The Jewish Holidays, Personal Responsibility, and Progressivism

With the setting of the sun tonight, Jews across the world will begin the observance of the Yomim Noraim (Days of Awe), a ten day period book-ended by the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This year’s High Holiday period comes at an interesting time for America as the first night of Rosh Hashanah is only 405 days before the United States goes to the polls to choose between two radically different directions, one which emphasizes personal responsibility, the other emphasizes a reliance on government. Only one of those directions is compatible with the true meaning of the High Holidays.

The popular view is the two holidays are observed by going to Synagogue saying a few prayers and begging God for forgiveness. Nothing can be further from the truth.

The High Holiday period is all about personal responsibility. All the prayers and readings are just tools to help us look inward, formulate a personal accounting of our deeds over the past year, good and bad, and to understand what we have learned, or need to learn to correct.

As for forgiveness, we are taught that our maker is not like a big massive government who will fix everything. For earthly-type mistakes, we must first approach the people we have harmed to request forgiveness and if necessary make restitution to them, we must discover what within ourselves led us to mess-up and correct them. Only then can we approach God for absolution.

It’s not that God couldn’t fix everything, but his direct involvement would destroy the delicate balance he set up during creation.

The creation narrative in Genesis explains that man is created in God’s image. The Torah is not teaching us that we are all dead ringers for the “big guy upstairs.” If that was the case everyone’s driver’s license would have the same picture, the Sport’s Illustrated Swimsuit Issue would seem a bit creepy, and no one would be able to solve crimes as eye witness testimony would be useless and everyone would have the same DNA.

“Created in God’s image” is supposed to teach us that just as God acts as a free being, without prior restraint to do right and wrong so does man. God performs good as a matter of his own free choice. Because we are created in his image, man also has the opportunity to do the right thing as a matter of free choice. Only through free choice, can man truly be “in the image of God”. 

That is why God created a world where both good and evil can operate freely. The Rabbis explain this when they said, “All is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven” (Talmud, Berachot 33b). God controls all the options we have, but it is up to man to pick between good and bad.

Free will is the divine version of limited government. God picks the winning direction, but does not pick winners and losers, nor does he interfere with the process of learning through repentance and understanding ones actions. We are not divinely perfect, nor are we meant to be. We are only supposed to be closer to that divineness when we leave this world, than when we entered it.

Because we all are created in God’s image, Jews believe that ”All men are created equal,” This does not mean, as many in the progressive establishment will tell you, that when it comes to talents, looks, preferences, or natural abilities we are all equal. Nor does it mean we all should have the same big screen TV, wireless internet, or savings account balance. Jewish tradition respects economic success, so long, as it is obtained honestly, and proper respect is shown for the social responsibility that comes with it. That social responsibility is a personal duty and a job for the community led by its religious leaders, but not for the government. The Hebrew word for charity, tzedaka, has in its root the word tzedek which means righteous, because we are taught that personally giving charity is one of the keys to being righteous.

What is actually meant by all men are created equal is we all have the same ability to be infinitely good or wicked, we all have the same ability to forge a relationship with God regardless of our intellectual capability, social background, physical strength, golf handicap wealth, etc. During the high holidays, we evaluate how well we have used the “lot we have been given” for good deeds and to forging that heavenly relationship.

Some of the Sages have suggested that when God created the world, sparks of his holiness were spread across the earth. Every time that a person makes the choice of performing a righteous act, one of those sparks is purified and sent back to heaven. Through that process we become closer to God.

President Obama, the progressive Democrats and the nanny-state government takes away that choice. They believe that if the choice was left up to the individual, they would do the wrong thing. Therefore government needs to take an omnipotent role and control our decisions. By taking away our free will and giving it to the government, liberals retard our spiritual development and remove our opportunity to get closer to God. In a progressive society, the ten “Days of Awe” are not necessary because the government makes our choices.

