world war II – Much That Is Fair

A Journey South

One commonality shared between Judaism and much of East Asia: the lunar calendar. Sunday night I looked up at the nearly-full moon and the first thought that came to my mind was that the month of Av was scarcely more than two weeks away, with its major fast day on the Ninth in commemoration of the destruction of the Temple, and the subsequent seven-week countdown to the High Holiday season. (To any of my rabbi friends reading this: sorry for the inevitable blood pressure spike). In short: Yom Kippur is coming!

The Day of Atonement has been on my mind a great deal this week. As a memory scholar, there was one place in Japan that I wanted to go above all others, one place that my friend informed me she would not accompany me. That place, of course, was Hiroshima.

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Sometime this month or next, the United States will hit a once-unimaginable milestone: one million dead from coronavirus. When that happens, the reaction from many will be muted. Americans are exhausted, most agree, and they are ready to put the pandemic behind them, whether or not the pandemic is done with them. We have hit so many milestones by now that these numbers appear almost meaningless to us. What makes one million more unimaginable than any of the rest of them?

Tag: world war II

On Atonement

Abandoning the ‘War’ on COVID