Plans For A New Year: Decision Time
By
Leonard Zwelling
Man plans. God Laughs.
A Yiddish saying
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”
Mike Tyson
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/25/opinion/hanukkah-jewish-tradition.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/24/opinion/civil-society-importance.html
It’s the end of 2024, a tumultuous year, and unlike Christmas, a time where we celebrate the past and dwell in the present and the presents, New Year looks only briefly back, and mostly forward. That means plans.
The two quotes on top are my view of plans. They always seem like a good idea, but often go awry. If you play golf, you get this.
The two articles I’ve attached from The New York Times on Christmas Day, also speak to plans.
The first is about Hannukah by two Jewish scholars and relates the decisions ancient rabbis made about how to tell the story of the Maccabees. Apparently back then, 2000 years ago, Jews in Syrian occupied Israel were fighting other Jews as well as the Syrians. There were the Maccabees who were the zealot guerillas and the more Syrian assimilating group the Maccabees despised. But, that’s not the focus of the story in 2024. Rather it’s the miracle of the oil in the Temple lasting eight days when it should have lasted only one. The emphasis today is on unified Judaism. I think that was the plan of the ancient rabbis when they fostered our current Hannukah story.
The second article is by former Secretary of the Treasury Robert E. Rubin who advises people to get involved in making the world a better place and stop complaining about it.
These two points of view are very germane right now.
After October 7, there is a collective abandonment of an attempt by most Jews to reconcile with the Arabs living in and around Israel. Where once there was a debate between those supporting a one-state solution and those supporting a two-state solution, now it appears that no one is interested in any solution at all that might involve giving Arabs any more power in the Holy Land. Perhaps we need to step back from this and accept reality on the ground in Israel. There simply must be Arabs who want peace. There simply must be Israelis who recognize that a constant state of war in Gaza and the West Bank is not good for the Jewish people. How do we get from where we are to where we need to be? And, where do we need to be?
That may well fall to the new American President to determine, but for sure we need a plan. Let us see if Mr. Trump has one that doesn’t include more death and destruction. How about turning Gaza into a Middle East Las Vegas using Saudi money, American know-how, and Palestinian labor?
As for Mr. Rubin’s suggestion to participate more in making the world a better place by working outside your comfort zone, I believe I am about to become the only Jew to be on the board of the San Jose Clinic in downtown Houston in its 101 years. It’s a clinic serving the needs of the uninsured that is under the auspices of the Catholic archdiocese. Almost everyone else at the clinic and on the board is Catholic. They didn’t get the horror of October 7 for the Jewish people. I explained it.
Participation in the clinic allows me to bring my former activities in health care delivery and management to a group of people who desperately need both, the patients. I also can help the board, most of whom are without experience in health care, but are devoted to helping the patients and the archdiocese.
So, on New Year’s Day, make a plan. Try to see a major problem in the eyes of the other guy and then get involved in something about which you know nothing. It doesn’t matter what. Make a plan. It will change anyway, just like that seven iron from 140 yards out that winds up in the green side bunker, plans change. That’s the fun.
