5765 has come to an end, and now we're in the airlock during this liminal decade, pressurizing, written for 5766 but not yet sealed. From this vantage point we can look backwards at 5765 and forward to the rest of 5766.
5765 began full of hope, when it appeared that we would soon wake up from our long national nightmare. It didn't work out. But a year later, the Republican regime is slowly but surely falling apart.
The Iraq War continues with no end in sight. The Darfur conflict continues.
We watched in horror as 280,000 people died in the tsunami, and the world opened their hearts and wallets to assist the survivors. Yet we knew deep down that we were in America, so this couldn't happen to us. Then came Katrina and Rita, and we saw that our government can do no better than Third-World governments in protecting us from natural disasters.
In happier news, Israel has removed itself from Gaza, so that it is no longer ruling over 1.5 million disenfranchised Palestinians, moving us closer to the day when Israel is a Jewish democratic state with defined borders, and the Palestinians have either a viable state or no one to blame but themselves.
Orange was the color of the year, from Ukraine to New York to Israel.
It has been a year of transitions, with the deaths and replacements of many long-serving world leaders: the pope who had been in office for my whole life, the Palestinian leader who had been in office for my whole life, and the Chief Justice of the United States who had been on the Supreme Court for my whole life.
In less consequential news, 5765 was the end of the Star Wars series and the Red Sox curse. So may 5766 be the end of all wars and curses.
As we'll say on Thursday toward the end of Ne'ilah:
"Yehi ratzon milefanecha shomeia' kol bechiyot / shetasim dim'oteinu benodecha lihyot / v'tatzileinu mikol gezeirot achzariot / ki lecha levad 'eineinu teluyot."
"May it be your will, the one who hears the sound of crying, that you put our tears in your flask, and save us from all cruel decrees, for our eyes are raised to you alone."
Israel is a Jewish democratic state with defined borders, and the Palestinians have either a viable state or no one to blame but themselves.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the latter true right now?
If the Palestinians declared a state today, something tells me that the West Bank settlers wouldn't react well.
ReplyDeleteTikhle shana ve-qilelotheha.
ReplyDeleteIraqis are buying real estate and durable goods, building office buildings, and signing up in droves to become soldiers and police, so they can defeat the jihadis and irredentist Baathists without our help, even though these scum target recruiting stations as well as job centers.
ReplyDeleteHundreds of thousands of expats have returned, more than a million back to Afghanistan. Female Afghanis are running for office. Both countries are figuring out how to have a representative government. Both had high voter turnouts in spite of violence targeted at voters.
I figure we can be at least as happy and hopeful for them as they are, no? Unless everything in the universe revolves around the Left's hatred of Bush.
BTW I still haven't found any examples of Iraqis speaking at any of the huge antiwar rallies of the past three years, but I do know of some who were not allowed to speak. Funny how you can have a huge global "progressive" action about a country with no representatives of that country involved. . . .
Anyway, a very good year. Lots to be hopeful about and proud of.