Secrets, groceries and lies

The Secret

With regard to Amy Klein’s article on “The Secret,” two clarifications: First, since she alluded to my views on the biblical exodus, those who would like to know what I said and why can read the article at beliefnet.com (“Judaism vs. The Secret,” July 20).

Second, Klein finishes her article: “In other words, if you were going to boil each of the two visions down to a one-line philosophy, which would you rather choose, Wolpe’s ‘Life is no picnic’ theory or ‘The Secret’s’ ‘Life can be absolutely phenomenal?'”

Well, the point is that you cannot have the second without the first. Without struggle, one can never deeply know beauty, or love or life. Artistry requires discipline and disappointment. Marriage survives with difficulties and hard-won kindnesses. Friendship and devotion is never frictionless and free. Life can be “absolutely phenomenal,” but not by simply wishing it so. Contrary to the simplicities of “the Secret” the world is not only about me, and the variegated colors of life are the gift of effort that elevates our souls and reaches out toward others.

Rabbi David Wolpe
Sinai Temple

Amy Klein’s guess about why people are attracted to The Secret is a good one. Nobody wants to suffer. To the extent that organized religion makes people feel bad, people will run in the opposite direction to avoid that feeling. Ask any one of the millions of Americans who say they are “spiritual but not religious.” They’re looking for hope and inspiration and reassurance. There’s something wrong with this?

Marcia Nelson
Aurora, Ill

While I find the premise of The Secret unworkably simplistic and an embarrassing manifestation of narcissism, it does bring to mind a philosophy passed on to me many years ago. It was suggested that it’s unlikely that we will achieve most of our hopes and dreams, but we are almost certain to realize our expectations. I have seen this in many areas — people who expect to accumulate wealth tend to engage in the behaviors that drive them to that end.

On a more spiritual level, people who expect to have a positive impact on the lives of others are more likely to engage in activism and tikkun olam. No guarantees — but worth considering as a way to understand the developments in one’s life. There is no mystery here, nor is it inconsistent with either religious or secular tenets. It only has to do with actualizing one’s view of one’s own place in the universe.

Barbara Bergen
Los Angeles

A Holy Jew at Happy Minyan commented on “The Secret” saying: there is only one secret you need to know: that God created the heavens and the earth. It says in tehilim “the kindness of HaShem fills the earth” (Psalm 33). The Jewish tradition is replete with encouragement to engage the goodness and kindness of God. Our neshamot, our souls, are sparks of the Divine Presence. The challenge of Judaism is to say l’chaim, to life, and to be about goodness and kindness even in the face of suffering. It is also about recognizing and dispelling falsehoods.

The sad fact that many Jews go elsewhere for spiritual nourishment is a call to all of us to make the beautiful, practical and eternal loving truth of Torah more accessible, meaningful and “do-able” … the more Torah, the more soul, the more life!

Yehoshua Halevi
Los Angeles

Grocery Chains

While I’m happy that both Susan Freudenheim and Rabbi Louis Feldman have apparently found pleasant alternatives to the “big 3” grocery stores for their shopping, they are deluding themselves if they believe that they are in any way supporting grocery workers by shopping at their new venues (“Berries, Pizza, and a Smile,” July 13).

Freudenheim lauds Mayfair, which had no strike, but their great act of caring during both the current and previous labor negotiations was signing a contract that just allowed the other grocery chains to negotiate with the unions on their behalf. Also, to the extent that the large grocery chains have been supplanted by ethnic markets as claimed by Rabbi Feldman, those markets are almost exclusively nonunion, and don’t supply their workers with anything like the wages or healthcare provided by the large chains. So, do enjoy your new shopping experience, just don’t think that “supporting businesses that care” has anything to do with it.

Sam Shink
Los Angeles

Times Op-Eds

Thank you for publishing Tamar Sternthal’s excellent Op-Ed “L.A. Times Gives Hamas a Soapbox” (July 20). The piece properly excoriates the Times for publishing an Op-Ed by Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook that was laden with demonstrable falsehoods.

Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common occurrence at the Times, which has also published several Op-Eds by Saree Makdisi that were similarly rife with anti-Israel falsehoods.

Perhaps most outrageously of all, in a July 19, 2006 Op-Ed (“Israel’s Outrageous Attacks”), Makdisi justified Hezbollah’s cross-border raid into Israel, in which it killed eight Israelis and kidnapped Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, on the grounds that the hostages were needed for “leverage for the release of some of the Lebanese prisoners Israel stubbornly refuses to free.”

The Op-Ed falsely implied that Hezbollah sought the freedom of nonviolent political prisoners. In fact, the prisoner whom Hezbollah sought to free was Samir Kuntar, a monster who stormed the family home of Smadar and Danny Haran in Israel and caused the deaths of Danny, 28, and his daughters Einat, 4, and Yael, 2. Kuntar invaded the home and seized Danny and Einat. He shot Danny in front of Einat, and then used his rifle butt to brutally smash the 4-year-old girl’s skull. Meanwhile, Yael suffocated to death while hiding in her mother’s arms during the barbaric attack.

Israel should be forgiven for its “stubborn refusal” to release the monster Kuntar. But the Times should not be forgiven for failing to hold opinion writers like Marzook and Makdisi accountable to the facts.