It has been almost 2 months since I last posted –March 21st. I have been busy, but I was busy before and I still posted. I didn’t really have much to say, but that has never stopped me before – I certainly have posted when I didn’t really have much to say in the past. No, I was reading many of the posts on Xanga and listening and watching cable television “news” channels. I’ve been reading and listening to the arguments about “do the means justify the ends,” “is the Bible literally accurate?” “is the Bible the word of God, the words of men inspired by God, or merely the folk tales of a people (mine)?” “Is evolution the result of natural selection, or of God’s plan and design, or were the species created as is less than 7.000 years ago?” “Is homosexuality a normal development or a sin against God?” and other important, timely, and critical questions. I realized that these arguments and discussions are basically the same arguments and discussions that I engaged in myself when I was in high school and college about 60 years ago. I’ve been overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu, with a sense that nothing ever changes – I have become Ecclesiastes (or, as we called him in Hebrew, Kohelet). I think I was about 16 when my Hebrew class, under the guidance of Joseph Haggi, studied the Book of Ecclesiastes. I didn’t like the book at all. I was a teenager, a full and exciting life was ahead of me, and the weariness and tiredness of Ecclesiastes was not for an idealistic 16 year old. “There is nothing new under the sun” indeed! In our class, we used to say to Mr. Haggi “But Mr. Haggi, times have changed!” He always answered us “Yes, but people haven’t.” We would talk about all of the things that were new and he would answer “so you have the telephone, but what is said on the telephone that wasn’t said in the time of King David? You have the radio and I know that all of you listen to the comedians. What have they said that Aristophanes didn’t say?” I’m sure that Mr. Haggi is long gone. He was a wonderful teacher and taught us many things but, of all that he taught us, the concept that people haven’t changed is probably the most important. Today we have inventions that Mr. Haggi probably never dreamed of. We have computers, we have cell phones, we have Twitter and Facebook on the internet but, aside from the technology itself, what is new? What is being written or said that hasn’t been written or said before? I watch talk shows and see constant debates about torture, but what is being said that wasn’t said in Hammurabi’s dungeons? Perhaps the extent of the treatment is different, but I’m sure that there were techniques that some thought weren’t moral and others thought were justified and they argued about them in the same way. I’ve been able to make sense of the historical books of the Hebrew Bible by assuming they were written by flacks and press agents of the victors. When you read the books that way and assume that people haven’t changed, what probably really happened and the motivations become clear. When read that way, it becomes highly probable that Elhanan, not David, slew Goliath, but it was critical for David to claim that victory. It was over 2,000 years ago that Ecclesiastes wrote: “The sun also rises and the sun goes down to the place from Which he arose The wind blows south and then turns to the north and turns continually. All the rivers run into the sea but the sea is not full and the waters Return to the rivers and run to the sea again. … What has been, is that that shall be and That which was done is that which shall be done. There is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything that may be said to be new? It was there already of old.” What I feel as I read some of the posts and watch cable news was also expressed over 1,000 years ago by Omar Khayyam in the Rbiyat: “Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent Doctor and saint and heard great argument About it and about But evermore Came out the door As in I went.” I may be over 80 and no longer 16, as I was when I first encountered Ecclesiastes, but I think that there is a way to recover some of my youthful enthusiasm: get away from the enervating heat of the Sonora Desert and stop watching cable news for a while. I’ll still read the blogs on Xanga – some habits are too much fun to break. I’ll post again after I spend a week in Western Canada. | 
