the electrical fire — a parable

When Malkah was a little girl of seven or so, the tzaddik gave her a silver chain necklace with a star of David on it. The star was simple enough, and was surrounded by a circle. Malkah wore it every day. I don't think she noticed it at all. Someone put the thing on her, and so it was there. She didn't dare take it off. Not her department.

And so, as she learned how to take a shower, she kept the necklace on.

And when she got herself dressed, the star of David was tucked carefully inside her shirt so it wouldn't get lost. It hung right next to her heart. She took it for granted. She paid it no attention.

It was the mid 1950s, a curious time to be seven.

Someone had just given the tzaddik his first television set. I think it was his brother had sent it from New York. Strange gift indeed. For what does a tzaddik have need of such an abomination?

But he's a tzaddik, right? And sees the good in all things. He discovered the world news was not just in the New York Times or the Jewish Daily Forward — it was inside this box as well, with pictures.

Mrs Tzaddik wasn't so impressed. She knitted her brows and insisted that the abomination, as it was called in Malkah's house, was kept unplugged, except on the rare occasion it might be in use.

One evening, the tzaddik wanted to watch the abomination. He glanced at Mrs Tz for permission, and she consented with a grunt.

"Malkah," she called, from the kitchen, "go turn on the abomination."

And so Malkah went over to the thing itself. And picked up the thick black snakey cord. She had never done this before. It was a vote of confidence. She found the end of the cord with a bulbous head, and metal prongs sticking out. She bent over. She'd seen this done before; she knew what to do. She bent over and stuck the plug into the outlet —

And was thrown into the air across the living room into the furthest wall of the dining room behind it. A Dorothy in a hurricane — but Malkah knew nothing of Dorothy. She was lifted high into the air.

Her head smashed upon the wall, and she fell to the ground. There was smoke and a burst of flame coming from her chest, and a burning there. The whole house smelled of burning flesh.

The tzaddik stood frozen. The whole thing was less than a minute, and still he stood, unmoving. In shock, I think. Though clearly the shock had been Malkah's to bear.

Mrs Tzaddik ran to Malkah. Opened her shirt where now only the smoke and sizzle stood.

There, she saw what there was to see.

The star of David completely intact, with the circle around it burnt to a crisp. She held it up by the chain, and smiled a beatific smile.

"Look!" she said, to to the world at large. "You can try to burn us in a Holocaust, but see this? The Jewish People still survive!" She was ecstatic. Moved by the momentous quality of such a miracle of her People's continued existence. And then the moment was over. She stood up, left the room and went back to her cooking.

The tzaddik nodded. What else could he do? It was, after all, a miracle.

picturing devastation: japan's 8.9 on the richter scale

I was thinking about Tunisia when Egypt happened. Thinking about Egypt and Tunisia when Yemen and Bahrain started to unravel. Thinking about Yemen and Bahrain, Egypt and Tunisia, when Libya grabbed my attention. I was still desperately seeking more news on the little country that 'started it all.' Tunisia holds a special place in my heart, after all. When Japan happened. Which isn't to say that anything else in the world isn't still happening. There's collective bargaining down the drain in Wisconsin, and that too is a devastation that will spread like a virus and infect us all. Of all that has happened of late, that's the one that likely touches me personally more than any of the others, but —

The photographs started pouring in. Tahrir Square mobilized. Very moving. Qaddafi yet again made to look like a fool, which he isn't. Just upsetting. Mohamed Bouazizi's mother speaking out against tyranny. Even more moving and upsetting.

But I didn't cry.

And as a pessimist (who also studies the Middle East), I have few illusions that structural change in the 'democratic' direction will come to characterize the region as a whole. Ibn Khaldun, Wittfogel, and others have taught me that rulers (what we call dictators these days) have some advantages over the democratic process in nations where tribal affiliation still holds sway.

Point is, I've been paying attention. But I've also been stuck here in my distanced analytical brain.

Pictures, like music, bypass our rationality. They hit us in the gut. They hit us in the heart. All before we know that we've been hit. For this reason I prefer nice distant, rational photographs that remind us of perspective. The one above, for example, from Sendai, Japan — shown in the New York Times. You don't have to feel much at all, except the beauty of the planet giving a little stretch after a nap. Or stretch marks on a pregnant woman's expanding belly, making room for a growing child. Beautiful. Yes I called it that. But then there are all the pictures of human devastation. Mountains of detritus of the products of man. Houses crashed over each other, splinters of urban life lying there in the photo, like ten million pieces of pick-up sticks waiting for the game to begin. Knowing we will pick up all those sticks, but we still won't win.

There are some amazing photos out there of the 8.9 earthquake in Japan. Shipwrecks among housing wrecks. Car wrecks out there in the ocean. Human faces crumbling or facing terrible loss. Photos that capture the shock of it all. And one of those photos got to me. Finally. It hit me hard. And I've been staring at these photos, glued to them, examining every corner of them, not looking for anything I can put my finger on. But this one, this one — and it's not even a great cinematic photo. Just maybe a shapshot, really. But it hit me with tsunami force.



