Hanukkah & Hounds

I went to bed Thursday night trying to forge an armistice in my head between the ongoing conflict of self righteous indignation flowing from moralizing cobwebs begging to be swept away and heartless ‘realpolitik’; both battles fuelled by the continued situations in Afghanistan, Iraq, healthcare reform in Amerika, an eerie calm in Moscow, and settlement freezes in Israel…all with the “triple summiteers” – Netanyahu, Obama, and Medvedev - at the helm.

I awoke Friday morning, the day that would usher in Hanukkah, the time of dedication, rededication, lights unto the world, Maccabee soccer, latkes, dreidels, gelt, Tanya from the Lubavitch Rebbe but saw only President Obama’s tense and grim face standing at the podium in Oslo Thursday accepting the Nobel Peace Prize as I stood relieving myself at the toilet peering out the window on the blistering cold day…

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu is a Libra born Oct. 21 1949. He immigrated to Amerika when he was fourteen and earned a BS in Architecture and MA in Management from MIT. His father is a former professor from Cornell. All of his grandparents were Lithuanian Jews and he is a relative of the famed Goan of Vilna, Rabbi Eliyahu. His brother Yonatan was killed during the hostage rescue at Entebbe in the 1970’s and his other brother is a screenwriter/playright.

Do you know who else was born on Oct. 21st? Alfred Nobel, in 1833. Also, volumes of the Talmud were burned on Oct. 21st, 1533 and the first Jewish sports star Hank Greenberg was selected as major league baseballs AL MVP in 1935 even though he refused to play ball on Yom Kippur.

…my backcountry thermometer hanging on the outside wall said 19 degrees. The sun was brighter than the golden desert sunset in southern Utah and the backyard animals were looking for their food. I have a bird feeder hanging from the fence and a little table below it with a Buddha statue and a table below that made out of rocks with a big bowl of water for the “wild beasts.” Birds and a squirrel or two were swarming and climbing all around the feeder in a back and forth frantic manner and some others were pecking away at the frozen water in the bowl…doves, who were terribly malnourished – they probably weighed five pounds – cardinals, American robins, sparrows, and a lonesome albino dove pecking on the frozen ground. How do they know to come to this place every day? Do they just come up on the feeder and water by chance? No. I know this because the albino dove is a repeat. She is here almost every day and I swear I am beginning to recognize behaviors specific to certain other birds in the community and among the squirrels. No matter what is said, squirrels have a pecking order because I can almost certainly pick out the same alpha vermin every time he is around.

President Barak Hussein Obama is a Leo born Aug. 4th, 1961. His childhood was similar to Netanyahu’s in many ways. He earned a BS in Political Science from Colombia in 1983 and his Law Degree from Harvard in 91’. Queen Elizabeth was born on the same day in 1900 and Raul Wallenberg in 1912. Annie Frank was arrested by the Nazis on Aug. 4th, 1944…

So I wrapped myself in my robe and donned my thick winter hat that looks more like a shtreimel that was slept in and grabbed the bird seed. I felt like Noah; all the animals went to their safe perches, the birds a few feet away along the fence row and in the tree and the squirrels to the low lying roof on the shed. I could see their precious little eyes peering at me and could practically hear them panting. I poured the seed in the feeder and as I began removing the ice from the water bowl to refill it a few of the birds began swarming around. I filled the water bowl and placed it on the rocks and headed toward the cozy warmth inside and as I reached for the door knob a symphony was born; all of the birds were chirping and the squirrels were making that wonderful click-clack sound. I looked back for a moment and fifteen feet away from me I saw those angelic souls eating and dancing and for a moment I thought I heard them singing Cat Stephen’s ‘Morning Has Broken’ and was thankful for such a glorious rededication!

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is a Virgo born Sept. 14th, 1965. He also is no stranger to scholastic endeavors; his father was a professor at Leningrad Institute of Technology and Dmitry earned his Law Degree and PhD from there. Unlike the other two “summiteers” he spent most of his life eating food from the soil where he was born. The Provisional Government of Russia was established on Sept. 14th, 1917 and the Nazis gained 107 seats in German elections on the same day in 1930.

As I walked back in the house I had three four-legged angels ‘flying too close to the ground’ sitting a few feet away from the door looking into my eyes with pure innocence and unconditional love. I fed them and changed their water, ate a piece of toast and wrapped myself in a blanket with three dogs curled up to me and thought to myself “what dedication!”

I spent the entire day at the house with my dogs and as the moon rose on the first day of Hanukkah I curled back up under the same blanket as I did that morning with the dogs again and thought to myself “what a rededication!”

Happy Hanukkah!