Gold, purple, pink, and white wildflowers.  Every so often -- sometimes decades apart -- places like Death Valley, CA and other desert locations will be awash with an eye-catching array of beautiful flowers.  The atmospheric conditions that allow for these floral displays to occur have to be just right.  Perfect.  Desert flower-watchers – floraphiles – have documented that the early-to-mid 1930’s and early-50’s were among the peak years for these displays. 

Now, the conditions appear ripe, once again, as we approach the second decade of the 21st century, i.e, early heavy rains in the Desert-Southwest.  It’s a phenomenon waiting to happen. The signs are already evident.
 
Moreover, the seedlings on the desert floor don’t go away. They don’t disappear.  They remain there, unspoiled, until everything, i.e., moisture-laden winds, etc. come together, perfectly.  In a manner of speaking, those “seedlings” have been waiting patiently to “come out of the woodwork.”  This analogy is true, be they the aforementioned desert seedlings, or be they domestic and international incidents.
 
In the late-1930’s, conditions were ripe for the outbreak of World War II.  The beginning of World War II occurred when Germany invaded Poland.  But there had to be a pretense, a “sell” to the rest of the word.  That “sell” was known as the “Gleiwitz (Gliwice, Poland) Incident.”  
 
In his Nuremberg testimony, Alfred Naujocks stated that he organized the incident under orders from Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Müller, chief of the Gestapo.  On the night of August 31, 1939, a small group of German operatives dressed in Polish uniforms and led by Naujocks seized the Gleiwitz radio station and broadcast a short anti-German message in Polish. The operation was named "Grossmutter Gestorben" (Grandmother Died). The operation was to make both the attack and the broadcast look like the work of Polish anti-German saboteurs.
 
Furthermore, the “Gleiwitz Incident” was, as it what is labeled, a “false flag” operation, a covert operation that disguises that actual source of responsibility, i.e, the Nazis. The attackers posed as Polish nationals.   The next morning, Adolf Hitler's armed forces invaded Poland.  During his declaration of war, Hitler did not mention the “Gleiwitz Incident” but grouped all provocations, actually staged by the SS, as an alleged Polish assault on Germany. The “Gleiwitz Incident” is the best-known action of Operation Himmler, a series of special operations undertaken by the Schutzstaffel (SS) to serve Nazi German propaganda at the outbreak of war. The operation was intended to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany to justify the invasion of Poland.
 
Currently, I’m very concerned.  There have been a rash of anti-Semitic incidents, i.e., Eitz Chayim synagogue, Pittsburgh; Jersey City, New Jersey, etc.   Just this morning, I woke up to the news that five Jewish people  - they were celebrating the holiday of Chanukah -- were stabbed by an intruder in the house of a rabbi in Monsey (Rockland County) New York (Two of those five victims are in critical condition).  There is, according to police reports, a suspect who is now in custody.  The suspect, who was picked up in Harlem, is described as a tall African-American man.  
 
Furthermore, I would be interested in learning the motivation for these stabbings.  How did the alleged perpetrator decide upon a Chassidic (ultra-Orthodox) rabbi’s home? (There were said to also be an attempt to enter a nearby synagogue).  There are a lot of unanswered questions.  I ask: “Is this a ‘false flag’?”  Is there more to this abhorrent incident than meets the eye?  Again, I hark back to the word “motivation.”
 
Finally, ever since this “Current Administration” has taken power, there has been this subtle attempt to “divide and conquer,” both as a country as a whole and with like-groups who are opposed to “the powers that be”.  In other words, since taking over, the current leadership is seeking “to drive wedges.”  Their aim: “polarization.”
 
At cited, at first these divisive signs appeared subtle, but now they are fully on display. I fear that what had started as a trickle will, if not checked, become a cascade.  I’m concerned, if matters are allowed to develop as they appear to be, that we might not recognize our wonderful country as we once knew it. I’m fearful that the latent energy of hate will become full-blown.  
 
Oh, I hope that I’m wrong, but the signs are there. They have become more blatant.  We now have evidence.  The “Fire-stoker” has opened the bellows.  He has, in my opinion, fomented rebellion to suit his own narcissistic purposes.  I believe he doesn’t really care about this country, and even his supporters; they’re just “props”.  It’s all about power, power, and more power.
 
