No plans for a parade today.

No red, white and blue bunting.

No barbecue or fireworks to celebrate American independence, though the Israelis made themselves independent from the British too, a little less than two hundred years after the American colonialists.

Instead, a different kind of independence–the spiritual variety–will descend upon Jerusalem at sundown: Shabbat.

One can never emphasize enough the power and beauty of a whole city coming to rest. It’s one of the greatest thrills of being in Jerusalem, even though we don’t keep all of the Shabbat as a family. The communal bond of marking time for sacredness, as opposed to, let’s say, marking time for partying, is a contrast worth appreciating. And one I am particularly grateful for being able to give my children during these summers in Israel. That their internal clocks should experience time in a different dimension as they grow and achieve their own independence from their parents will be a useful tool for ordering their universe.

I must admit that there is a sacred secularity to Saturdays in our neighborhood in Brooklyn. The Farmers’ Market; those who gravitate toward the park for exercise, relaxation, bird-watching, picnic, reading, mating; the gym; the yoga studio; and of course, shul. I think if you’d ask people, they’d talk about a spiritual dimension to their day off of work. I get it.

Here, I suppose, the spiritual dimension has a national narrative ethic attached to it; one’s individuality, to a degree, gives way to a shared sacred purpose.

American Independence, Israeli Independence.

The rights of individuals encoded in the very words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Contrasted with a society here that both yearns for individuality while remaining deeply torn about what too much individuality can do to a country that needs unity of purpose as a bastion of defense.

Peace, no doubt, would encourage the joyous uses of parades and fireworks here in Israel. For now, an explosion is still too ambiguous to fully enjoy.

In my cynical twenties and thirties, I found the patriotism of parades on July 4th to be offensive. Now I see them in a different light, as necessary demonstrations of communal narratives (if done right, of course.) Obama’s call for national service is in line with that kind of narrative–something our country desperately needs in order to thrive in the years ahead. And a binding experience it will be–not unlike the service here in the IDF.

Which is to say, on this 4th of July, that in each place I prefer to call home, the project of becoming independent is not yet finished.

In Jerusalem.

We rolled into town by bus this year, figuring that traffic would be a mess because of the bulldozer attack on Jaffa Road, killing 3 and injuring dozens. Another expression of the senseless loss of life–in this case, a figure who most describe as criminally insane and not part of a terrorist cell. Nonetheless, even the explosion of a criminal figure has a target–and in this case, it was Jews.

Things are tense this summer. There is palpable anger about the exchanges with Hezbollah in the Lebanon and disgust and frustration with Hamas and the government over the delayed release of Gilad Shalit.

Opinion pages are filled with analysis over whether Israel should or will attack Iran and with many arguing that doing so under Bush’s last days in office may be likely only increases the tension.

Domestic challenges continue to abound–poverty, education, civil rights, an unstable government. Generally a mess. But a booming economy–despite its disparities–and increased tourism. A confusing mix, as usual.

As if the new Santiago Calatrava bridge at the entrance to Jerusalem welcomes you to the Holy City by saying, “Set your sights high. What you find on the ground isn’t always as inspiring as it should be.”

A new blog, the Jerusalemite, writes about it here.

Last night we went to look at the city from the Promenade as the sun was setting–always a great time to see the city in its intimate, distant glory. Cranes on the horizon hovering over new building; ancient ruins being rebuilt. The city’s walls seemed washed by human hands in hope while those same walls, washed in the light of the sun, became translucent, laying bare the divisions between East and West, between Arab and Jew.

“What’s that wall?” someone asked.

“It’s not a wall, it’s a security barrier.”

“It’s not a security barrier, it’s a security fence.”

“Fence, wall, barrier. It keeps bad guys out. It’s not perfect but it works.”

“See that village over there? That’s where the bulldozer driver came from.”

Bulldozer.

Death by bulldozer.

In a city where building is killing. Soon, again, rocks will do the killing. Then we’ll have death by stoning.

Then maybe clubs and fists.

Fighting back in time until we move from upright to a crawl, cowering in caves, where we wash walls, and paint them, and dream of better days.

From this week’s On Faith column in the Wash Post.

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Abraham Joshua Heschel told the story of a Holocaust survivor riding a European train after the war and, while engaged in conversation with his neighbor, noted his own refusal to pray to God. “I am never going to pray anymore because of what happened to us in Auschwitz.”

But after a couple days of travel together, one morning the man awoke and donned his prayer gear of tallis and tefilin.

When asked why he changed his mind, the man answered, “It suddenly dawned upon me to think how lonely God must be; look with whom He is left. I felt sorry for him.”

