THANKSGIVING 2021

by Rabbi Rose Lyn Jacob (My Wife)

Thanksgiving 2021 arrives this Thursday, and I can honestly say I do not envy those making their personal pilgrimage, whether by car, train or plane. While the traditional Thanksgiving hymn says, “We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing,” this year I would give it a pass.

I understand how eager people are to see their loved ones, even it means taking the risk of illness and death. Last year most people cancelled their travel plans opting to stay home, watching the Macy’s Parade, and dine on a microwavable turkey dinner from the freezer section. There were virtual visits via Skype and Zoom and some took the opportunity to drive by grandma and grandpa’s house or nursing home and wave Thanksgiving greetings through the window. Most hunkered down and stayed put.

With only 50% of eligible persons fully vaccinated, families are having to decide if they CAN gather together safely this year. CDC predictions show an uptick in the numbers of infected and subsequent deaths, but won’t know for sure until 21 days after Thanksgiving. Breakthrough infections are possible even with the booster shot. So, we’re opting to stay home again this year. Crazy as it seems, YOUR right to remain unvaccinated trumps MY right to travel and visit friends and family safely.

One thing I’m not immune to is nostalgia. And I have been positively awash in holiday memories this past week. With over 60 years of Thanksgiving dinners under my belt I’ve been awash in holiday memories and my mental guest list has grown very long. During my childhood I never experienced a “Norman Rockwell” Thanksgiving.” Unlike the famous painting, OUR family turkey was never presented to the guests on a platter, whole and stuffed, admired in all its brined and browned glory. Instead, my father, a man well versed in poultry anatomy and skilled with an electric knife, elegantly carved the guest of honor in the kitchen, placing light and dark meat on platters to pass. There were serving dishes of stuffing, bowls of cranberry sauce, and an assortment of Jewish and Hungarian side dishes switched out for “traditional” all- American foods, like marshmallow topped sweet potatoes, and “classic”, string-bean casserole with mushroom soup created in 1955 by an employee of the Campbell Soup Company. I hope there was a bonus in her Christmas paycheck!

Whether you enjoy it or not, the turkey is THE all-American Thanksgiving food. But folks of every ethnic background have always found ways to personalize (and improve) the All-American bird with foods that reflect their heritage. Even those who do not traditionally consume turkey, cook one, because they are American, and that is what Americans do for Thanksgiving. Some gather with family to eat the tasty and diverse dishes of their immigrant ancestors, foregoing the string beans and marshmallows, and leaving the roasted bird as an untouched centerpiece, to be stewed or made into sandwiches the next day.

So how did we end up with this national holiday that evokes in every American feelings of gratitude, spirituality and patriotism? George Washington was the first president to proclaim a day of thanksgiving, issuing his request on October 3, 1789, but it fell short of becoming an actual Federal holiday. Subsequently, individual states, mostly Northern states, each held its own day of Thanksgiving. For fifteen years, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, Sarah Josepha Hale, waged a one-woman campaign to get an American president to create what she referred to as, “the day of our annual Thanksgiving.” She persevered, finally writing to President Abraham Lincoln, urging him to have the "day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." Lincoln acted immediately, issuing a proclamation for a national, annual day of observance on September 28, 1863. He made the point that we Americans didn’t always give due credit to the Creator who enabled our abundant harvests. Included in the proclamation were the following words, “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

I’ve spent several Thanksgiving abroad, and I’ve noticed that there is a particular pride in observing Thanksgiving with other Americans, even ones you’ve never met before, when you do find yourself in a foreign country. As if with the wave of a magic wand, all politics are set aside, and all feast together not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans. As Lincoln pointed out, we Americans are obliged to set apart and observe the holiday at the same time it is observed in the U.S. Many years ago, while studying in Israel, I helped assuage the homesickness of my fellow American students by pulling together a Thanksgiving feast for forty-five. We feasted on Tarnagol Hodu – Hebrew for turkey, which translates as Indian Rooster!

While I won’t be spending the holiday with others this year, I certainly have more than enough Thanksgivings on which to reflect. These are wonderful, treasured, vivid memories of meals shared with friends around festive tables in far flung places from New Jersey, to Minnesota, and California and many states in between. In my mind I recall the attributes of each unique celebration. I remember the conversations, the side dishes, the circumstances of the invitations to dine, and more often, these day, I find myself recalling friends and family who have passed on, yet who remain vivid in my memory as the day we celebrated together.