In a dictionary the word sin is defined as any act regarded as such a transgression, esp. a willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle. There is no word in Hebrew matching that definition. Instead Jews talk about “Chet” missing the mark. It is an archery term referring to an arrow which “missed the target.” The person who missed the mark is considered to have made the mistake due to a lack of focus, concentration or skill. Through personal reflection during the High Holidays Jews can determine why they missed the mark. The answer cannot come from someone else of from the Government. We are told to look for what is in ourselves that made us miss.

In the same vein the word for repentance is “Teshuvah” which means return. In other words we have returned to the correct path to once again hit the target. Repentance implies simply feeling bad for what you have done; Teshuvah involves changing what it is inside you that led you to go off course. And, as the Rabbis tell us, the only way to do that is personal reflection and personal choice (as opposed to governmental regulation). God may give us a road-map in the Torah, Prophets, Psalms and other sacred texts, but to truly change ourselves and ultimately to truly change the world, we have to discover for ourselves the best way to read the road map.

In its purest essence the Jewish High Holiday period is the antithesis of the various forms of Liberal and Progressive government. We learn from those “Ten Days of Awe” that we must be honest with ourselves and rely on our own introspection to find the right path. We learn that while God may be evaluating the path we take and provide a road map to the right way, but he does not make the decisions for us.

Progressive and Liberal governments take that free will away from you, they make the decisions, determine the path, eliminate the need for introspection and your opportunity to find those sparks of God in the world. In the end what those governments take from its citizens is the greatest joy of all, finding for themselves the path that will draw them closer to God.

To all my friends both Jew and Gentile,

Le-shana tova Tikatevu ve-Techatemu

May God Write And Seal You In The Book Of Life For A Good Year.

A Rosh HaShana Story: I Always Walked To Shul with My Father

My face felt flushed, I tried to retain my composure “This is volunteer work. I don’t need the fights, the name calling.” The Rabbi sat across from me quietly. I was telling him why I felt it necessary to resign from the board of trustees. When I ran out of reasons (and breath) there was a moment of silence as he studied me. He leaned backwards into the chair and began to spoke very softly, which in itself had a very calming effect on me. The Rabbi had his own checklist of reasons why I should remain in my position… the last item stopped me dead in my tracks. He said I was an observant Jew who encouraged other people to embrace Judaism.

Observant Jew? Wow! That was the first time in my life anyone had called me that. I never thought of myself as “observant.” Until recently, I was a three-day a year Jew who practically had a booth named after him at the local McDonalds. I stopped there weekly on the way to my 7:25 tee off at the golf course every Saturday morning. My Rabbi’s very generous use of those words made me suddenly realize how much has changed over such a short period of time.

I didn’t grow up very observant. Sure, we would go to services two or three times a year on a Friday night, we always went on the High Holidays, had a big meal on Passover (no Seder though) , and lit an electric Chanukah Menorah every year. My parents worked very worked hard to instill in me strong feelings for being Jewish; they encouraged me to hang out with Jewish kids, allowed me to continue my religious studies after my Bar Mitzvah; and drove me to countless meetings of Jewish organizations. And of course, I was told if I ever brought home a “shiksa,” a non-Jewish girl, my Mom would put her head in the oven (it was an idle threat, our oven was electric not gas).

The most vivid thing I remember about growing up is walking with my Dad all 26 blocks between my house and the Shul, on the High Holidays, both ways. It was such a special time, just my father and me. I would see most everyone else drive their cars, park two blocks away from the locked synagogue parking lot, and walk the rest of the way. It was strange that my Dad felt the need to walk. Maybe he knew that those walks would light an ember inside me, because as I got as I got older and drifted away from Judaism, the remembrances of those walks kept me from moving completely away.

For some reason I always felt comfortable hanging around people who were more religious than me. I worked at the Hebrew Academy Day Camp; many of the girls I dated in high school kept kosher and were Sabbath observant. I admired my observant friends for their willpower and wished that I could join them in their observance, but I couldn’t do it. I believed very strongly in God, but I felt that becoming more observant was too high a mountain to scale,especially all at once. And if you couldn’t do it all, you were a hypocrite to do just some if it.

