Tikkun Olam

I was still shaking from the horrific terrorist attack on the Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, murdered by a suicide bomber who set off bombs on the buses --when I awakened this morning to the double whammy of the news of the Century 16 theatre murders in Aurora, in which 71 people were shot, twelve of them fatally, in a theatre which my D. H. and I have been to many times. I don't know where to begin, my feelings are all jumbled up and raging, but I will try.  I think Glenn Beck expressed it best, when he made this statement, in his morning show  video , " Let me be the first to say there’s a hole in the soul of America. What is it we’re filling that hole with? ” He nailed it.  There is a hole in America, and we are filling that hole with promoting, for all to see, horrible things that we fear--displaying disgusting human behavior. We have, for decades, been in a culture where violence, hatred, criminal activities and psychopathic behavior are big box...

The shopping day after Thanksgiving has come to be known as "Black Friday," referring to retailers getting back 'into the black' financially after offering huge discounts to shoppers as loss leaders, and opening their doors at 5:00 a.m. or even earlier.  Thanksgiving, the day before Black Friday, stores were closed, as they are on Christmas.  For many stores, such as large supermarket chains, these two holidays are the only ones during which they are closed. This year, I was surprised and a bit dismayed to see that many stores began their 'Black Friday' sales on Thursday--Thanksgiving day.  And they were open for business, business and the bottom-line coming first, ahead of giving thanks and celebrating with family. I was curious to find out whether in this weak economy, retailers did as well as expected on Black Friday, so as soon as Shabbat was over, I headed over to my PC to see the stats.  Instead, I discovered another year of violence, stolen purchase...