Should you find yourself spending Thanksgiving at home, either alone or with your very small circle, I hope you’ll take a moment for a little prayer; a few words of thanks to the Power behind it all.

I enter Your gates with thanksgiving,

With gratitude I sing out Your praise.

You provide food for the hungry,

Sending the rains to bring forth bread from the earth.

Thanks to Your abundant kindness, our fields yield a rich harvest.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, let us share our bread with the hungry; clothe the naked and shelter the homeless.

Help us to help those who have no help.

Help us to never take our blessings for granted.

Wishing each and every one of you a blessed Thanksgiving, no matter where you spend the day.

One is Born an Individual; One Becomes a Statistic

The following is the latest column by my wife, Rabbi Rose Lyn Jacob, from the Culpeper Star Exponent

Since the start of the pandemic, we have been inundated with numbers and statistics meant to help interpret the unfolding disaster around us. Thanks to our news outlets we’ve seen graphs and charts updated daily, weekly, monthly, breaking down numbers of cases and deaths; vaccination rates by location, the lack of ICU beds in hard hit rural America, and charted and graphed the over 1700 healthcare workers who have died of Covid so far. Our epidemiologists, politicians, medical professionals, sociologists and news outlets, can barely keep up with, let alone analyze the statistics generated by data gathering organizations like the CDC or American Public Media’s “The Color of Coronavirus Project” which breaks down figures of Covid deaths by race, ethnicity, age and location in the U.S. The data is dry, but, in the words of science writer Paul Brodeur, “Statistics are human beings with the tears wiped away.”

There is no question that numbers and statistics can be powerful. But as any newspaper editor can tell you, news of one death is a tragedy; news of a hundred deaths is a statistic. And it is the one tragic death that makes the headlines. Sadly, Covid has shown us that the closer that death is to you, the greater the tragedy.

Be honest. When you look at the numbers, do you find yourself thinking, “but I don’t live there,” or “I’m young and healthy,” or “my local hospital still has beds.” And be really honest and admit you are relieved when you look at the numbers and think, “I’m not an Hispanic or Black American, or Pacific Islander, Native American, or Evangelical Christian. I don’t go to rock concerts or other large gatherings, and I don’t have a job in an essential industry where I come face-to-face with the public”. What you’re really thinking is “I don’t fit into any statistically vulnerable group, so Covid isn’t going to impact my life.”

But all that is about to change. We now have a new category for statistical analysis: Covid Orphans. These are children who have lost a parent or a grandparent with whom they lived and/or financially responsible for them, or other primary caregiver. And as of this point in time, over 120,000 children in the U.S. have become Covid Orphans. Does it matter what color or ethnicity or statistical group they land in? I can tell you that 35 percent of the kids are white, about 32 percent are Hispanic and about 26 percent are Black. And there will be more. And one way or the other, all of us will be impacted by their losses as they enter a lifetime of uncertainties, lost opportunities, along with financial, social and mental health challenges. So many times during the pandemic I have uttered, under my breath, “there but for the Grace of God, go I.” And just last month, someone in my own extended family died of Covid, leaving three children behind, now officially “Covid Orphans”. Just one more statistic? No, not when the tragedy creeps closer to home.

Good or bad, it is human nature to hide our heads in the sand, hoping that bad things will pass us by, and rarely do we extend a hand to help the other. Martin Niemöller, a German Lutheran pastor during WW II, is best known for his statement on man’s ability to turn his back on “the other.” We, in the U.S., having all experienced tragedy during Covid, can no longer afford to categorize the suffering of each ethnic or racial group. The suffering is catching up with each of us:

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

Wishing you all a peaceful and healthy week.

PUTTING FRIENDSHIP TO THE TEST

The following is the latest column by my wife, Rabbi Rose Lyn Jacob, from the Culpeper Star-Exponent:

We’d been friends since we’d met, over twenty-five years ago, when we’d bumped into each other in the university parking lot. We were a “mutual admiration society” and we each had the other’s back, no matter what. We laughed a lot. We could always talk; about anything, and everything. She was smart; a former economics professor, and we loved to shoot the breeze regularly on the phone or over coffee. We talked about life, the day’s headlines; societal, political, economic, and which movies to take in. For as long as knew her, she never ended a conversation without asking which book I was reading, and when I was laid-up with shoulder surgery, she sent me a three-pound translation of Don Quixote. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to read it or just lift it as a physical therapy weight.