So I went the other direction and became a kind of a “social” Jew. I wrapped myself in the blanket of Jewish causes and organizations, using them to protect myself from the guilt I felt as I drifted further and further away from the few mitzvot that I did keep. I still took off for the High Holidays and I wouldn’t drive on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but I stopped going to Shul.

Once Lois and I got married (she is Jewish, so my mom was been spared that slow suicide via electric oven), I started driving on the High Holidays so we could attend services at my in-law’s shul, an hour's drive away. After they retired to Florida, I would sneak into my sister’s Temple for an hour on the Holidays, I told myself that it was really for my daughter, I wanted her to have some Judaism in her life. But somewhere inside I knew it was for me.

We moved to a bigger house after our second child was born. The house met all my requirements: big backyard, cable TV in each bedroom, close to many public golf  courses, and a reasonable walking distance to the nearest shul….which we promptly joined. I had no intention of doing anything more than sending my kids to religious school, and of course, walking to synagogue three days a year.

In the spring, just eight months after the first High Holiday walk to my new shul, Lois’s mom, of blessed memory, succumbed to a long illness. Though we were not active in the shul or observant, the Rabbi and the congregation immediately embraced us with warmth. During the shiva, the Rabbi visited or called every day and the daily minyon came to our home. This was a new experience for me; when I was growing up, the minyon only came to the big donors homes or the homes of the regular shul attendees. My new shul they didn’t care about my level of observance, or how much I gave; they just cared to provide comfort to the mourners.

After shiva, my wife went to shul every day to say Kaddish. I joined her when I could, which usually didn’t include Shabbat -- my golf day. The more I went, the more those old feelings began to seep out that locked box stored in the back of my mind, that desire to do more.

Around the same time, The United Synagogue (an organization of Conservative shuls in the US) started a home study program. Each day we read one chapter of the Tanach and discussed it via an e-mailing list. Being a commuter I thought it might be fun so I joined. The more I read, the more I wanted to read, and within a few months I was on every Jewish study e-mail list that I could find. I began to attend Shabbat afternoon services just to be able to be able to participate in the Torah discussion that we would have between afternoon and evening services.

Those old feeling of wanting to become more observant became strong again, but this time it was different. My Rabbi encouraged the congregation to become more observant but it was O.K. to do it gradually. Judaism isn’t all or nothing; any step toward Torah is positive. This felt like a new religion -- “No-Guilt Judaism.” The more I studied the more I learned that the approach is not unique.

I began to do little things (for the kids I claimed) like lighting candles Friday night. We went as a family to services every Friday night too. Since golf season was over, I would go Saturday mornings. Even built my first Succah, fooling myself into thinking that it was not for religions reasons -- it was a good project for the children and they love eating outside anyway. Of course the kids were asleep  that first year when I went into the Succah every morning before going to work to say the blessings over the lulav and the etrog.

Almost a year into my journey I took the most difficult step of all. I gave up my prime real estate, my 7:25 Saturday morning tee off. Even though my only Saturday observance was going to shul, I didn’t want to give up the few hours of Shabbat that I did keep, and the more I went, the more I felt that I was connecting with God and with myself. So I gave it up and eventually found a time on Sundays. (my golf game got a lot worse, which just goes to prove the Lord works in mysterious ways).

Over the next two years, slowly, more mitzvoth began to sneak into my routine, never by design. Every once in a while I would wake up wanting to do more: first I decided to stop eating meat from non-kosher animals, and mixing dairy with meat, and began to go to shul for all the Festivals, and bought a new  set of T'fillin to wear at morning minyan each day.

I started to eat only dairy or fish when Lois and I went out to restaurants. Eventually my freezer at home was stocked with kosher meat even though my house was not at all kosher.
I have learned much about the sprit of practicing Judaism . Jewish rituals are not purely the solemn rites as I had always thought they were. They are a chance to have joy, to relish your time with family, community and God. Serve God With Joy became my "mantra"

Have you ever sat in front of a dish of peanuts at a party? You try one peanut, wait a while and soon you have another. The more you have, the faster you want them. Eventually you're jealously guarding your spot on the couch by the dish. That’s what adding mitzvot to your life is like. The key is you don’t have to eat the whole bowl in one sitting.

Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, a great scholar and former Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America once defined a good Jew as someone who was trying to become a better Jew. That is the key.  You don’t have to do it all at once, but if you do one mitzvah regularly, something as easy as lighting candles every Friday night, eventually you will want to do another and another.

I once read that when God created the world, sparks of his holiness were spread across the earth. Every time that a Jew performs one of the 613 mitzvot in the Torah one of those sparks are purified and sent back to heaven. I don’t know if sparks have anything to do with but each time I add an observance, I feel a little closer to God, and it is that bit of closeness makes me want more. The guilt that I used to feel for not being observant has been replaced with joy that I am on the right road. My friend Faith, a Conservative Rabbi, put it well. She said that its not that I don’t observe a particular commandment…its that I don’t observe it…yet.

My Dad called me today; he asked me if I changed my mind about quitting the board. I told him that I had. He said, “Good because that’s where you belong.” What he doesn’t realize is that I would have never gotten there if he drove to Shul on Rosh Hashanah, it was clinging to that one mitzvah that put me on the road to observance.

I still walk to shul on the High Holidays. Its not 26 blocks; just two big hills and a valley. Now my dad sleeps at our house because my father still doesn’t like to drive on the holidays. So I get to walk to shul with my Dad again, and my Kids walk with us. Some day when they look back at these walks, I hope that will be as important for them as it has been for my Dad and me.

To all of my readers L'Shanah Tovah Tikatevu. May God grant you and your families health, happiness, laughter and the Love of Family and Friends in the coming year.

(If you cannot see video below Please click here)

I have Proof That God Still Performs Miracles.

If anybody wants proof that God is still in the miracle business they should read this story about my weekend. My daughter was in a car crash on Friday that by all logic she shouldn't have survived.

At about 5:45pm I was packing up my computer for the night and watching one of my guilty pleasures (TMZ). The phone rang and the stranger on the other end gave me what seemed to be a paradox, your daughter drove into a tree, but is OK. She asked me to call you. It was hard for me to imagine a situation where someone drives into a tree but is basically uninjured. I shouted out to my wife and she joined me in the car as we sped  to the accident site a half of a mile from home.

As we approached we saw two Suffolk County police cars, a fire truck and an EMT ambulance. Having to park a half block away (on the wrong side of the street) my wife ran out of the car to her child crying, I followed. The firemen were shouting to us "don't worry she is OK."

The first thing I noticed as I approached my daughter is the  blood that seemed to be everywhere.  The top of her  head was wrapped as was her neck.  The neck wrapping had already turned red from her blood, but they had quickly covered it up with a heavy duty neck brace. She was surround by EMT workers who were removing a cardiogram and were putting her on one of those hard plastic yellow boards they use when there is fear of a head or neck injury.

My crying wife joined my daughter in the ambulance, while I tried to get her valuables out of the car. Approaching the car, I surveyed the scene. It gave me shivers. My little girl had been very lucky.

Apparently my daughter swerved to the right hit the tree, then pivoted around and the back of her car hit one of those giant 3 feet tall by 4 feet wide, electrical boxes that LIPA puts on every other front lawn. After she hit the electrical box the tree she originally hit smashed down on the driver's side of the car.

As I approached the car the windshield was shattered as was the driver's side window, both airbags deployed, and it was obvious that the worst damage was on the driver's side of the car. Most scary was the roof over her head was flattened from the fall of the tree. All I could think of is how lucky she was.


Driving to the emergency room, I called every observant Jew whose number I remembered. As it was approaching the Sabbath, it would soon be too late to call them and I had a special request for them all. It is a tradition that every time you take out the Torah there is an opportunity to make special prayers of refuah shleimah  (healing)for the ill. Even on the Sabbath when the prayers are mostly prayers of thanks (as opposed to Dear God, I want, I need...) we make prayers asking God to help heal the ill and to grant strength to the doctors who are treating our loved ones.

