Showing posts with label Cat and Mouse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cat and Mouse. Show all posts

August 22, 2015

Synagogue Time

So this is an interesting new phenomenon with synagogue. 

Usually, we like to go a little later so that basically we are there for about an hour and a half of services. 

That's about my attention span and then I start to get claustrophobic and antsy. 

(BTW, some friends that go to Church told me that they have the same experience.)

But the last two weeks something changed...(no, not me). 

Last week in Maryland, we went to synagogue and the people were standing in front with the Ark open and I thought wow they are way ahead and are finished with Torah reading and are putting the Torahs away already. 

But after a moment, I realized they were only just taking out the Torahs for the weekly reading, and we were actually earlier than usual. 

When I inquired in synagogue why they were behind schedule, I learned that to get people there for more of the services, they had decided to start later. 

Ah, it's a trick!

This week in Florida, I went to the Chabad shule and we were running late (hey, it's vacation) about 10:45 and thought shule would almost be over, but they were just in the morning prayers still, and there wasn't even a minyan yet.  

Two places, two synagogues, two weeks and they are changing the start times...

Seems smart from their perspective to try and get people there and for more of the services, but for the people who just want to come for a certain amount or parts of the service, isn't this just going to cause people to come even later in an endless cat and mouse game. 

Start later, come later, start later, come later...

I'm no Rabbi, but how about a serious focused service--ONE solid hour (plus)--full of REAL kavanah (concentration), meaning, and sincerity, and everyone comes on time?

Start on time, come on time--really pray (no talking please)!

And still plenty of time for socializing and bonding after services at the yummy Kiddish. 

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Brian Smithson)
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November 24, 2013

A Dangerous Game of WMD

According to ArmsControl.org--in 1994, we reached a historic "agreed framework" with North Korea to "freeze operation and construction of nuclear reactors suspected of being part of a covert nuclear weapons program."

In return, the U.S. would phase out economic sanctions, North Korea would be supplied with 500,000 tons of fuel oil annually, and South Korea would build two lightweight reactors for them.


Fast forward just a decade--by 2005, North Korea declares that it has indeed manufactured nuclear weapons, which are then on display for the world in a nuclear test in 2006.


Today in the Washington Post, we herald another historic deal, this one with Iran that "freezes key parts of their nuclear program."


In return, Iran gets relief from economic sanctions.


Yet, even now as we celebrate this historic agreement, the Iranian President is not dismantling but rather demanding the right to keep their atomic program.


Moreover, just last week, according to USA Today, Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei called Israel a "rabid dog" amid chants of "Death to America!"


Online, The Diplomat confidently says this time is different, "Iran is not North Korea," because "Iran is cosmopolitan" and "prides itself on international engagement."

Yet, according to PBS, The Islamic Republic of Iran is far from both of these with a "Supreme Leader who exerts ideological and political control over a system dominated by clerics who shadow every major function of the state."


And Amnesty International writes that Iran has a history of "widening crackdown on dissent that has left journalists, students, political and rights activists, as well as clerics languishing in prisons."


Lest we forget, that Iran is the country that held 52 Americans hostage for 444 daysthreatened to annihilate Israel, denied the Holocaust, asserted that the U.S. itself was behind 9/11, and is the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world.  


Oh, how very cosmopolitan!


While we all would hope and pray for a sincere and lasting peace with Iran, this agreement seems to spell a deja vu world of scary WMD cat and mouse, all over again.


(Source Photo: here)

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