Suzanne and I had been able to speak freely with each other on any topic, but that changed during the first year of the Trump presidency. Her news sources were different from my news sources. Her “truths” were different from mine. In retrospect, I suspect there were the beginnings of a fissure in our friendship during the long presidential campaign.

It wasn’t long before events overcame us and our friendship was taxed, seemingly beyond repair. It was apparent, for the first time, that, what I had always assumed were “our” deeply held values and views, were now divergent; I was shocked, and at a loss as to how to sustain our friendship.

The regular calls became fewer and fewer. Not knowing what to say, we talked about our kids, college and career choices, and before we knew it, we were talking about grand-children. But we had completely stopped talking about everything else. It seemed to be the only way to sustain a friendship that was now fraught with divisiveness.

As time passed, she had fewer and fewer friends in her circle, and she started to withdraw. It was happening all around me. People – family and friends, were withdrawing from book clubs, their houses of worship, and activities they’d enjoyed in the past because they couldn’t find their way around the conflict. It was the same scene on both sides of the aisle. Red. Blue. Remember “Color War” at summer camp? “Color War” would break-out with a lot of hooting and screaming by counselors. For one week, campers divided into Red and Blue teams to compete with each other, cheer their own team, write fight songs and behave with faux hostility. The last night, around a bonfire, everyone joined arm-in-arm, and sang “Red team, Blue team, together as one again”… a song of friendship regained, and for some, friendships retained through the years.

There were days, after my friendship with Suzanne seemed to be withering, when I would scroll down through my phone contacts, and almost call her.

Then, one day, the phone rang. “Rose, I have a brain tumor.” Suddenly, everything else in the world fell away, and we talked as friends talk when there is no one else who can understand. We talked during the treatments, we talked when she was too weak to walk. We talked when Covid made it impossible for her to see her children and grandchildren. And our friendship was put to the test when she wept on the phone and mustered the strength to say she’d had enough, and was ready to let go.

We resurrected our old friendship over her remaining months. With a spirit of trust and love, she reached out; writing me a note or two, her beautiful handwriting and thoughts almost illegible. She did her best to talk with me on the phone, until the last stroke took her speech as well.

After our last conversation I became overwhelmed with sadness. How many of us have lost touch with or avoided friends and family due to the political divide? I was infuriated by people who, in their misguided patriotic resolve to protect their personal freedoms, show little regard for the greater good. I was indignant that so many Americans were choosing to squander God’s greatest gift; life.

None of us know when it will be our time; or when our last opportunity to heal or make amends will come. We’ve missed out on so much over the past few years, and not just because of Covid. We’ve missed out simply because we have willingly chosen to break bonds of family and friendship over politics.

I received a phone call shortly before Suzanne died. It was her husband asking if I could guide him through the process of death and mourning. He bought a plot. He made arrangements with the funeral home. And when she finally passed, he called. “Suzanne asked that you conduct her funeral. You were her closest friend and you’ll know what to say.” I was blessed with one more opportunity to confirm my friendship, for which I am eternally grateful.

Farewell Afghanistan — The Final Look

Afghanistan might have faded completely from the ultra short American memory by now but for the Republican Party hammering the President mercilessly for doing what The Donald had promised to do. The liberal media doesn't give the President a pass, either. They will gladly pound Mr. Biden for his terrible Afghanistan performance.

A president can't be on top of everything, and if that's the case, perhaps Mr. Biden should fire the mediocre advisers in his midst, beginning with the most famous Obama Administration retread, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who seems clueless even in the most friendly environments.

The Republicans are ceaseless in their suggestions that the President might be mentally impaired. I take everything they say with a grain of salt; blind support of Donald Trump is itself a suggestion of mental impairment, so they are in no position to judge. But on the serious side, we might look back to FDR's performance at Yalta, where he gave away the store (or rather, Eastern Europe). The President was said to be very sick by the time Yalta rolled around, and it was no secret to his doctor that he shouldn't have run for a fourth term. I keep that in mind as I watch Joe Biden's decision making, which seems to me to be very much sub optimized. I'll say no more on that issue. If the Republicans are on to something concerning the President's decision making ability, it's an accident.