Mi-sheberakh avoteinu v'imoteinu, Avraham v'Sarah, Yitzhak v'Rivkah, Ya'akov, Rachel v'Leah hu y'varekh et (Hebrew name-Son/Daughter of Mother's Hebrew name) v'yavi aleihem refuat hanefesh u'refuat haguf yachad im kol cholei amo Yisrael. Barukh atah Adonai, rofeh ha'cholim.

May the One who was a source of blessing for our ancestors, bring blessings of healing upon (Hebrew name-Son/Daughter of Mother's Hebrew name), a healing of body and a healing of spirit. May those in whose care they are entrusted, be gifted with wisdom and skill, and those who surround them, be gifted with love and trust, openness and support in their care. And may they be healed along with all those who are in need. Blessed are You, Source of healing. Amen.

Knowing my friends I guarantee you that God heard much about Hinda bat Leah this weekend. From my friends as well as my wife and me.

A short time later, I joined my wife in the emergency room.  It was the first time I was able to see her close up.  My little girl (she is 21 but will always be my little girl) looked like something out of a horror movie.

There was a large cut over her left eye, the white of her skull was visible at the bottom of the  of that injury. The entire left side of her face was a lacerated bloody mess which we had to keep dabbing to keep the blood from seeping into her eye.  She had an extremely deep gash on the left side of her neck which, if it was a bid deeper would have severed her jugular.  In short my daughter was a very lucky girl.

About 10 o' clock that evening the plastic surgeon came in to start his work, telling us that he hadn't seen a face that needed that much work in years. He worked for 3 and a half hours wearing glasses that seemed to have mini microscope lenses coming off the front.  The plastic surgeon delicately stitched together each cut and repaired each laceration.

At about 2 AM we were told that as soon as my daughter could hold down liquids she could go home.  But Saturday morning nothing was too be that easy, after drinking some apple juice, she began to "bring it up again." I am not talking a little throwing up but the projectile stuff only seen in the movie the exorcist.

Finally eight hours later, we were allowed to bring my daughter where she belonged--home. She was battered, tired, in terrible pain, but alive with a good prognosis for the future. She will require some more plastic surgeries and maybe even a skin graft, but the result was much better than it could have been. In the middle of the night, the EMTs had brought a man into the hospital who had a similar accident to my daughter.Unfortunately he didn't make it.

All I could think of is all the help she received, the EMTs, police officers and firemen who rushed to the scene and the doctors, radiologists and nurses who treated her at the hospital.  But just as valuable were the people I called who used their Shabbos rest to pray to God that my little girl survive and have a strong recovery.

A little more than 21 years ago my daughter was born.  I remember when the nurses first placed this screaming little baby into my arms, I marveled at the miracle of the entire process, how God was able to take a piece of me and a piece of my wife and create this little human being that came out of my wife and into our lives.

As I drive my daughter and wife home from the hospital on Saturday I thought back to that time and the injuries she received a little less than 17 hours before.  Just as her birth was a miracle and a gift from God, the fact that she was still alive and coming home was a miracle and gift from our maker.

Her injuries were severe but treatable, but if for example, her neck injury was slightly deeper she might have severed her jugular, bleeding out even before the EMT workers came.

Some might say that the fact my daughter is alive today is the medical and emergency personnel knew what to do and they are 100% correct. But to think they didn't have some help from above defies all reality. The miraculous gift  God gave my wife and me 21 years ago, was re-gifted to us this past Shabbos. 

For those who believe God hasn't performed any miracles in two thousand years (with the possible exception of the 1969 Mets), the fact that my little girl is alive and (God willing) healing, is proof that you are wrong.

As the Jewish Prayer Birkhat Ha‑Gomel says

"Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, Who bestows good things on the unworthy, and has bestowed on me every goodness."

Thank you God, for answering our prayers with a resounding yes.

If anyone wants add their prayers to the ones already praying for my daughter's speedy recovery her name is Hinda bat Leah.