Heschel tells this story in his book, “A Passion for Truth,” his attempt to come to terms with two competing spiritual tendencies–the commitment to what he calls “honesty, authenticity, integrity,” and love. One needs both in relation to the other.

I think that’s the way it is with honest atheism.

Here’s what I mean.

As a rabbi, I really don’t have a problem when congregants tell me they don’t believe in God. On the face of it, where’s the proof? I get that it’s hard to believe and especially in a world where there is so much evil done in the name of religion, it’s a challenge to convince people that they should have a relationship to a God they cannot see and whose evidence of omnipotence is often, well, lacking.

But the notion of merely walking away from the relationship without a fight is something that I think most people find impossible to withstand. Especially Jews. We relish a good argument. Our founder Abraham stands toe to toe with God at Sodom and Gomorroh and challenges the Divine not to sweep away the good with the evil. In the midst of chaos and the preponderance of evil, Abraham stands as an exemplar of being in relationship with the values God is said to represent–holding God to a higher standard, as it were.

So, according to a new Pew survey, 21% of American atheists believe in God or a universal spirit, 12% believe in heaven and 10% pray at least once a week. I don’t find that hard to believe at all. It’s hard to walk away from an argument, especially when, as an honest atheist, one may insist upon holding the God Idea to a higher standard.

Heschel writes, “At times we must believe in Him in spite of Him.”

It’s that way in all relationships–in marriage, with children, in the workplace. No relationship is perfect at all times. From the mundane day-to-day to the depths of despair, we may find, as Heschel argued, that “faith comes about in a collision of an unending passion for Truth and the failure to attain it by one’s own means.”

Are you into Jews and politics?

Then you have to read Connie Bruck’s in-depth story on Sheldon Adelson III, the casino magnate and philanthropist for a window into how a very wealthy man wields his influence in America and Israel with a very ample wallet and a strong personality.

It’s personal, I’ll admit, because my grandfather was killed by a handgun way back in 1939, but I think today’s Supreme Court decision striking down the DC ban on handguns is the wrong way to read the US Constitution and a disaster for Gun Control laws.

The only glimmer of hope for me is that there may be enough ambiguity in the decision to still allow for more rulings, hopefully one day, by a more liberal Court.

The struggle to read the Constitution correctly goes on.

What an inspiring story that is very real for Jewish teens at summer camp.

Ben Harris is blogging on the JTA website about the decision of BBYO Camp Beber in Wisconsin to educate its campers about the necessity for making the right ethical choices with regard to labor practices and kashrut issues at Agriprocessors, the heavily investigated kosher meat plant in Iowa.

The issue has been written about extensively in the Jewish press and it’s great to see the issue being explored and activated for our youth to learn about in real time as part of their camping experience.

‘If anyone is going to make their opinion on this problem matter to the Jewish community and communities at large, and ultimately stand up against an issue in which human rights and Jewish values are demeaned, it’s BBYO teens.’ – Lauren Shenfeld, BBYO International Teen Co-President

‘The reason this issue has struck such a deep chord with BBYO teens is because it’s the story of their grandparents and great grandparents – the story of immigrating to find a better life, fighting oppression and standing up for social justice.’ – Marilyn Sneiderman, BBYO Deputy Director and former Director of Field Mobilization for the National AFL-CIO”

Inspiring stuff.

And the right decision!

One of my kids has taken to calling me Norman, my middle name, for my mother’s late father, a kindly gentleman of Wisconsin, murdered in 1939 and thereby truncating my own mother’s youth and grandmother’s aspirations for the Wonderful Life.

“Norman, how was Shul?” she’ll ask.

Or, “Norman, how’d the Mets do?”

She refers to Milwaukee’s baseball team as the Brew Crew. God bless her.

She quietly sneaked this new moniker–Norman–into the family lore, here in Brooklyn, intuiting among our clan here that an oral remnant of a bygone era would somehow bind us in ways even we parents weren’t clever enough to figure out.

From the mouths of babes, as they say.

I grew up in the shadow of my grandfather’s death: the dark knowledge of its violent birth–as if a death creates a new life for the survivors–and the subsequent mythological narrative of Norman’s saintly ways, his gentle demeanor, his promise of return, as it were. His very soul represented a hope for Redemption, for his sudden end was nothing less than the most illogical thing that could ever occur. Its absence, by necessity, promised presence.

Norman worked for one of Milwaukee’s utility companies, a generator of power at the dawn of a new era. He never saw the country recover from Hoover’s Great Depression. Roosevelt was just getting his paces when his own life was cut short.

