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On this day in history, a decade after the tragedies our country faced at the hands of religious extremists, there is not much to say that has not already been said. My heart goes out to those whose family members perished in those gruesome attacks. My heart goes out to those who were wrongly discriminated against in the aftermath and, in cases, even more so today. It was an attack on the very fabric of our country and irreparably changed our self-image forever.

We, as a country, united right after 9/11 and fragmented shortly thereafter. We are still a fragmented society. We view our neighbor with distrust. Everyone who is a little different is a potential terrorist. We’ve given up civil liberties out of fear. Along with all this comes something I never thought possible: Americans publicly justifying the use of torture. Yes, 9/11 was not only an attack on two buildings, the pentagon, and the capitol. 9/11 struck to the very heart of our country and way of life.

But, it is not too late. A decade after the tragedies can be a start of finding what we, as a country, have lost. It can be a return to a love of our constitution and the freedoms all our founding documents give us: freedom of religion, freedom against undue search and seizure, freedom of speech, etc. We must remember that the crime of the 9/11 hijackers was not in being another religion than the rest of us. The crime of the 9/11 hijackers was placing their beliefs on a higher pedestal than their compassion for the safety and welfare of their fellow man. How many of us know someone who has treated another poorly because they did not believe and act as they did?

Of course, no one can or should belittle what happened on that day. It was probably the most horrible day any of us will ever see inflicted upon our country as a whole. It was a tragedy in every sense of the word. But, we do not need to immortalize the sick and twisted individuals that did this in our collective conscious. We need to let them perish as their victims did, while never forgetting the inexplicable horrors that were brought about by their hands.

Above all, we need to learn the lessons of 9/11. People of many faiths and no faith at all perished that day, but they were ALL Americans. Christians were killed, Muslims were killed, Jews were killed, Pagans were killed, Buddhists were killed, so on and so on. The history of all religion is full of people twisting its precepts as a reason to hate someone who is different. We do not need to carry on the legacy of the hijackers. We need to come together as a nation and stand together for a new tomorrow.

I was speaking to a local person on Facebook yesterday. He was talking about how Thelema seemed “hollow” to him and Reform Judaism seemed more Thelemic than Thelema at times…

By now, you know my own take on Thelema. It’s pretty much Masonic/Western Mystery Tradition philosophy, heavy on philosophy and Jewish influences. If you take a “regular” Mason and a Thelemite, put them side by side, you may end up with identical people….or it may be the SAME person. The two are very very similar for most people.

Of course, both focus on Enlightenment philosophy and interests. A Mason who studies Freemasonry diligently is cut from the same cloth as your average Thelemite who has been in it long enough to separate the wheat from the chaff and come into his own Thelemic philosophy. So, it’s really hard to say Thelema is hollow spirituality without saying Freemasonry is hollow spirituality. It’s really hard, if not impossible, to delineate the two with your studious practitioner of either.  So, the question becomes to me: Is Freemasonry hollow spirituality?

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With the news that Gaza is exporting aid to Somalia, one wonders why so much emphasis is put on getting aid TO Gaza. Obviously, if a people are starving, they are not in a position to export aid. Of course, a UN envoy to Gaza recently said there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. So WHY all the aid flotillas to Gaza in the news?

The answer is, of course, pretty obvious. The answer is anti-Semitism. The real campaign is to discredit, delegitimize and demonize Israel. B’nai Brith just made a wonderful poster highlighting the hypocrisy.

It seems that everywhere you turn in the Jewish world these days, there’s always someone extolling the virtues of “unplugging for the sabbath”. In other words, no electricity or at least no communications this one day of the week. The writer will invariably talk about how freeing this action is and how sacred it makes this day for them. For that person, I will say let them follow God as they see fit.

As for me, however, I will not be turning off my cell phone for Shabbat. I do, of course, have some prohibitions for that day and do my best to make it a sacred time spent with family without the world needlessly encroaching upon our space. But, I consider the prohibitions against phone usage to be taking it one step too far and I think it, even though well-intentioned, can actually violate the spirit of the Law in other ways.