It's this little photo, with nothing much there to see. Two parents who've been searching for their daughter — and just found her. She's barely visible, still in her car. Just a wisp of her hair, a quarter of her face. That's all you see of her. And her parents are looking at her — not emoting for the camera. Her mother reaches out to touch her hair. This is a private devastation, caught in a quiet landscape of post-earthquake and post-tsunami Japan.

And it just broke me up. It got to me.

I much prefer the stretch marks view of natural disaster. The aren't-we-humans-stupid view of where we build our cities (not to mention our nuclear plants). But truth to tell, there are no safe places to hide from 'mother' nature. There are no corners of the globe that guarantee safe little lives free from a planetary yawn. Still, the view from afar — the these-things-are-natural — equanimity vastly contrasts with how we might feel about devastation of our own making. Middle Eastern wars, nuclear accidents, holocausts and inquisitions. We shake our heads or get engaged. We take sides. We get adamant.

We can't even blame global warming on this one. No one to blame really, but surely we'll find a way. It's so human to seek out culpability. So reassuring, somehow. Like maybe it'll keep us safe and sound. No war here, we can say. Nothing to worry about. We live in a peaceful part of the globe. And I live in beautiful ... San Francisco. What a safe haven from the political woes of the world. No earthquakes here, right? I mean, we're not due for another ten years, easy. What great building codes we have, right? ("What big teeth, you have, grandmother" said Little Red Riding Hood to the wolf). We see what we want to see — until the truth slams us hard awake.

Just like Sendai.

Just like that couple staring into that twisted iron that used to be a car. Staring into a young girl's face, a girl who used to be their daughter. Finding her that way. No, stuff like that — I just can't take.

Retreat. Retreat! As far back as I can. Can I make this not personal? I'm not sure that I can. But those parents just lost their child. How is that not personal?

A kaddish for all those who mourn the devastation that surrounds them. A kaddish, one daughter at a time.

suffer the little children—or something like that

The phrase just came to me tonight after a not-good phone call. And I realize that I have no idea what this phrase means. It has a bibley sound to it, but I wasn't familiar with it at all. It was a fragment, must be a fragment of something much larger. I wanted to know — so I turned to the Internet.

And I came upon a blog devoted to caring for infants in Malawi villages. Orphans gathered in an orphanage village called Mzuzu SOS. Children malnourished and alone no longer.

And I came upon a four part expose from 1968 of Pennhurst State School for Mentally Retarded Children. And there were kids in straightjackets, and kids with their hands or feet bound to the bars of their cribs. And children sitting cross-legged on the floor rocking back and forth with rhythmic repetition. And the children, said the narrator, happy to have something positive to say, "are no longer sterilized." Wow.

And I found a movie trailer of the same name that was unwatchable, and I couldn't hit delete fast enough for my own health and safety. And this film was apparently based upon a Stephen King short story of the same name, which was called in one description, "a delicious fright."

And I found a Stephen King disclaimer, stating that 'Suffer the Little Children' had, and I quote, "no redeeming social merit whatever" (King, 1993:801).

And I found a book on the murder of eleven year old Melissa Moody by her uncle, somewhere near Boswell, Oklahoma. And the point being made was that abuse in one generation raises the next generation of abusers. Details provided.

And I found The Smiths lyrics, of the same name, which sounded an awful lot like the case I'd just been reading.

And yes, I found Jesus.

And yes, I've always wanted to say that, if only on the page, or screen or whatever, just for fun to see what it feels like. But in saying it here — I mean it quite literally. I literally found Jesus. Or Jesus' words, anyway.

Which is really finding Matthew, I believe, not Jesus, right? And Mark. And Luke.

The key quote appears to be:

Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. (Mark 10:14)

Which, to my neophyte ears sounds a lot like someone proselytizing young vulnerables and not wanting to be restrained. You know, something Jim Jones would have said. And meant it.

But the website I found this on explained to me that this meant that Jesus loved children.

Ok, fine.

By the time I had spent more Search Function time than I should have on this little puzzle, I reflected on the phone call I had just received.

It wasn't about abuse.

It wasn't about malnourished, orphaned village babies.

It wasn't about psycho-killers.

It wasn't about social merit or the lack thereof.

And it wasn't a Stephen King horror show.

And my not-good phone call gained a 'suffer-the-little-children' context. And I realized that my kids are really alright. And that everyone suffers. And that our children suffer, even without the trauma-drama. And that maybe this phone call wasn't about suffering at all, but about life. And a moment that will pass.

Not earth-shattering.

Not horrifying.

Just a glitch in the matrix, and one that might possibly open new doors. And that maybe (just maybe) this moment is a turning point. And the turn may well lead to a much finer vista than the one being left behind. Or something like that.