Finally, there’s antidote for all this.  A solution.  That is: Vote on Tuesday, November 3, 2020.   Vote to stop the chaos.  Vote to stop violence.  I say: “Please get to the polls.  Please be energized.  Please do not be complacent.  Be resolute.”
 
In conclusion, I fear further “occurrences” (incidents).  But, in those cases, it won’t be the beautiful desert flowers.  In fact, quite the opposite! 

This is an old article, but it brought about the question of are converts to Karaite Judaism accepted by Reform and Conservative Judaism?  And, are Karaite Jews accepted as Jews, given that (if my memory serves me correctly) they follow patrilineal  descent?

https://www.jweekly.com/2007/08/02/a-con...-the-ages/

“Di Shtemp’l” was no ordinary stamp.  It was not one you would have typically find on a letter, at least not here in the United States.  In fact, it wasn’t even a U.S. stamp.  “The Stamp” came from a foreign country: “Deutsches Reich”.  Germany.  “The Stamp” depicted a person. That person, the most heinous person who ever lived was Adolf Hitler. 
 
I was then, during that summer of 1950, sitting at a wooden table in the kitchen of my Bubbe and Zayde's, my mother’s parent’s home, in the city of Syracuse, NY. I was, that summer, about to turn 8-years old.  On that summer morning, I was looking at my stamp collection (My parents had recently bought me both a small, yellow-covered stamp-book and a bunch of stamps at a 5 & 10-cents store). 
 
As I recall, I had just turned the page in my stamp-book to the country of Germany when my Bubbe (she had been talking with my mother and my aunt), walked over toward me to get to the refrigerator.  That’s when she spotted “the stamp.” The stamp that depicted Adolf Hitler.  It was, at that moment, as if “All hell had broken loose”.
 
Seconds later, I remember Mayn Bubbe angrily saying, “Hitler, you should “kock” [shit] on him!  My Bubbe had become quite enraged; but, at that time, I didn’t understand why.   
 
"Er Tut Nit Visn Keyn Beser!” [“He doesn’t know any better!”]. At least that’s what it sounded like as my mother’s older sister, my aunt Celia, pleaded with my beloved Bubbe, Sarah Shapiro, to calm down.  “Mayn Tante” [my aunt] added, “Er iz azoy yung!” [He is so young!”].
 
At the time, I didn’t know that the Nazis had slaughtered six million European Jews.  I didn’t know they had murdered millions of innocent Jewish children.  I didn’t know that the Nazis had used a prussic acid call Zyklon-B to asphyxiate millions of Jews in the Auschwitz gas chambers (complete with peep-holes to watch the dying suffer). I didn’t know how the bodies of the deceased were then taken to the crematoria and turned into ashes.   
 
It was a short time after that “stamp collection” incident that my mother sat down with me to try to explain everything.  She also wanted to tell me why my Bubbe had become so upset.  She began by saying that the person pictured on the stamp, Adolf Hitler, was a terrible man. An evil man.  A man who not only wanted rule Germany, but the rest of the world.   
 My mother would go on to say that Hitler had wrongly singled-out Jewish people as the cause Germany’s problems. She went on to tell me that Germany, along with the rest of the world, was going through bad times; there were lots of people out of work.  She said the Jews were constantly being blamed for Germany’s problems. Over time, some people in Germany began to believe these lies. 
 
My mother would continue by saying that Hitler had made it increasingly more difficult for Jews to live in Germany.  He passed laws that singled out Jews for bad treatment.  Over time, Jews were being rounded up and sent to horrible places called concentration camps (extermination camps).  Millions of Jewish people were killed in those camps. The Nazis poisoned them; they burned their bodies.  I remember that as my mother was telling me about this I was becoming increasingly frightened.  However, she felt that I was now old enough to understand the terrible things that happened to our people.
 
It was at this time that my mother explained to me why my Bubbe was particularly angered at seeing “That Stamp of “That Man,” Adolf Hitler. She proceeded to tell me that Bubbe had a younger sister named Rachel.  She had married a man named Reuben; they had two sons. Their family of four was living in a country called Lithuania in the city of Vilna. 
 
