I must admit, even as a child I never took this day too seriously. After all I grew up with the idea that the state of Israel existed, and a new world without mourning could be created. But today i heard Rabbi Loew on tv responding to the question of what is the big mourning about, and it concluded a thought that had been on my mind all day. He noted that as a result of the loss of the temple and homeland, the Jews suffered not only expulsion, but also later tragedies including the inquisition and the holocaust. It seemed to fit.
There was another kvetch on my mind as well. Some guy was trying to impress me with his new-found wealth and his new-found culture (wines, clothes, food, and, incidentally, concerts. This always turns me off unless the person shows me how he gives it away to fruitful charities, and today of all days it affected me even more. I kept thinking of Thorsten Veblen:
“This growth of punctilious discrimination as to qualitative excellence in eating, drinking, etc., presently affects not only the manner of life, but also the training and intellectual activity of the gentleman of leisure. He is no longer simply the successful, aggressive male, — the man of strength, resource, and intrepidity. In order to avoid stultification he must also cultivate his tastes, for it now becomes incumbent on him to discriminate with some nicety between the noble and the ignoble in consumable goods. He becomes a connoisseur in creditable viands of various degrees of merit, in manly beverages and trinkets, in seemly apparel and architecture, in weapons, games, dancers, and the narcotics. This cultivation of the aesthetic faculty requires time and application, and the demands made upon the gentleman in this direction therefore tend to change his life of leisure into a more or less arduous application to the business of learning how to live a life of ostensible leisure in a becoming way…. High-bred manners and ways of living are items of conformity to the norm of conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption.”
This seems to me to be connected to a general degeneration of Israeli society – but the good news is that it seems much more prevalent in the people of my generation than in the younger people. They’re more into recycling, cycling, and in general having fun with their lives. And understanding. It gives me hope.
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