Polish Plane Crash

Poles mourn President Lech Kaczynski, the first lady and scores of others who died in a plane crash in western Russia amid questions about the obsolete fleet used to ferry the country's military and political elite.

The Talmud-Book of Law relates a story of a boy who under his father’s command climbs a tree, swooshes away the mother bird and takes the eggs–the only two of the 613 Commandments in the Torah promising long life–but the ladder broke, the boy fell and died.

A man watching became a heretic because the boy obeyed both his father in earth and in heaven, yet died; the Rabbis said, They should have checked the ladder, don’t rely on a miracle–others say, Long life can also mean a long stay in heaven before reincarnating.

It is a Jewish custom to say upon hearing the news of death, Barach Dayin HaEmet/God is the True Judge; the Jewish People for hundreds of years wandering through Europe were only welcomed in Poland. The buffer between Europe and Russia, Poland has spilt much blood.

They were attending the commemoration of the anniversary to a bloodletting that happened 70 years before; the Torah always speak in terms of the 70 nations of the earth; the Cabala explains the Adom/Human can be understood as Aleph/1 in the Dom/Blood–the soul is in the blood.

Cars Restrained

The Department of Transportation announced Thursday that the number of people killed in highway crashes 33,000 deaths last year was the lowest since 1954.

A Rebbe was once quoted as saying, Try everything once but that does not include driving a car–don’t even bother. Perhaps what the Rebbe found so repugnant about the automobile was the rote way required to learn to drive. Driving does not engage the mind, but on the contrary numbs the senses.

Better roads and safer cars undoubtably account for a large part of the reduction in deaths and injuries but the acceptance of rote behavior as a model citizen is alarming. The greatest commodity given to the human being is freedom of choice and driving car is very restrictive because of precise laws and practices comprising the rules of the road.

Rote actions are an offshoot of religion demanding total control over the lives they shepherd to reduce the amount of short term suffering. Accidents can never be completely wiped out since God needs occasional accidents to take us out of the world.

The Torah is more concerned with how we move spiritually than physically; the Cabala gives us the answers to time and space–the ancients were known to have wisdom concerning the pathways in the heavens but the vehicles they rode were not technological.