My mother went on to say that during the late-1920s (my mother was then in elementary school) my Bubbe’s sister and her husband came for a visit to America with the idea of having their family emigrate to America.  My mother then said, "Your Bubbe and Zayde did everything they could to encourage Bubbe’s sister and her husband to come to the United States. They assured Reuben that Moshe (my Zayde) would help him find a job and also a place to live. Your grandparents were only too happy to provide funds for their passage across the Atlantic, and also provide money when they arrived in America.  Everything seemed set.”
 
"When Reuben and Rachel left," my mother said, "Your Bubbe and Zayde were sad to see them go, but they were pleased at the prospect of their return to America.  They fully expected that they’d return shortly with their two sons to start a new life here in America.  I remember my mother telling me that Bubbe was overjoyed with this prospect that her ‘baby sister’ and her family would be coming back to America, soon.”
 
But, for whatever reason(s), plans changed.  To this day, we're not sure why Reuben and Rachel changed their mind (one possible reason is that immigration quotas had changed in the mid-1920s).  In any event, Bubbe’s sister and her husband never came back to America; they had stayed in Europe.
 
It was then that my mother said that over the next few years, Hitler, the man on your stamp, sought to increase his power in Germany and also throughout Europe.  He quickly began taking over other countries.  By this time, it became harder and harder for Jews to leave Europe.  Many countries, including the United States, made it difficult to enter our shores.   
 
My mother continued by telling me that it was about the time I was born that Germany had invaded the country of Russia.  The Nazis would round up and kill thousands and thousands of Jews. They also took over nearby countries.  One country that the Nazis took over was Lithuania; that’s where your Bubbe’s sister and her family lived. 
As the conversation continued, my mother would say that as soon as WW II had ended, your Bubbe would write to government officials trying to find out what had happened to her sister and her family (She didn't know, at the time, that they had been murdered).  At first, because of the confusion after World War II, no one knew for certain what had happened. The question at the time was: “Had any members of Bubbe’s sister’s family survived?” 
 
Slowly, information was coming out of Europe as to what had happened to European Jewry.  It was about that time that your Bubbe learned the terrible news that her sister, Rachel, her husband, Reuben, and their two sons, their entire family had been murdered. That’s why your Bubbe was so upset when she saw anything connected with Nazi Germany, especially “That Man” pictured on your stamp, Adolf Hitler.  
 
Mayn Muter would conclude by saying that, even years later, after Bubbe learned of her sister and her family’s death, “I would see your Bubbe crying.”  She knew that she would never again see her “baby sister” Rachel and her family. 
 
As my mother was finishing, she said, "So please try to understand that your Bubbe’s not upset with you, it’s just that such a terrible thing had happened to her beloved sister and her family, and European Jewry, as a whole. “I know,” my mother added, “that she'll never forget as long as she lives."  And then my mother said, “And no Jew should ever forget, either.”  Moments later, I returned to my stamp collection.  I yanked the stamp of Hitler out of my book.  I proceeded to flush it down the toilet.  I thought, “I didn’t know any better, then…but I do now!”

In conclusion, I frequently think of “Di Shtemp’l, “The Stamp,” albeit almost 70 years ago.  “That Stamp” reminds me to never be complacent.  To never be lulled into a false sense of security.  “Di Shtemp’l” also reminds me of two Hebrew words: Lo Tishkach. “Thou Shalt Not Forget!”  “Never Again!”

I am absolutely stumped about what is causing it. Why the sudden increase?  Is it a reaction to increase hatred towards Israel? 
Is it due to the comments made by certain political and religious leaders?

Reports are circulating (yet to be confirmed) that a group of New York investors want to build a Jewish-themed hotel/casino in Las Vegas.  Oy vey!  A Jewish hotel/casino in “Sin City”.  What will the goyim think? Yet, given the fact that a large number of Jewish people come to Vegas each year, and that the current mayor of Las Vegas is nice Jewish “girl” from Philadelphia, Carolyn Goodman.  It seems like a logical choice.

Location for this planned hotel is still speculative, but reports are that the new hotel will be built somewhere on or near “The Strip”. Not much is yet known. Yet, some of the proposals for this hotel/casino have filtered out. The wings of the hotel/casino will be named for old-time Catskills "Borscht Belt" hotels: the Nevele, Grossinger's, Kutshers, Concord, and Raleigh. Four or five restaurants are planned. One will be called "The Nosh." It would be a 24/7 kinda place that would feature a quick bite to eat. There would be gluz coffee and tea, cream sodas, along with Danish, bagels, bubke, cream cheese schmeers, rugulah, herring (schmalts, of course) blintzes and knishes (my mouth is watering).

