Returning Home

BY RABBI DAVID WOLPE
In leaving there is discovery: Only when he wanders is Jacob granted a vision. Moses must go to Midian to find God. The Israelites throughout history have only in exile grasped the spiritual contours of home.
All of us raise children in the hope that they will treasure the values we have taught them at home. But we also realize that those values will never be fully realized until our children go off on their own. You cannot know your home if your home is all you know. Out in the world, amid the jostling of other values, ideas and rich possibilities, is the potential to appreciate what one has already learned.
Abraham was told that his descendants would need to one day leave Israel, endure hardship and return to savor its beauty. This is the reverse wisdom of Thomas Wolfe's admonition that you cannot go home again. At times that is true; yet equally if paradoxically, you cannot truly understand home until you have left and go home again.
As Eliot wrote in "Little Gidding," the last of his four quartets:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

on the opposite side of the universe...

...my very poor low-wage vietnamese nail salon goddess insisted I come in for a free mani/pedi.

We crossed paths on the sidewalk last night, we smiled and said "hello!!!" to each other. She said "you not come for long time"

I said "I not work for long time" followed by a sad-pouty face.

To prove myself, I showed my gnarly hands and said "see! Look how disgusting my hands are - so sad!"

She replied "You come in, I do your nails. Free. You come in!"

I cried-

I guess it does pay to be kind and tip well.

Let them eat cake!

ok I used to write funny tidbits I observed, but this past year my writing has been decidedly depressing and self-pitying...

so...

let's change it up-- anger. Uncontrolled, deep rage.

As I read about everyone losing their jobs, and taxpayers paying billions for bail-outs of companies badly run by...clearly MORONS...I want to stand up and SCREEEEEAM as loud as I can. so loud they can hear me over the bloody muslim gunfire in New Delhi and Mumbai.

What--- WHAT is happening with the people, the men, who have made bad decision after bad decision after bad decision?!?! Why do THEY keep their million dollar jobs while the just-getting-by-despite-doing-a-great-jobs all become jobless?!?!

A producer at kcrw just lost her job due to budget cuts due to the recession. After a bloody year of pain and pundits wondering "hmm I wonder if we'll sink into a recession" they FINALLY formally decide we're in one. and have BEEN IN ONE SINCE LAST YEAR. NO F*CKING KIDDING!!! and the stocks....LOL.. the stocks- they plummet after this announcement? Was this really truly news to these people?!

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?~!?~?~ oh yeah, gazillionaires who most likely were raised by bazillionaires and thus have NO IDEA WHAT THE REAL WORLD is.

Back to the jobless producer-- she said "funny, all of those who successfully built lauded and profitable projects lose their jobs. But the top executives who have been bungling everything for years, they still have their million dollar jobs?!"

exactly

WHEN DO WE GET TO SEE HEADS ROLL?!

I haven't had heat in 4 months. I lost the job I was supposed to start in August becuase they had a hiring freeze. Because CA is bankrupt and it's unemployment staff woefully overwhelmed, I was subjected to a 20min verbally abusive tirade that was supposed to be an interview. Followed by a letter accusing me of lying about my conditions of unemployment and telling me I get NO UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS + I have to pay a $500 PENALTY for lying. I filed an appeal, natch. But until I have my court date, the state will take out the penalty from my bank account with no warning. And hold on to the checks I'm supposed to receive. And because the state of California is in such a mess the earliest court date I can expect is sometime in January. I appealed in October. I've not received a check from the state since early September. Oh my f*cking G*d.

I've been paying into unemployment for 25 years! I have not filed for unemployment before because, this is a strange concept, I LIVE FRUGALLY AND SAVE for days I may be jobless!! Well the well has run dry George- and where are you?! Typically, your hiding at the time your country needs you the most. Thank G*D we elected a man who's actually willing to WORK for a living.

I'm about to sublet my apartment and move in with family because despite my intelligence, education, and job experience, I can't pay rent on a moderate apartment. My cousin may have to move in with HIS family -- him, his wife, and their 2 kids.

And I'm supposed to be impressed because the CEO of Ford will work for a dollar. oh boohoo what a hero- That dip in pay certainly will hurt someone who has MILLIONS IN SAVINGS AND ASSETS.

One reason I left my job was my pure and deep disgust for the upper management of the company. The President is a moron who's filled with self-adoration. He announced the company would not be giving bonuses to it's lowest-status (i.e. most overworked and poorest) staff. We were also told raises could not be very good this year due to budget constraints. But, after seeing the jaguar one of his department presidents drives, he announced "ooo! I want to buy that for my teenaged daughter!"

I'm done DONE with the stupid, selfish, clueless upper management in this country. When do we hold the revolt? When do we storm the bastille? Why are we not storming the white house each time a group of overpaid morons begs for handouts in their $3000 suit and $1000 shoes. Delivered in private jets. Driven in limousines. Why are we not rocking them over like we do taxi cabs after winning sports championships? Why not raid and loot the upper offices of Enron, Haliburton, Fannie Mae with the same anger and vigor given to poor local merchants in a poor town after a major hurricane and flood?

If the president of my last employer lived in revolutionary France, his name would be Marie Antoinette. Let them eat cake!