Leon's No News Bulletin 96 Fri 9th Jan 09

Shalom everyone,

Last night Pnina, Ettie’s mother, Ettie and I and Avishai went to the Mexico Hall of the Hebrew University to honor Ittamar for successfully completing the first stage of his studies to become a medical doctor. They called it the evening of the distribution of the white coats. Ittamar will now wear a white coat while he makes his rounds at Hadassah hospital for the next 6 months to practice being a doctor.

I had just come from one of my tours to Massada and was well aware that a direct, almost tangible channel connects the Jews of Massada with Ittamar and other Jews of today.

The love of humanity passes through that channel. Like a gene, implanted into Adam, the first man, the Jewish determination to heal humanity will not be stopped. The Romans couldn’t stop it neither will the Arabs of today.

I didn’t show Ittamar or anybody the tears that welled up in my soul, seeing him put on the white coat; they confuse me so how could I expect Ittamar or anyone else to understand them.

I cry because I can’t make a better world than the one we have, neither can Ittamar or anyone else. The world is what it is. All that I and people like Ittamar and anyone who searches for knowledge, can do is only help people to see this world and learn to accept it and love it with all its faults and sufferings.

We do this by means of knowledge. My job, as a parent, is to bring human beings into this world so that they can see it for themselves and then to do everything humanly possible to show them the world and then hope that they will want to continue learning about the world themselves and bring children into the world who in turn will want to learn it and its secrets.

Even the slightest bit of knowledge which we may gain in our search will help us towards accepting the bad or difficult things in the world which we can’t change and to enjoy the good things to the fullest.

The good and bad things in the world came up again in a discussion with my latest group of tourists, 5 ladies from LA. We were driving through Tiberias and had just stopped at the grave of the great, Medieval Jewish Philosopher, Maimonides and the grave of Rabbi Meir of the miracle, one of the compilers of the Mishna of the 2^nd century.

We were discussing creation again. The fact is that the world is created and there’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t change it. Whether it’s good or bad, that’s what it is.

Some people think that religion and religious practices are a means of changing the world. They are mistaken. Religion gives some people a way to thank God for the good and obtain God’s help in obediently accepting the bad.

The only thing we can change is the way we see the world and how we let what we see affect our thinking and our moods and feelings. The only way to do this is by acquiring knowledge of the world.

Knowledge enables us to see the world. Some people make the mistake of limiting knowledge so that they see only the good and not the bad, but limiting knowledge isn’t knowledge, it’s really ignorance.

In ignorance we don’t see everything and so, not seeing the bad we don’t avoid its consequences; there is no way to avoid suffering. In fact the more we try to avoid it, by hiding from knowledge of the bad things that cause suffering; we actually increase the pain of the suffering.

Adam and Eve’s decision to see the good and the bad has been passed down to us in the form of knowledge.

Wishing you a great no news day

Yours truly

Leon