I feel that those who extoll the virtues of turning off a cell phone for Shabbat are actually failing to take into account the modern paradigm that we all live under. This is not the world of twenty or thirty years ago and it’s certainly not the world of one hundred years ago or more. Biblical writers and rabbis from time periods before could not have appreciated the role of the cell phone in modern life. Even many rabbis today do not really grasp the central importance of this device.

In the Talmud, we see that it is acceptable and even recommended to violate religious law to save a life. We constantly see the sages taking a balanced view – trying to promote a Judaism that does not sacrifice humanity at the altar of religion, but affirms the sacredness of human life and well being. Thus, if your animals are trapped, you can free them on Shabbat. If your neighbor is suffering, you can alleviate that suffering even though it’s Shabbat. You can even travel on Shabbat if a close relative falls ill in order to tend to their needs.

But, how do we know this has happened? How do we know that we are being called to action on Shabbat? Practically everyone has a cell phone these days. Many have gotten rid of the house phone and only use a cell phone. We don’t live in a shtetl anymore. Our community is not walled. Our way of communicating is not by foot, but by cell.

So, for me to turn off my cell phone on Shabbat feels like I am saying that it is appropriate for me to get my animal out of the ditch on Shabbat, but it is not appropriate to rescue my relative whose car has broken down a couple of miles from my house. It says to me that it’s appropriate to visit the sick, but only if they have scheduled that sickness with me beforehand so that I may grace them with my presence on Shabbat. It says to me that religious observance is more important than people … something the Talmud appears to tell me is wrong.

So, I keep my cell phone on when Shabbat roles around. Everyone knows not to call me unless they need me – that I’m preoccupied. BUT, if they need me, they know I am a phone call away. They know that I will come to their aid, that I will help them any way I can, and that I will help alleviate suffering whether it is Shabbat or not.

Now, I am a pre-Jew. I’ve been in a conversion program almost eight months, but I am not a Jew yet. I could very well be wrong about this, but I don’t think I am. To me, leaving that cell phone on is part of what it means to be a Jew. With that action, I am affirming that I am a part of the community – that I do not shirk my responsibility and that I step up to the plate and say “Yes, I AM my brother’s keeper”. I acknowledge my responsibility in helping those that are in need of help – on this day of the week as well as the others. I acknowledge that my responsibilities to my fellow man do not cease because a day of the calendar rolls around. I acknowledge that bringing a bedridden and sometimes overlooked friend food and a smile is an act of holiness and worship of God.

I have made keeping my cell phone on an act of worship in itself.

God, to me, is Ein Sof. God is unfathomable, incomprehensible… the sum of all creation and then some. There are two ways in which God limits Himself: he doesn’t violate natural law and he doesn’t violate free will. So, God doesn’t micromanage our lives. He isn’t our celestial waiter. He isn’t sitting around waiting for us to ask Him for something. So, why pray?

In reality, I don’t often pray. I mean, I say my ritual prayers at synagogue, of course. But, I don’t sit and ask God for things. I don’t expect Him to answer or to listen. God does his god stuff and I do my human stuff. I strive towards God and certainly have experiences where I feel God, but don’t sit and talk to Him.

But, that’s not to say that there isn’t a reason TO pray. Of course prayer has its place. Prayer has the ability to allow us to turn our minds towards the spiritual – to commune with and experience God, such as synagogue. We can stand with Moses by the burning bush and proclaim “This place is holy and I knew it not”.

But, prayer also forces us to put our hopes and fears into words. We are forced to concretize our inner feelings. We are able to think out what is not right in our world and express it in words to Deity, putting it into the scope of the bigger picture.

I do not pray because God may answer my prayers. When I pray, I pray because of the way it makes me feel. I pray because the act of prayer itself is a holy ritual. It connects me to God even if He isn’t listening. It makes this moment, this place in time and space a sacred thing. When I pray, I enter into the sanctum sanctorum of God. I don’t pray to get gifts from God. Prayer IS the gift.