Posted on 05/02/2004 5:55:49 PM PDT by SJackson
My first trip to the former Soviet Union was in 1984, in the "bad old days" before perestroika forced the Iron Curtain to part and the gates of freedom to open. I had come to visit refuseniks, to teach Torah, to conduct clandestine weddings, to strengthen the hands and hearts of the heroes who bravely took on the Communist bear.
Though I would depart Russia with just my carry-on bag, I shlepped two huge suitcases into the country. They were filled with a multitude of items either unavailable or illegal in the USSR: chocolate, a mezuza, Hebrew primers, tapes of Torah lectures (and a tape recorder), a megila, a pocket organizer, kippot, several Time magazines, a salami. You name it, I had it with me.
Standing next to me, waiting to go through passport control, was a young Chabadnik. He whispered, "Did you bring in any tefillin?" Though I had been duly warned against informers, I took a chance he was the real thing. "Yes," I nodded.
"How many?" he asked.
I shot back a puzzled look. "Just one pair." The hassid laughed. "I brought in seven pairs," he said proudly.
"But how will you get them all through?" I whispered.
He leaned close to me. "My visa is for a week's stay, so I'll have no problem."
And he opened his suitcase a crack, revealing seven pairs of tefillin, each wrapped in a cellophane bag marked "Disposable."
Which leads me to my thesis: We live in a disposable, dispensable society.
Disposable diapers, disposable tea and coffee bags, disposable cameras.
Plastic dishes and cups and utensils and tablecloths that you use once and then throw away, with no muss and no fuss. Disposable contact lenses, disposable barbeque grills, disposable toothbrushes.
The list is endless.
But it's not only inanimate objects that have become disposable; the malady, alas, has spread to people as well.
Tired of your old spouse? Trade him or her in for a new, improved model (or maidel!). "Till death us do part" just doesn't cut it any more. Aged parents a hassle? That's why God invented nursing homes and assisted living.
Why, even children are not immune to the syndrome. More than one Palestinian parent, asked how he or she could send a child on a suicide mission, has responded, "We can always make more."
There was a time when we loved and valued our prized possessions. We kept them in pristine condition and zealously guarded them, holding on to them until they wore out from old age. And then, if we did let them go, it was a major trauma to part company.
I grew up in the same home for 23 years and rode the bike I had built myself – when I was 10 – until I got married. We washed and waxed and drove our car until it became a classic; we re-upholstered our comfortable couch and passed down our favorite books to the next generation.
It wasn't that we were against modernity or allergic to anything new; we just appreciated a good thing when we had one, and weren't convinced that "new" was automatically "better."
Your red wool mittens stayed warm every winter, and your violin's sound just couldn't be improved upon. We were secure enough in our own self-esteem not to have to trade for every trend, or follow every fad.
Holding onto the things we loved also helped to perpetuate our family history and mold our character. Eating from Mom's fine china or using Dad's tools reinforced the exemplary values our parents espoused, from honesty to gentle kindness to a strong work ethic, built on getting the job done by yourself.
MY FEAR is that we have created a society where everything is expendable, everything is tradable, everything is up for grabs to the highest bidder. Today's innovation – be it the latest computer, CD or digital camera – is tomorrow's obsolescence. Our eyes stare straight ahead and our heads refuse to swivel; yesterday is just somethin' we needed to get us to today.
History, tradition, precedent? That's for sentimentalists stuck in the past, for nervous nostalgics who'd better "get with it" before they're left behind.
But "out with the old and in with the new" is a bottomless pit of instability; there's no telling where you'll end up, or who you'll be when you come out. Without the lifeline of the past to anchor us, we drift aimlessly, prey to the latest scheme with the shiniest facade.
We keep re-inventing the wheel, starting over, building taller and taller buildings on smaller and smaller foundations.
Here in Israel, we like tossing things. We brought in foreign workers when the Palestinians rioted, then cruelly discarded them like so much flotsam when our own unemployment skyrocketed. We encouraged and embraced the settlers as our pioneers and trailblazers, then tossed them to the (media) wolves when idealism became passe.
We fought – and died – for this amazing land of ours, but now we are prepared to throw large chunks of it away to our avowed enemies, who will quickly turn the territories into the world's largest terrorist training center.
If we don't hold fast to the things we cherish – in particular our loved ones and our land – then it is only a matter of time, God forbid, until we ourselves end up on the trash heap of history.
The writer is director of the Jewish Outreach and Ohel Ari Heritage Center of Ra'anana (jocmtv@netvision.net.il).
Aged parents a hassle? That's why God invented nursing homes and assisted living.
The road to societal destruction and we are driving over the speed limit on this road.
Live with it. 'Pod.
I with all due respect disagree with your statement.
It doesn't ALLOW anything, for it forces one to abide by the system through financial strangulation to accept such a system, thus the allowance scenario is a moot one.
A change in the helmsman has altered the course, however road blocks are everywhere.
Does this guy actually believe that the Hasid really planned to discard the tefillin after each use? Was he that so that he didn't realize this was a scam to get them past the Soviet customs authorities and into the hands of Russian Jews?
And then to use this to launch a rant, somebody, please buy this guy a clue.
Was he so dumb that...
It has produced a system that allows the kids of older people who need care to not be responsible for that care.
So that is exactly what these people do. They walk away and let the state do their job because they can.
It's not just Social Security but the entire welfare state that has so damaged the idea of personal responsiblity for oneself and others. The more government does for you the less able, and willing, you can do for yourself and others. As government grows, many people grow increasingly selfish, irresponsible, self-indulgent and indifferent towards even their own immediate family. This creates all kinds of problems, which in turn leads to calls for the further expansion of goverment. And so it goes.
Taxes are so heavy that the dominant attitude is "I pay taxes for (fill in the blank) - let the government handle the problem."
Carolyn
He's the Rabbi whose son Avi was killed last year. There have been a few threads on the family. I guess he didn't make the point it was a scam clear enough.
Imagine us repairing socks today.
Count me as one who still does that on occasion...
For the record – disposable utensils and such are good things, disposable spouses are an unfortunate societal trend, disposable children are simply an evil concept from evil people.
None of these trends are remotely related to each other.
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