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Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Where's the Light?

Taz asks a very good question: [emphasis mine]
Last night, I hosted the season finale of my radio show. As usual, I discussed some current events in the Jewish world. [...]

And so, there I was discussing these issues, when someone sent the show an instant message. She asked why we couldn't discuss something good in the Jewish world, why must we only talk about these terrible topics? Why must we discuss rapists and chilulei HaShem and foolish statements and stupid actions?

And the best I could do was tell a pretty pathetic d'var Torah on this week's parsha.

Seriously. What have we become? Why is it that I am giving a radio about Jewish current events, and everything I have to say is nagative? Where are the good things in Judaism? Can somebody please, please, share with me a story about someone who did something that presents Jews in a good light?
I wrote my own response in the comments section there, but I feel like there may be better ones out there. Obviously, we all tend to focus on the negative aspects of stories. We're not all negative people, though. For many of us, blogging is also an outlet, so we may tend to pour more frustration into it. However, I feel that our focus is not negative - it is because we care, because these issues matter to us, because they so often do or are able to affect us in some way, that we speak out about them.

So where are the good stories? I think they're out there, and perhaps we need to find them. But I think that perhaps what I said there could be true as well:
Sure.

We care. We care that these are the stories that are out there, we care that these things are going on, and we all want to know what the heck we're supposed to do about them. We want to know what causes them, we want to know what allows them to keep happening, and we want to fix them - not just for the short-term, but for the long-term.

That's your positive story. We just haven't finished it, yet.
That's my take. What's yours?

NOTE: You may want to comment on his post.

5 comments:

  1. FINALLY!!!!
    Ezzie, what a great point!

    One of the reasons I blog is to present a positive view of being frum.

    There is AMAZING stuff going on in the Jewish world- you just have to have an Eyin Tov to see it!

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  2. Ezzie- the reality is that we do so much Good stuff, so much Incredible stuff, so much totally AWESOME stuff, that when any of us screw up, we all feel hurt. That is in fact what makes us unique as a people. Its what produced Isaiah and the other prophets. Our unending need to criticise ourselves is one of the things that makes us unique and in reality...greater. Just a thought.

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  3. I'm sorry. Unfortunately, I don't have any positive stories to share.

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  4. Tsk tsk tsk.

    See now, in order to read the good news, you have to check out the Arab newspapers.

    In there, you'll find the stories about how we Jews run all the governments, control all the finances, and are in charge of Hollywood.

    Ba-dum-bum!

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