You are the center of God's universe. Everything that happens to you, around you, and through you, is a result of your being in God's caring circle. May you be blessed to rejoice in your God-centered life.

It is a quiet day of reflection here in Jerusalem. It is the 9th of Av, the day we remember the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 CE. It is a fast day, a day of mourning.

But as the years have gone by, and as the modern State of Israel has been rebuilt, this day was morphed, for many of us, as a day of moral and spiritual reconciliation. So much to reflect upon. So much to reconcile.

I read an article in the Hebrew press written by former Minister of Education of the Israeli Parliament, HaRav Shai Piron. I paraphrase:

We blame our leaders, for speaking badly, for being corrupt, for not taking care of us, for low level and vulgar language, for irresponsible behaviors.  But that is not the entire truth.

Our leaders reflect the spirit of the people. Our leaders behave the way they do because they are our mirror. Corrupt leadership cannot flourish in an ethical society.

Like the pupil in our eyes which control the amount of light and darkness that we perceive, our leadership reflects the essence of our moral fabric. If we were to let in more light, our leaders would reflect enlightened thinking, behavior and speech.

We must realize that the malaise that we are experiencing is not of our leaders but rather belongs to us all. The tikun, the antidote, will begin when we wait patiently on line, act neighborly, help the elderly, advocate for the abused woman, care about the homeless and the hungry. The correction to our trouble begins with us.

We are lost, my friends. And I am not referring to those people that we absolutely know to be wrong; the right, the left, the politicians, the Senate, the Congress, the Russians, the rich, the immigrant, the insensitive, the gun owner, the naïve wager of peace, the arrogant, and the pros or cons that express the opposite of our dearly held beliefs.

We are not lost because of what appears on our Facebook feed or our twitter page. We are lost, because evil, vile and unethical behavior have found fertile ground in our feelings of helplessness and our apathy, our perceived ineptitude to do anything about “it.”

And yet, we can’t get enough of “it.” We are so fascinated by the underbelly that has become our town square, that we cannot read enough, see enough, hear enough, shake our heads enough. We are all peeping Toms watching a tragedy unfold. We waste our time feeding the beast, allowing the darkness to stay alive in our thoughts and imaginations, in our conversation and in our inaction.

But not today. Today let our prayers send us out into the world that is broken, weeping, starving, morally bankrupt. We will only change, correct, repent, one person at a time. Me. You. Then me again, and you.

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