In the immediately preceding blog post,: “Shiva,” we borrowed from the Hebrew tradition in describing the ancient seven-day mourning tradition, following the decease of a close relative. In the presenting post, we would now choose to borrow from the rich compendium of AskenasicYiddish humor to highlight our thematic point.The analogically informative anecdote is as follows:
[The presenting scenario is located at a Jewish Funeral Parlor on the East side of lower Manhattan,. The deceased was a well-known, ( but uniformly disliked) unmarried owner of a Garment Center Factory, Max Blum. The occasion saw a small assemblage of his family but a large attendance of former business partners, competitors, and others who, over the many years, did business with the decedent who suddenly passed away in his sleep at age 97,
The religious event is presided over by a young, inexperienced Rabbi, in the employ of the funeral establishment. The young Rabbi addresses the large assemblage of familiars: “I did not have the pleasure of acquaintance with Max Blum and personally disapprove of the practice of delivering the usual, stereotypical officious sermon. I would greatly appreciate it if one of the present attendees, familiar with the deceased, would come to the podium and speak of the decedent’s life. There followed utter silence; no none stirred. The Rabbi then repeated his sincere request two more times, only to similarly, encounter silence and inactivity,
Finally, exasperated, the young minister shouted impatiently,” Isn’t there one person of the large attendees in the Chapel who can come up to the podium and say one good thing about Mr. Blum? Still, no response, The young Minister then completely (and unprofessionally) lost his temper, and shouted:” Unless someone comes up here and says “one good thing” only one good thing, about the deceased, we will remain here and not proceed with the traditional prayers and the funeral!”
An elderly man then haltingly rose, scratching his large and unruly mop of gray hair while muttering to himself, “One good thing about Max Blum, only one good thing”. He finally reached the podium, turned adamantly to the assembled crowd, and loudly declared: “One good thing…alright,,, his brother was worse.!”]
One can reluctantly extract one good thing regarding the catastrophic result of the recent Presidential election. It is the observation that the winner, Donald Trump, and his enormous underbelly of populist supporters, in their self-interest, can no longer tactically deprecate the existential feature of democracy viz., its definitional elections.
After Trump’s highly predictable failure to properly exercise the Office of President, in the coming four years, the subsequent election in which he will be justly and resoundingly defeated will be empirically unassailable.
-p,
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