“Norman, we should study Hebrew in the park every Shabbos,” my daughter said to me last Saturday. We were under her favorite tree in the Park, forming shapes into consonants and dots and lines into vowels. The kineticism of our own verbal gestures was a generator of language and memory.

A cardinal called from above. We looked up. “Who are you, God” I asked, “That you send messages like this, across the ages? Do your job. Feed the hungry. Dry up the floods. Stop playing with my fate.”

As a kid, I visited my grandma’s yard weekly, a yard with toys and swings, with birdfeeders and seed, even a white picket fence. The birds who inhabited my grandma’s yard were always a message, uncoded, of the past and the future but with no translator. And no grandfather.

“Norman, pay attention! I’m reading!” my daughter called me back.

I don’t have to tell her it’s not really my name because with wisdom beyond her years, she knows it is and knows it isn’t. That’s the point.

===

For the last several months, I led a Kaddish Minyan at CBE on Monday nights and one of the davenners comes each week to remember her father who died this year of cancer. He was 90 years old.

When we finished our prayers this evening, she had tears in her eyes and lingered in the study to tell stories of his life, to keep him nearby, to not only remember him but to bring him to life.

And there we were: her, me, and the memory of him. Neither of us could move, held together as we were by the thought of him, by the memory of him, by the reality of him. Not yet at the year of mourning, she was far from engraving his name, forever, in stone. “He’s not dead yet,” she seemed to be saying with her eyes.

She didn’t need to say it with her voice.

“He’s still here” is what she looked like.

===

“Norman–don’t forget: we’re going birdwatching on Saturday after Shul!” my daughter said to me.

It’s not my grandma’s backyard.

And a man I never met won’t materialize.

But it’ll do.

George Carlin, one of the great comedians of the last fifty years, died yesterday of heart failure.

His New York Times obit is here.

His obit from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which mentions his arrest there in the early 70s for his famous bit, “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” (which moved him into my personal pantheon of heroes) is here.

Carlin’s remarkable facility with words, his hyper-critical idealism, and uniquely hilarious observations about our world will be missed.

from the On Faith page of the Washington Post

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There’s something so cynical about all these people who leave Saturday Night Live to pursue their careers (i.e. the higher pay of Hollywood) and in the process forgo any remnants of originality they had in the live action of improvisational comedy.

With regards to Mike Myers in the “Love Guru,” I remember seeing the poster advertising the movie some weeks ago in the New York City subway system and thinking, “That’s funny these days?” It seemed old as a joke before it even came out. I had a vague notion that the Simpsons nailed it more than ten years ago — and that was a cartoon — so why was Hollywood taking on Hindus and sex?

Mostly because they can, is the short answer.

And mostly because of sex, is the other answer.

And fundamentally because the butt of these particular cinematic jokes is a dark-skinned immigrant character, both charming and prurient, which is always hilarious if you’re in the business of putting white butts in dark movie houses for the purposes of making money.

Particularly at a time when our nation is bleeding economically and our educational system is falling apart, the subtle racism of targeting the new American type who is not the man or woman in the software job, moving ahead by the sweat of their ingenuity or sheer industriousness but is rather an eroticized fantasy is just, well, predictable, boring, and, to those who yearn for the artist that shone in improvisational comedy only to sell out in Beverly Hills, annoying.

Given that Hollywood is the land of fake erotic body parts, there’s something apocalyptically cynical about a movie like the “Love Guru.” The author of the Kama Sutra, a taxi driver, and a porn star walk into a bar…

Do you really want to hear the end of that joke?

Should a movie like this be made?

Well, no. But that won’t stop anyone from doing so.

Which is to say when ethnic humor is good, it’s really good, even transformative of people’s views of the Other.

But when it’s bad, which this movie seems to be, it’s just indulgent nonsense.

I’d bet there’s a real Bollywood version of this idea that’s hilarious. But sadly, it’s not in Hollywood’s interest to have it see the light of day here.

For after all, as a friend recently said:

A person who speaks three languages is trilingual.

A person who speaks two languages is bilingual.

And a person who speaks one language is American.

“Love Guru” is a typical step backward for our already dumbed down culture.

One of the great reads of this spring and summer is Jonathan Rosen’s Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature.

For those who love birds, think they love birds, saw a bird once–I’d recommend it.

Jonathan was founding arts and literary editor of the Forward back in the day, is editorial director of Nextbook, and an accomplished author.

We hope to have Jonathan read and talk about his book in the Fall in partnership with our friends in Prospect Park.

Stay tuned.