So this past Thursday night was the beginning Simchat Torah, only instead of going to the synagogue I was frantically grading papers trying to catch up before starting my hour-an-half training run. I'm sure it would have been adorable to watch community children dance around the room with fake torahs, but again -- Life gets busy. However, besides the end of the holidays (Succot and so on...), this week Jews have been mainly talking about the release of Gidal Shalit.

It was this past Tuesday when I met together with Jews to talk about this very event. One of them was an Israeli who served in the IDF and offered quite a different perspective than that of our "American" thinking. Because the US has an volunteer army and a no-negotiation with terrorist policy, US citizens know that they're signing up with the potential of self-sacrifice. Because Israel requires every citizen to due his/ her duty, they've never had a no-negotiation policy and in have fact promised families they would do their best to bring soldiers (alive or dead) home. Without this "promise," might IDF soldiers decide to not be as daring?

Historically, Israel has had even larger trades with terrorists than this one... See example below of a possible 'worse' deal.

"On 23 November 1983, six IDF soldiers: Eliyahu Abutbul, Dani Gilboa, Rafi Hazan, Reuven Cohen, Avraham Motevaliski, and Avraham Kornfeld, who had been held prisoners by the PLO since 4/9/82 were released in exchange for 100 security prisoners and 4500 detainees from the Ansar detention facility." Jewish Virtual Library

The point being, even if I personally disagree with how many were involved to make this exchange possible, it is a mitzvah to release captives, just as it is an act of Tikkun Olam to follow a utilitarianism understanding of leaving one person behind for the good of the group. These are weights to carry in each hand... Knowing that Judaism values human life to almost infinite measures, and that Islamic extremist ideology encourages suicide bombers instead.

I don't doubt that there are +1,000 Palestinian mothers rejoicing over the return of their sons and daughters, just as the Shalit family welcomed home theirs... I can only hope that the Palestinian families see their return as a second chance for being together, and not as a second chance for renewed hatred. It should at least show the Palestinians Israel can be negotiated with? Right?

To sum it all up, I'm not a political analyst but it appears as though the exchange for Gilad was fueled by Facebook and Twitter, along with Netanyahu campaign promises. Families who were against the release of +1000 prisoners did send a petition to the Israel Supreme Court before the exchange, but who's to know if they even looked at it.

Still I can't help but wonder what Gilad is feeling about all of this and what events are going to follow... We live in interesting times.

I sometimes wonder if God grows weary of us doing what we know to be harmful because it seems the most comfortable. How much of my depression have I brought on to myself through wrong choices? It’s easier to say that I was led on to this path because of others’ decisions. And while others wrong us all the time, really the only thing we can control is how we respond to those relational failures.

I tend to wallow in mine – hoping for redemption, longing for external salvation where that person owns up to their misdeed – all the while ignoring my own hands of fault. Did I set up the relationship to fail in the first place? Did I accurately evaluate the person’s character before trusting them with something important?

No. I’m single. Impulsive. Impatient. Jaded. Heartsick. Codependent (with some).

Hmm… How do I determine that ‘some’ I’m most apt to latch to? What things are lacking within that make me more susceptible to others?

Security.

It’s my biggest longing and greatest fear. It’s expressed through quality time, concern, words of affirmation, physical presence, etc. It’s the knowledge that I will not be left alone to fend for myself (though I’m capable to; I don’t want to have to).

(An Aside) It’s also the reason I have night terrors, and constantly check locks and my immediate surroundings. If for some reason if I’m able to go a night without doing these almost obsessive-compulsive behaviors I know I’m really comfortable.

However I see security as a metaphor to how I perceive God. Just because I know something rationally doesn’t mean I feel it in my core (and let’s be honest – felt perception becomes the only reality that matters). I can mentally know something is a shadow of a lamp, but until I get up with hammer-in-hand to turn the lights on, nothing can still my adrenaline-crazed heart. Likewise, I can mentally understand a Biblical command or theological treatise on God, but until it makes sense in the needed moments of my life, RATIONAL truth doesn’t become rational to me.

(A second Aside) It’s almost like Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “We and They.” But istead of Britain and Africa, substitute Reason and Emotion. They are like two separate cultures judging each other’s and depending upon the speaker, they are going to interpret situations differently. For the “They” (that which is foreign to me, REASON) to become my “We” (that which is familiar), I have to connect both to “Our” (that which accepts both as contributors to my culture of self).

Growing up I heard that emotion follows action. If you don’t feel like it, do it anyway and you’re heart will change (for somebody who is an ISFJ on Myers-Briggs that’s hard to do, because it places a higher value on action). In fact, I think most religions do… and I guess I do, because what are words without action (but I still really like words – and words are a kind of action).

(Third Aside) Which of course leads me to speech acts. Probably the coolest and sexiest thing about language is the POWER of words as speech acts – that voice alone does something in the universe to change things. If God spoke the world into being, then we have to know WORDS is one of the most amazing things humans can do to connect with the divine and harness God’s will for good. Which is probably why I grow most frustrated with bad or missing communication.

When the minister says, “Now I pronounce you Man & Wife” something happens in air with those words that can’t be easily undone. When the judge states “Not guilty,” the sentence stands true until a repeal can be conducted. When a doctor takes the Hippocratic oath, he or she verbally promises to uphold a moral code.

It’s hard for me to imagine any important action without words (at least on an internal narration level – because like Scrubs, I talk to myself all the time

Thus, I want to know when. How long can I go on without a label?! Names. Words. They tell us what to do – how to act, what’s expected of us. Without them; I’m lost.