we behave toward our neighbors? What about the Palestinians? The Iranians?
I want to be there to help think through issues of child rearing and moral education in the tradition of great Jewish educators like Janusz Korczak and Rabbi Akiva. I want to lead us toward peace like Rebbe Yochanan when he fled Jerusalem in a coffin in order to meet the Roman general, Vespasian, who later became emperor and gave us Yavne and a second chance for our tradition.
I want to show the world the beauty of making the case for purity of the impure and impurity of the pure like Rabbi Meir who followed his renegade teacher, Elisha ben Abuyah, to the edge of the town, on Yom Kippor, in an effort to bring him back, and I want to be like Abbie Hoffman who new when to yell theater in a crowded fire and wear the flag with pride in an effort to expose the idolatry of patriotism.
All this will come when I sell my house, move my family, resettle in Tel Aviv and start my new life as a student in Israel.
Now, please God, send a buyer for my home.

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