Then there's "The Esen." It's an upscale restaurant that would serve Jewish delicacies like flayshidicke borscht, krepluch, kasha varnishkas, kishka, cholent, luction kugel, tsimmes, gefilte fish, and of course chicken soup, i.e., Jewish penicillin.  For dessert: Apple strudel, mandelbrot, kichel, and rainbow cookies. (Boy, am I getting hungry).

For those who prefer deli treats, there'll be "The Hard Lox Café." It'll feature lean corned beef, pastrami, tongue, kosher franks, plus potato salad, cole slaw, and half-sour pickles  Sauerkraut will be also be available.  There's a choice of rye pumpernickel, and plain ol’ white bread (What is it that Milton Berle once quipped: “Anytime a person goes into a delicatessen and orders a pastrami on white bread, somewhere a Jew dies.”).

Of course, there'll be non-kosher fare. The restaurant, "The Chaserei," will feature "traif" items like lobster, clams, oysters, and pork dishes.  Yuck!

Then, of course, there'll be a Chinese restaurant. It's been said that if a Jewish neighborhood doesn't have a good Chinese restaurant, one shouldn't live there.

The hotel is said to feature an upscale health spa called "The Shvitzbud." It'll remind one of the old "Sitz und Shvitz" places of New York City and the Catskills.  M’chei’yeh!

There will be a high roller room called "Der Groisser Macher." It will feature $50 and $100 minimums. Then, at the other end of the spectrum will be "The Schlepper Room." It will feature penny slots, free-spin machines and free-play keno. You’re even welcome to go “silver-mining” (looking for coins that were left behind in slot-machine troughs; yet, you won’t find many of those around).

As you enter the hotel, before you reach the reservation desk, there's the” "Such A Deal Room." It's a room where you can brag what a great deal you got on airfare, hotel, car rental, etc.  You can also gnash your teeth that someone else came up with a better deal than you did. Sort of: "Can You Top This?"

Then, off to the side, there's "The Bragging Room." You can kvell  about your son or son-in-law, "The Doktor." Or, your daughter or son, "The Advokat." There's even a lady called "The Shadchen" who will try to arrange a date for your unmarried daughter or son. "Have I got a girl for you!"  There’s also a Jewish wedding chapel just in case the shadchen introduces you to your b’shert. 
 
There are several shops planned.  One is called: “I Can Get For You Wholesale!”  Keep an eye open for m’tsee’ahs.  Another is called: "Have I Got A Deal For You!"  Yet, another slated boutique (if you can call it that) is said to be called: “The Shmateh Tsimer,” You can pick up some nice tchotchkes there. 

There is also speculation that there'll be "A Shrink Room." It could be called "The Guilt Room." A place where you can go to do tell a resident psychiatrist what a bad person you've been for gambling away thousands of dollars when you should have saved that money for your ainikls’ education, or that you had a lap dance at one of the adult emporiums on Industrial Rd.  Shandeh!

Oh, the cocktail waitresses will be dressed like bubbes complete with babushkas. They'll walk around saying to parents with children, “Kormen eyere kinder!” "Feed your children!”  He/She looks too thin. Esen. Esen." Of course, if you ate too much, they'll call you "a fresser".

Then, there'll be a race- and sports-book called "The Ferd Room." You can feel free to cry out in frustration such Yiddishe expressions as: "Gai in dread arein!" ("Go To Hell!"). Or, "Gai kaken oifen yam!" ("Get Lost!)

As you check out, there will be a special room where you can go over your bill and, if necessary --- argue about or haggle over it for the next several hours. Watch out you don’t miss your flight!

Kekedem.  When I hear that last word of the “Hashivenu” (Lamentations) that we, as a congregation, recite as we place the sacred Torah scroll back in the Aron Kodesh, I feel tears welling up in my eyes.  I don’t know if it’s the poignant meaning of that Hebrew word, or the haunting melody that accompanies it, but I feel a wave of emotion sweep over me.  
 
My mind.  My thoughts.  My memories.  They turn back decades.  Back to the city of Syracuse, NY.  The place where I was born.  I return to a house on Leon Street (off E. Castle) in that upstate New York city.
 