Simple Proof That the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is Jewish

Every day there are more stories in the media and Arab protests about Israel trying to "Judaicise" the area around what they call the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. I have even read with curiosity how European Foreign Ministers and press reporters with Christian backgrounds describe the site as "what the Jewish people SAY was the location of the Holy Temples.” When those folks go to church on Sunday do they argue with their Priests and Ministers to change the gospels because the man that they believe was the Son of God went to that Temple Mount 3x a year.

But I am not here to argue history or tradition, no jokes about the Muslims mooning the Temple Mount when they pray (although it’s true because they are facing Mecca). No discussion of how Moshe Dayan was the villain of the mount etc. 

I don't have to argue about ownership of the top of Mount Moriah because I have been there. All my life there has been something pulling me toward the Temple Mount. I never understood that urge until my first trip to Israel. 

When we drove through the hills and I got my first look at Jerusalem for the first time in my life I felt comfortable in my surroundings. Jerusalem felt like home, despite the fact that I had never been there in my life, I knew where to go and how to get around without looking at a map. There were times, without consulting a map I would tell my family of a shortcut to reach our destination, and my wife who had been there before would tell me I was crazy (true but irrelevant).  But I was always correct. 

Everywhere we went in Jerusalem I knew where we were and its relation to the Temple Mount. To be honest the lure of the Temple Site was stronger in Israel than ever before.

Now at this point, anyone Jewish reading this who has never been to Israel is probably calling for the guy with the straight-jacket to take me away. But ask someone who has been there, someone who believes in HaShem and see if feel any different.

On our second day in Jerusalem, we were finally going to the Kotel  (the Western Wall) and the Temple Mount. The whole family got up early; I packed up my Tallit and T'fillin and took off with our guide into the Old City. Yossi, our wonderful guide took us all over the Old City, He knew how important the going to the Kotel was to me, yet rather than go directly to it he teased me with ...Its right over that wall, we will see this movie first, let’s go to the burnt house etc. I was getting very frustrated, but he was masterfully building up my expectations. Finally we walked down the wooden stairway and walked through the gate of the Kotel Plaza, I was overwhelmed by emotions that I had never felt before.

All my life I felt this longing to go to the Kotel to and I finally knew why. You see, everywhere else you go in Israel, you feel the presence of all that has gone on before you, King David, Avraham, the tribes, the Two Kingdoms and on and on. That is about culture and history. When you visit the Kotel it is about God. It is about being able to feel the lingering presence of the Shekhinah (presence of God) that has been gone for two thousand years.

That's when I realized that the dispute over the Temple Mount was all political, all about delegitimizing the Jewish presence in Jerusalem. Because I was there!

 With my then ten year old son holding my prayer bag, I celebrated my lifelong dream, I wrapped the T'fillin around my arm, placed it on my head wrapped my tallit around my son and me and said the Shechayanu followed by Mincha.

 It wasn’t just the physical act praying at the Kotel; those words of Hebrew seemed to have meaning like never before.  I was it was the connecting with the God of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yakov.  That "urge" I had felt all my life, was more like an invitation from my maker, "Come Visit so we can talk. “And while God is everywhere for some reason only a Rabbi can explain, I could feel his presence much stronger at the Temple Mount (my Son says that’s because at the Kotel it’s only a local call).

That's it, that's my proof, nothing scientific, nothing that will work in a court of law, or in an international dispute.  If you look for it, the connection to God is strongest at the Kotel. There is not another place in the entire world that has even come close. 

If ANYONE doubts me, allow me to suggest that you pack up your dahvening tools and take a trip to Israel. When you arrive, go to the Kotel put on your tallit and t'fillin and feel that connection for yourself. I guarantee it will change you forever.

Carpetbaggers

I'm sure you've heard the term, "carpetbagger" but do you know where it came from and what it means?



Before "recycling" was cool, it was a necessity. Carpetbags were cheap luggage during the Reconstruction Era (after the War of Northern Aggression). It was recycled carpet made into bags. But the term, "carpetbaggers", came from Southerners who used the term to describe the opportunists from the North.

