Alternative writings

I was listening to NPR on my way into work today and they had a piece about President Bush, John McCain and Obama visiting places in Iowa where the Mississippi flooded places.

They had a soundbite from McCain where he said "Our hearts and our prayers go out to the victims..." This is a very standard sort of thing that I hear people say all the time in regards to tragedies.

The thing, I suddenly thought, "Well that's all good and fine but exactly how are prayers going to help the people?"

It reminds me of this story-parable thing:

A man had fallen into the ocean turning a terrible storm. He began to pray for God to save him. Eventually a boat shows up and the crew say, "Here come aboard, let us help you." The man refused, saying, "No, God would save him". Eventually, the man drowned. He goes to heaven and he says to God "Why didn't you save me?"

God answers, "I sent you the boat."

I guess I'm thinking that prayers and things are all very good, but action would be better.

We almost threw out a mezzuzah yesterday. They tore down the back door to put in the new one and we forgot to tell them to take it off. Fortunately I remembered and we were able to find it. It's stuck on a piece of wood in the garage now.

It was kinda strange. I mean to us (my mom and me) it was horrifying thing, to accidently throw it away but the workers it wasn't. To us it was a holy object, them a decoration.

We found a page of prayer in the rubble the first day too and rescued it. I don't know how non-Jews see it but it was a terrible thing for us. I was reminded of an episode of Law and Order where they began with a prayer book's pages being blown all over the place and the older Jews were running around to save the pages. One of them came up to a police officer talking about the Pogroms.

This gets me thinking about the Persecution of the Jews in general and the fact that I'm one generation removed from the Holocaust. See my dad, he was around during WWII. If he had been in Europe, he wouldn't have been here at all. Which is kinda freaky to think about.