Ponder: One accommodation at a time

"And that's how the death of Judaism proceeds, one accommodation at a time.  I didn't feel bad about it.  I agreed that this made sense.  Compromises always make sense.
As I said those prayers in that hospital room, I didn't think that this might be the last time those words would ever be uttered over a Sollisch foreskin.  I couldn't imagine a future where this little boy or his brother would ever get married and have children.  But Zack married Allie, a Catholic, in 2014.  And Max will marry Dana, a Catholic, this year  And I'm about 99 percent certain that their sister, Zoey, will marry a non-Jew, too.
Zack's wedding was mostly a Catholic affair.  He did not convert; he is Jewish, and proudly identifies that way.  But I suspect his son--should he and Allie have one--will be circumcised in silence by a doctor in a sterile room.  And the cord that connects my ancestors to God-the one I frayed-will be cut completely.
Jim Sollisch, Washington Post Magazine, 9 Jan. 2016, 27.

Ponder: Doubt a little of his own infallibility

“Perhaps all of us, and especially Trump, could take a page from history, from the words of Benjamin Franklin after the writing of a new Constitution.  The debate had been hot and heavy.  There were deep feelings on all sides, and many were expressing strong reservations about signing it.  In calling for ratification, Franklin said, ‘On the whole, sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.

Were we to doubt a little of our own infallibility, perhaps we might find it within ourselves to listen, to give a little more care to viewpoints that differ from ours, expressing the hope that those who voice them care just as much for and believe just as firmly and fervently in their causes as we do in ours.  We might find the gift if a solution.”

William Brock, The U.S. Political Devolution.”  The Washington Post 11 Dec. 2015, A25