I usually think first of my mother’s mother, Sarah Shapiro.  I say this unabashedly: Mayn Bubbe, “Frumeh Sarah,” was the most loving person I have ever met.  There wasn’t a mean bone in her body.  She was “too good for this world”.   
 
Further, Mayn Bubbe loved me dearly.  I felt her love every time I walked into her home.  I was named for her father.  Although my English name is Walter, she always called me by my Yiddishe name, Velvle.
I’ll never forget that as soon as I walked in the door to her house at 120 Leon Street (across from the Croton Elementary School) my Bubbe would give me a big hug.  Then, she’d look at me and say to my mother “Golda, Velvle, he looks so thin!” (I weighed 9-pounds, 10 ounces when I was born).  My Bubbe would immediately make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; she’d sometimes throw in an apple for good measure. 
 
As I think back, My Bubbe’s life here in America was “no bed of roses” (she didn’t speak of English when she arrived in the The “Goldene Medina.”  Mayn Bubbe Sarah was born in Vilna, Lithuania in the 1890s.  She would meet Mayn Zayde there, Morris “Moshe” Shapiro.  
 
In the early 1900s, Mayn Zayde was going to be conscripted into the Russian army.  My grandfather had other ideas.  He and his brother Harry decided to head for America.  They took different routes.  They did that so that if anything happened to either one of them, at least one of the brothers would be sure to make it to America; thus, they decided to set sail from two different European ports.  Mayn Zayde headed for Hamburg, Germany; his brother, “Uncle Heschel,” journeyed to Stockholm, Sweden.  Mayn Zayde made it to America.  He wanted to live in Detroit to be part of the burgeoning automobile industry that was centered there; however, Mayn Bubbe had other ideas.  She had mishpocheh (family, relatives) already living in Syracuse.  My grandparents settled there (Mayn Zayde sent for my Bubbe soon after he had arrived in America). 
 
As for my Zayde’s brother, Harry; he met a Finnish woman in Stockholm.  They got married.  Harry would spend the rest of life living in the Finnish city of Abo Turku. 
 
As for my Bubbe, her years in America, although filled with joy, were also difficult ones.  For one, when she arrived, she didn’t speak a word of English.  In fact, every time we visited her home, all I would hear was Yiddish.  One of the words I frequently heard was “esen”.  When I didn’t finish all my food, she’d say, “reyn teller” [clean plate].  “There are people in Europe who are starving,” she’d say.   
 
My mother’s parents, my grandparents, had four children: two boys and two girls (my mother was second youngest).  Both boys became doctors. 
 
Yet, for all the naches she received from her children and grandchildren, there were sorrows.  One of the most sorrowful was the death of her “baby sister,” Rachel, and her entire family, in the city of Vilna during the Holocaust.  My mother would say that the death of Bubbe’s “baby” sister and her family took much of the joy out of Bubbe’s life. 
 
Mayn Bubbe was also beset by numerous physical maladies, not the least of which was diabetes (I can recall her going to the refrigerator and taking out a bottle of insulin; she’d then take a needle and inject herself in the shoulder).  In her later years, she fell going up a series of steps; she created an open wound in her shin that never healed (diabetes).  I was always pained when I saw my Bubbe suffer. 
 
My Bubbe, Sarah Shapiro, would die in the mid-1950s of a heart attack.  Yet her memory lives on within me.  I can never forget her…her loving nature.  What a beautiful person!  A guteh n’shomeh [good soul].   As Mayn Bubbe did for me, I did for her.  I named my daughter after her.  Kekedem, “days of yore.”  Those who came before us shall always live on in our hearts and minds.

It’s been 14 months.  Yet, “Lo Tishkach,” we should not forget! 

Where do I begin?  How terrible!  I was both saddened and shocked when I first heard the news.   How horrific!  I submit: “When you start a brush-fire and you keep fanning the flames, something bad is bound to happen.”  And, it did.  I aver: “The slaughter at the Eitz Chayim shul in Pittsburgh could have been avoided.  Yet, when you raise the heat… When you ratchet up the rhetoric, these type of horrendous acts will inevitably occur.  Thus, 11 people were needlessly slaughtered inside the Eitz Chayim synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill section. 
 
