Thoughts about "The Shema"

Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad.

"Hear O Israel the Lord your God is One" is one translation but due to the difficulty of moving literally from Old Hebrew to English there are other variantions.

This prayer is known as “The Shema” and it states in just a very few words the very essence of Judaism. It is not too dissimilar from the Muslim variant but the two implementations are galaxies apart. The Islamic imperative is to force that faith on everyone while the Jewish one is simply a statement of being.

Obviously I have a dog in this hunt and I bring the subject up today because Obama is headed to the Middle-East again for yet another grovel to his chosen ones, the Muslims. It seems his original plan has changed and so the first stop will be in Saudi Arabia. It will be interesting to see if he bows again or will he simply bend over towards a smaller person. If he doesn’t bend then we are forced to the belief that the King has grown. Or, I guess the other possibility is that Obama grew shorter. Your guess is as good as mine as to the spin from the White House.

But I digress. The one place that Obama is not visiting in that area is Israel. Perhaps he had enough last week when Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu gave him a taste of realpolitick and simply said, “No”. Already the Obama backlash has begun and the latest shipment of US helicopters to Israel has been cancelled.

Here’s a taste of the real world and I’m still wrestling with some of the questions which are inherent to the very concept.

I wish I could write as well as Tom Friedman. I can’t go with the guy’s politics but he wrote a book about 20 years ago called “From Beirut to Jerusalem” and in it he put the problem as well as anyone I’ve ever read. He posited that the Zionist writers of the late-nineteenth and the early twentieth century had three goals for an independent state of Israel. They wanted a Jewish state, a democratic state and a country that spanned all of the lands of Ancient Israel.

Until fairly recently it seemed to me that any two were possible but not all three and that the one likely to go was territory. And I’m pretty sure that was the one that Obama tried to ram down Netanyahu’s throat. Well Bibi was not going to accept that, first because of experience when Israel gave up Gaza and the Arabs first trashed the whole place and wrecked the industrial sites. And, when that was all gone, they turned it into a launching site for missiles lobbed into Israel.
Is there any wonder that the Israeli people are suspicious?

Secondly, he's a politician and right now he heads a fragile compromise of disparate opinions.

Then there is Jerusalem .............

Now comes Obama and he’s huffing and puffing as he tries to strong-arm Israel. Over the last 30 years I worked with a lot of African-Americans and, I have to tell you, that there isn’t too much love lost. I’ve asked why and I’ve heard lots of answers. First of all I heard that the Jews were involved with the slave trade. Then I heard it was because the Jews owned the houses that Black people lived in. Then I heard it was because the Jews were successful and on and on ………

Whatever the reason or reasons, I know it’s there because I’ve lived and worked with it. Just listen to Jeremiah Wright. It’s odd really when you consider that a huge preponderance of the non-Blacks who were active in the Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s were Jewish.

Two other thoughts. Obama has put more pressure on Israel in the last couple of weeks than he’s exerted on Iraq, Iran and North Korea combined.

Maybe Obama was told, “No” twice recently. The first was Bibi and the second was the Secret Service about the choice of dog perhaps.

Chicago street thugs typically opt for pit bulls. Doesn’t Rahm Emanuel qualify? That said, the Obama hound is cute but I like Barney, President Bush's Scottie better. He bites journalists and I like that in a dog. I'd like to do that too!