I have no more responses about Israel right now. Because fuck.

Iran fired missiles on Israel last night, supposedly as retaliation for Israel firing on the Iranian embassy in Syria, which may have been in retaliation for support Iran has lent to Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel.
Nearly all the missiles were intercepted by Israel, the US or Jordan.

It's new because it's the first time Iran has ever fired on Israel directly.
It's old because Iran has funded other anti-Israel groups for years, and will continue to do so going forward.
It's really, really old because Israel was established in the midst of an otherwise hostile, Arab Middle East.
I know it probably had to be at the time. A third of the world's Jews had been murdered in WW2, and almost no other country wanted the remaining Jews to settle within their borders, so they had to go somewhere. Why not the land of Jewish biblical history? It made sense. A lot more sense than, say, Uganda. (Really, Herzl? Uganda?)

Unless you already lived there, and had to be moved aside to make room for so many refugees.

And this conundrum, this unbreakable Gordian knot, is why there will never be peace in the Middle East. Not in my lifetime, or in yours, or in your children's.

Sorry.

Forgive me while I struggle to find the purpose of praying for something that will never come about.

Forgive me for a lifetime of detachment that has effectively prevented me from buying into the whole story.

Forgive me for going small and inward just now. I am one of zillions who is fully aware of just how fucked we are, and how little any of us little people can realistically change the outcome.

All I can do is right here in my little corner of the world.

And God? What, even?
God didn't save the six million.
I am not convinced that God can save us now.
Is that because God isn't real, or because we didn't live up to the image of Godliness we've sold ourselves for millennia?
I don't know.
But right now, all I can really trust is other people close to me.
And whether or not that will be enough may not matter in the end.
It just has to be enough to keep me sane, that's all.
So I will love my people, my beloveds.
Not all of them are Jewish, and in the end that doesn't matter.

Love your people. Do it.

It won't save any of us from death, and it won't make the world more peaceful in the long run; but it will make our lives more tolerable in the times of despair and more beautiful in the moments of grace.

And at this point, that will have to be enough.