When I first heard about it, I was praying it was a mistake.  But it wasn’t.  Then, I thought: “I hope the injuries are limited.”  Unfortunately, they were not.  It was then, at that moment, that reality set in.  I was praying this wouldn’t happen; yet we Jews would be naïve to think it couldn’t happen.  What is so tragic about all this is that it shouldn’t have happened.  Nearly a dozen people (one of the congregants, at the time, was in serious condition in a Pittsburgh hospital).
 
At this juncture, even though it’s been over a year later, I would personally offer my thanks and my praise to Pittsburgh’s law-enforcement community for the courage and bravery they demonstrated in risking their lives to save the congregants inside that “shul”.   I’m sure that the first responders’ quick actions saved countless lives.  
 
If there’s an irony in all this, on that particular Shabbat at Eitz Chayim, there was, according to reports, the joyous occasion of a baby-naming.  In fact, it may have been as the rabbi or chazzan was chanting: “Mi Sheberach Avoteinu…” that “The Monster” entered the sanctuary and started shooting congregants.  
 
I can only image what it must have been like before the “yetzer hara” entered.  A period of happiness.  A “simcha”.  A period of congregational joy as the baby is about to be named.  “L’dor v’dor…”  The shul, as it often is, is a happy place.  A safe place.  Congregants are wishing each other: “Shabbat Shalom”.  Then, suddenly, the unimaginable.  No time to react.  Duck.  Play dead.  The murderer is using a high-powered, assault-rifle, Kalishnikov, AK-15.  He gunning down Jews.  Senseless violence.
 
Moreover, when I hear the words “Eitz Chayim,” many thoughts come to mind.  I think of the temple in Pittsburgh where this terrible slaughter occurred.  I think also of the handles that hold the sacred Torah parchment.  I think of the “hagbah” raising and, with his/her back to the congregation, holding up scripture from the sacred Torah.   I think of Genesis.  The tree of life in the Garden of Eden.  But most of all I think of the prayer we Jews chant as we’re about to put the scared Torah back in its place in the Aron Kodesh: “Eitz chayim hi lamachazikim bah…”  “It is the tree of life for those who cling to it…”  I will say, tangentially, that the one word at the end of that prayer, “k’kedem” – “days of yore,” moves me to tears of remembrance (I’m sure those same tears have flowed from the eyes of family who lost loved ones).   Those who died that day at Eitz Chaim will not be forgotten. “Le’olam lo nishkakh.”
 
Finally, I say to the mourners whose loved-ones were murdered: “Hamo-kem y’na chaym es-chem b’soch sh’or avay-lay tzi-yon viru-sholo-yim.”  “May the Almighty comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”  Amen.  And finally, “Lo Tishkach!”  “Thou shalt not forget.”  Never!

Intermarriage has reached record levels in the U.S. and in other parts of the world as well. The intermarriage rate in the U.S. is currently at 58% for all Jews and about 70% for the non-Orthodox see the link below for the Pew Study:

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/c...-demographics/

What is even more alarming is that only about 20% of the children of intermarriages in the U.S. are being raised as Jews see the child rearing chart for the Pew Study below:

https://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/chap...ld-rearing

This is also happening in other parts of the world as well. For instance in the UK while happening to a much lesser degree there is an issue occurring:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguar...sh-partner

Unless something is done to deal with the crisis it looks like we are going to lose a large portion of our population in the future.

We have a lot of very intelligent people in the Jewish Community let’s put our heads together and brainstorm. Perhaps we can come up with some good ideas on how to at least stem the tide of intermarriage and its associated assimilation. Ideas please. What do you think we should do?

                             Actions Have Consequences: B'chukotai, Bernie Madoff, and The Holocaust 


"Actions have consequences," the rabbi said as we both waited for the start of the shacharit service.   He repeated once again, "Actions have consequences."  He then added: "in any currency."  I took the rabbi's reference to currency to mean not just the obvious: money, but much more, e.g., health, state of mind, avoidance of perilous situations, even death.
As I left our shul's chapel that morning, I thought about what the rabbi had just said.  I wondered, "Is there this pressing need for all Jews to adhere to G-d's commandments?"  I then pondered how an individual Jew's actions, or inactions, would – or should I say might -- not only affect that person, but their fellow Jews, as well. 