After the War of Northern Aggression, the devastated South was enemy occupied territory. Northern armies occupied the southern states and our state governments were forcibly changed. All of this was done, not for the betterment of former slaves or mankind, but for unscupulous people to take opportunity to make money off of us. Carpetbaggers saw money in the process and came down here to make their fortune off of us. It was used as a derogatory term, suggesting opportunism and exploitation by the outsiders. The relocated northerners often formed alliances with freed slaves and southern whites who were Republicans, who were nicknamed scalawags. Together they are said to have politically manipulated and controlled former Confederate states for varying periods for their own financial and power gains. The term carpetbaggers was also used to describe the white Northern Republican political appointees who came South, arriving with their travel carpetbags. They had no knowledge of, connections to or sympathy for the Southern area they were placed in charge of. And they had no intention of listening or cooperating. Southerners considered these Northern appointees ready to loot and plunder the defeated South and they generally did.

This term did not refer to abolitionists, reformers, missionaries and schoolteachers who really came South to try to help people. Most of the freed blacks had not had any education or experience in leadership so what could you expect but that they were led by the nose by the more sophisticated Northern carpetbaggers. But carpetbaggers were both white and black. The black carpetbaggers were, at the best, naive and easily led, and, at the worst, greedy as their white colleagues. To make money off of misery is the lowest of the low. Whether you make it off the backs of the poor slaves or you make it off the backs of the poor and defeated white Southerners. It shows that greed, selfishness, cruelty and evil are no respecter of persons.

The backlash of the Reconstruction Era corruption and carpetbagging politics came in the form of white supremacy groups like the infamous KKK. After the South somewhat stabilized then these groups began to form as the suppressed anger boiled to a boiling point. Wrath was taken out on those who were probably lowest on the totem pole... blacks. We had lost the Civil War and had no ability to start it up again so whites reached out against those they could get to... the blacks in their own communities.

A typical human response is misplaced anger. For instance, you get dumped on by your boss but you can't complain and yell at him so you come home and yell at your wife. If you yell at your boss, you get fired. The price is too high. But if you yell at your wife, she has to take it. So that's what you do. Whites couldn't retaliate against the U.S. government again so they jumped on the blacks who had no advocates or power.

All of it was so wrong, wrong, wrong. Slavery was wrong, mistreatment and abuse of slaves was wrong, trying to dominate the Southern states to the enrichment of Northerners was wrong, Abraham Lincoln starting the War of Northern Aggression was wrong, the politics and corruption of Reconstruction was wrong, the greed of carpetbaggers was wrong, white supremacy groups were wrong, civil rights abuses for whites or blacks are wrong. It just kept escalating like a snowball effect and so many have paid the price for it over several hundreds of years. Innocent people, whites and blacks, families, have paid dearly for these terrible injustices.

We are very blessed to live in a more enlightened time but don't ever think that we are more civilized today. Greed is still a great sin. Pride and power still drives. Selfishness runs rampant. Corruption is still practised. And we are doomed to repeat the vices of our forefathers unless we realize that all are sinners. We all sin and come short of the glory of God. None of us are good. We all have the potential for evil and we are born with an evil human nature.

What is the answer? Jesus Christ! He is the only way to be forgiven and saved. As long as we live we will have to contend with our human nature but once we are saved we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which works within us to grow our new spirit. If we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us then we can be better people. If we listen to God, we can do good things instead of bad. If we follow His Ways, we can do the right thing instead of the wrong thing.

Romans 8:6-13 (Contemporary English Version)
If our minds are ruled by our desires, we will die. But if our minds are ruled by the Spirit, we will have life and peace.
Our desires fight against God, because they do not and cannot obey God's laws.
If we follow our desires, we cannot please God.
You are no longer ruled by your desires, but by God's Spirit, who lives in you. People who don't have the Spirit of Christ in them don't belong to him.
But Christ lives in you. So you are alive because God has accepted you, even though your bodies must die because of your sins.
Yet God raised Jesus to life! God's Spirit now lives in you, and he will raise you to life by his Spirit.
My dear friends, we must not live to satisfy our desires.
If you do, you will die. But you will live, if by the help of God's Spirit you say "No" to your desires.
Only those people who are led by God's Spirit are his children.