Still, we're lucky. We were permitted to leave Kabul as we wished. The British had to walk out through Khurd Kabul, and it wasn't pretty.

We'll be hearing about the poor Afghans for a long time, especially as they open their restaraunts around our country. But may we not hear about their country again. Like Iraq and Vietnam, it's another mess, a place where the politicians thought a war would work for them, and it would be the generals' fault if it didn't. Gosh — another bunch of stupid sons of bitches who wouldn't take democracy and run with it when we offered it to them, a billion dollars at a time, complete with support contractors to keep it in tune.

A Trout Fishing Fantasy

I lifted the chain, swinging the gate open so Rose could drive the car into the meadow. Once she had passed in, I got back into the passenger seat and directed her down the hill where we parked by the monument to Vince Marinaro and Charlie Fox. “This might be my last time here. It's been a long time, but I've got a lot of memories on this stream.” “It doesn't have to be the last time,” she said. “I know, but it's a long drive, and I'm seventy-one.” I looked through the thin screen of trees to the Letort, one of the legendary trout streams. It used to sit in quiet isolation; now a Home Depot buzzed up on the hill above the far bank. “Let's go fishing.”

I rigged my rod, slipping on a light vest. You don't wade the Letort, you just need shoes that can navigate a soggy bank. We sat on one of the benches and watched. Resting the water like this can tell you a lot. It was a cloudy day — a day of possibilities on a spring creek like the Letort, but right now there was nothing much happening, until. . . on the far bank, a trout sipped an insect off the surface. I was familiar with that spot — a nice undercut for a fish to hide, and let the current funnel food to it. It was a long, difficult cast. I tied on a little hot orange ant and put it as close to the bank as I could. After several tries, I was sure the trout was not buying what I was selling.

I looked back at Rose; she was reading a book. Tying on a Shenk's hopper, I put it about five feet ahead of the under cut, carefully mending my line as it drifted toward the spot. As the saying goes, all hell broke loose. The water erupted, and my reel sang as the trout took line. I slowed it a bit with my palm. Rose called instructions out to me. I put up my hand — “Not now,” I said. Don't worry about her, play the fish. She's a beauty. I've taken her. That's a tough spot. “Ed?” It was Ed Shenk, the legendary fly fisherman. I'd hired him as a guide once. I owned one of his hand made rods, and he gave me a small box of his flies. Yeah, it's me. You're not done with that fish. She's a tough one. That's one of the hoppers I gave you, isn't it? “You died last year, Ed.” When I had fished with him over twenty years ago he looked ancient, with coke bottle glasses and a limp. He looked older now. I know, I know. But Vince, Charlie, and I get to hang out down here. We spent so may years fishing on this stream. . . His voice trailed off wistfully. Some guy from DC bought Charlie's house. He almost never fishes; just likes to look down on the 'legendary Letort.' “Who are you talking to, Gary?” “No one; I was just musing about the history of this place.” “Well, let's get that fish in.”

The trout finally tired, and I brought her to hand. As soon as she was in the net I pulled the barbless hook out with a hemostat and carefully placed her back in the water. In seconds she swam off. Nicely done. Then Ed turned and walked away to sit with Vince and Charlie.

Farewell Afghanistan

For those who are listening to the news, or just casting a sideways glance at a newspaper, The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is rapidly liquifying. This was apparently a surprise to President Biden and his horse holders, who continue to cite the overwhelming superiority of the 300,000 man Afghan National Army as opposed to the rag tag 65,000 man Taliban. The Taliban, uninformed of their inferiority, are running the table.

The recurring question amongst the news geniuses is: “How could we spend $1 trillion and twenty years of effort only to see it go up in smoke in just a week or two?” The optimists say Kabul will hold out for a month.

I have a different question: “We've been given a picture of the Taliban as an insurgent movement. In fact, events of the last ten days show them to be an army, with a complete operational planning element, and a logistics planning component. Without these, they couldn't have accomplished their coordinated conquests of both cities and strategic territory. Did US intelligence know of these capabilities?” President Biden's Pollyanna—like statements suggest that either we were unaware of these capabilities, or we preferred not to let on about them.

