The blog must go on ... but not really

Wow! I haven't posted in more than a week and I'm still getting hits! I even got more today than the day before. I guess that means I've made it. Thanks to everyone who's linked or visited this site, even those who got here on google searches for "straightjacket and gagged" and the like. I hope you found something stimulating here even if it wasn't quite what you were looking for.

Why haven't I posted? I just wasn't in the mood I guess. When I started this thing I had no idea if it would last more than a day or two. I'm really not a writer, and I didn't think I'd have much to write about. There are enough other people who are more creative, observant (in the non-religious sense of the word), perceptive, insightful, witty, expressive, intelligent, and informed than I to render me beyond redundant (in the American sense of the word). But I went ahead and created this blog anyway, because I found that sometimes I did have things to say that I didn't see anyone else saying, and because I figured that if I'm a decent human being, I really should have at least one interesting thought (even if not original) every day or few worth sharing - no?!

Things went better than I thought they would. Once I had the forum, the material came more easily, and I found my writing was a little better than it had been back when I'd be throwing together papers weeks late under the schoolmaster's switch. But still, I'm a very moody person. My writing and my opinions can be very uneven, and what interests me one day bores me the next. I'm very indecisive, and critical of myself (and others), and I usually write slowly. A lot has happened in these last days, but nothing moved me enough or in quite the right way to put anything up here.

There was Holocaust Day. I thought of writing a post called "Hypocrisy Day" in response, because it's particularly on this day of pompous speech and ceremony that the chasm between what people say and what they do seems to widen so much that it looks like they're actually going to drop down into it and never be seen again. You have Ehud Olmert mouthing off like nobody's uncle about the perils of appeasement——even as he lays the groundwork for a massive withdrawal that can only whet his enemy's appetite. You have Tomy Lapid sneering at the nations like a rebellious teenager, saying that Israel will rely on no one except itself——even as it begs them for love and acceptance, even as it bows to foreign-imposed "peace" plans like the "Road Map" with its backing "quartet" (a name at which musicians everywhere should take offense), even as it takes gazillions of dollars in aid from America (which can't come free), and even as it concedes its security to wild Arabian marauders. I may have had legitimate complaints, but it didn't seem appropriate to voice them on a day that's been set aside for remembrance of the dead. Maybe Olmert and Lapid couldn't keep their mouths shut, but that didn't mean I had to start spouting off.

Yom Hazikaron doesn't register with me too much, but there's always Yom Ha'atzma'ut. I used to get fairly jolly when this time of year came around, but now I've been overcome by cynicism. I've come to see the State of Israel as a worthwhile enterprise only insofar as it helps Jews, i.e., enhances their religious observance or offers them protection from enemies. My support is thus conditional; the State is not an end in itself. I know that the religious Zionist opinion is that the State is actually an end in itself, but since spending time at a haredi yeshiva I've learned that there are other opinions, and in the end we just don't know who's right and what the role of the State really is. So we're left discussing particular merits and drawbacks. Overall, I think it still does more good than bad: as far as I can tell, more Jews have survived because of the State than perished because of it, it's enabled much of the ingathering that we've been waiting for for millennia, and though it led to a decrease in the religious observance of many, it has also facilitated preservation and outreach among others. It's really a mixed bag, and my feelings towards it are likewise mixed. If I never knew any soldiers to mourn on Yom Hazikaron, I do have something to mourn on Israeli "Independence" Day: the deterioration of the State and People of Israel, and the shattering of my youthful illusions about it.

The meaning of aliyah is also not what it once was. G-d willing, a month and a half from now, I'll be getting on a plane and leaving for Eretz Yisrael. I'm thrilled about being in the land, and among so many other Jews, but as for becoming an Israeli and getting a T'udat z'hut, I sort of feel like I'm hiring a really good bodyguard who happens to beat up my sister from time to time.

Add to all this the stress of worrying about how to ship the greatest amount of my belongings for the least money, whether I'll ever find a job that can keep me afloat, and where I'll be sleeping, and maybe you can see why I've been a little subdued.

By titling this post as I did, I mean to say that the blog is still here and I don't intend to close up shop, but I recognize that what I'm doing here is trivial. I do it because I want to inform and I want to be heard, but ... sometimes I don't. This blog will rear its head and dip back into the water as I do, and I can't guarantee that it won't ever go under for good. That said, part of the reason why I'm bothering to post is because I felt bad that some people were visiting here multiple times only to find the site neglected. I don't have very many readers, certainly not enough to justify the ads I have at the top of the page (but they make the site look professional, don't they, and the title of the blog appropriately sinks beneath them), but I feel a surprising level of camaraderie and responsibility. So, this one's for you, and maybe next time I'll have a better post.

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