My first thought about actions and their consequences was with regard to the Ponzi-scheme activities employed by Bernie Madoff.  Madoff, as I’m sure to remember, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life “behind bars” for collectively swindling Jew and non-Jew alike out of billions and billions of dollars. 

When Madoff's scheme came to light, I felt a sense of shame. Madoff is, after all, a Jew. Yes, even though I had not been involved (nor had I invested with him) I felt that Madoff's actions had egregiously besmirched all Jews.  As my mother would have said: "What will the goyim think?"  Bernie Madoff is indeed paying the price. Even his family has suffered. The Madoffs' eldest son, Mark, was so distraught over his father's fraudulent actions that he took his own life.  Madoff’s younger son, Andrew, died of lymphoma at the age of 48.  I believe, for years to come (long after Bernie Madoff is gone), his name will be synonymous with "swindler".  As the rabbi stated: "Actions have consequences." 

Yet, when it comes to actions and their consequences, one tragedy - above all - has always vexed me: The Holocaust.  I was attending elementary school when my mother first told me about The Holocaust.  At that time, she told me that her aunt (my bubbe's younger sister), her husband, and their two children (they lived in Vilna, Lithuania) had all been murdered by the Nazis.  As I grew older, I kept asking myself - why?  Why had my great-aunt Rachel and her family been killed?   Why were six million European Jews slaughtered?   Had they done something wrong?  Hadn't many been frum (pious).   I often ask myself: "Why do righteous people suffer?"  I was looking for an explanation. 

My initial reaction was that deep-seated anti-Semitism had begun to fester both from deteriorating economic conditions and from internal and external political concerns. Yes, European History is replete with incidents in which Jews have been singled out as "scapegoats".  But then I thought, "Could there have been something else?  Could it have been that some Jews, particularly in Northern and Western Europe, sought acceptance and assimilation over Jewish teachings, laws and traditions?"   If that were the case, that action would have been a horrific price to pay.  Yet, “actions do have consequences”.

It was then that I sought wisdom from the Torah.  I’m referring to the last chapter of Leviticus: B'chukotai.  The chapter begins: "Eem-B'chukotai... "If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments..." Then, I thought, "What if we Jews don't, as stated in B'chukotai, follow G-d's commandments?"  Also contained in the verses of B'chukotai are Tochacha (warnings).  The admonitions are quite harsh and exacting ("I will wreak misery upon you...").  B'chukotai speaks specifically to ancient miseries and sufferings: "sickness and defeat, famine, wild beasts, siege and exile".  “Actions do have consequences.”

My thoughts once again shifted back to the Holocaust and European Jewry?  Were their deaths just the actions of one man, the most heinous person who has ever lived, Adolf Hitler -- or was it something else?   At first, I thought, "Hadn't G-d rescued the Ancient Israelites from bondage in Egypt?"  Why hadn't He intervened to save European Jews?  I thought again about parashat B'chukotai.  Hadn't it been alleged (never to my knowledge substantiated) that there was an illicit relationship between a Jew, Frankenberger, and Hitler's grandmother, then reportedly a maid in the Frankenberger household, that led to the birth of Alois Hitler (actually Heidler, his last name was corrupted), Hitler's father.  It has been reported that the genetic haplotype recently found in Hitler's family is common in African and Jewish populations. However, it must be stated that this is inconclusive as this haplotype is also found in non-African and non-Jewish populations. 

Yet, although there is doubt as to whether Hitler had Jewish roots, there's irrefutable evidence that shows that by the end of World War II Nazi Germany was in ruins.  Devastation and desolation was everywhere.  Millions of its soldiers and citizens had been killed.  The landscape was torn to shreds.  Cities were obliterated.  The Nazi leaders were tried, and in many cases, executed.  The Third Reich's monstrous Fuhrer, Hitler, was dead (and, we shall never know what horrendous fate awaited him after he died).  Yes, “Actions do have consequences.” 

As I pondered all this, I keep thinking, "Are we Jews held to a higher standard of conduct?  Do we (as the commercial says) have to ‘answer to a Higher Authority’?  Do we need to be reminded of that?  What about the Jews of today? Have the poignant lessons of the past faded with time?" 

That day, just as I was leaving the morning chapel service, I remember the rabbi saying to me, "Peace and prosperity are within our hands. All we need do is follow His commandments."  Yes rabbi, for better or worse: "Actions do have their consequences."