The Taliban skillfully cut off the Northern Alliance and the few border crossings that permit ready entry and exit to the mountainous country, then began a campaign of methodically conquering provincial capitals. It was said that Afghan troops fought well before running out of supplies and running off, shedding their uniforms and hitching rides home. News folks in the know stated that the central government was unable to resupply its forces. Taliban forces had no such problem. For a force barely a fifth the size of the Afghan National Army, without a US designed logistics system or air force, the Taliban seemed to understand that war was primarily about planning and logistics. If they were overextended, the Afghan National Army wasn't noticing, and the fact hadn't come to the attention of Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby, who, for a press secretary seems awfully uncomfortable at press conferences.

One particular fact has gone unsaid throughout the US Afghan adventure. The Taliban are well supported by the Pakistani military. The is no power superior to the military in Pakistan, and they see Afghanistan as theirs to interfere in. They have a strong islamist streak. If the Pakistani military decided that the Taliban should not be operating freely in Afghanistan, they would be hard pressed to do so. A significant portion of Pashtun power rests on the Pakistani side of the border, and the Pakistani military has the power to disrupt the Taliban logistics chain. It's never been clear to me why this fact remains unsaid. (The Taliban are a Pashtun tribe. They represent about one-third of Afghanistan's ethic population. There are about as many Pashtun on the Pakistani side of the border as on the Afghan side)

The final item to be addressed is the shame of the United States at failing to evacuate those Afghans who assisted us in this ridiculous twenty year war effort. I won't discuss the stupidity of attempting to convert Afghanistan into a western democracy. But we have know for some time that at the moment of our departure (if not earlier) those Afghans who assisted us, whether as translators or in any other capacity would be in danger of being murdered. Yet we have wrapped the possibility of bringing them to the United States in the most impenetrable bureaucratic barriers. Ironically, if those same people could make their way to our southern border, they could just walk across, and not even receive a ticket for a court appearance. Yet we have doomed the majority of those who supported our war effort. The comparison to Vietnam and Iraq is apt, but the death toll may be higher.

For those who wonder how we got here, kindly remember that we always get to the same place. Once upon a time the likes of the Dulles brothers, and the John McCones of the intelligence world went about toppling governments we didn't like, replacing them with others that we may or may not have liked any better. It was a very foolish way to act, but not as foolish as assuming that every culture wants, or even understands western democracy.

The question of who is responsible for these failures is a tricky one. President Donald Trump famously blew up at his senior officers at an early briefing, telling them they didn't know how to win. Trump, of course, didn't know what he was talking about, either. He was busy helping the American public get tired of winning. In a 2007 article in Armed Forces Journal, Colonel Paul Yingling suggests that it's a failure of generalship — that our general officers have failed to make our leaders understand what it will take to win a war. You can read a discussion of that important article here. But the reality is different. If a general tells a leader what that leader doesn't want to hear, the general is either going to change his tune, or we're going to get a new general in here who sings the right song. Then we will march our forces in there so the politician can make his mistakes at the expense of the very small number of parents who send their kids off to the military.

Why can we and do we fight like this now? Because Colonel Yingling is wrong. Nations no longer fight wars. Politicians and the press fight wars, along with associated pressure groups. Oh, and a small number of military men and women, representing less than one half of one percent of the population. That's why we will continue to try to turn countries like Afghanistan, with illiteracy rates over seventy per cent, into western democracies with high tech militaries. We can't help ourselves; the thought of backing a non western democracy doesn't play in a world where foreign policy is made in the open press. Perhaps that means that the furture must belong to dictatorships such as China, if they can hold themselves together. It's also possible that the entire Westphalian model is obsolete, but we won't know until that's all over.

Revised 3 July 21

A Place Far Off

Carry me to a place far off,
A place where they don't know me,
A lonely place where whatever happens,
No one cares.
The place of silence and repose,
Where no one finds you,
So no one says,
He was asking for attention,
He needed help.
It's the place where you can just
Shed the sadness,
And cease to be in accordance with your desires,
Without attention.
Where those sad disappointments
Become mere oxygen,
And no one will say,
“What became of him?”
Where the love that never was,
Can slip the bonds of disappointment,
And evaporate with the soul,
And you can become nothing.