Could You Come Out of the Closet?

The goal of this blog is to get some honest talk going around your Shabbat table. When are you going to admit to your family that you're reading this stuff?
 

Could you imagine having your most fundamental beliefs about your life shattered?

Could you imagine discovering something about yourself so radical that, if it became known, would probably cause you to lose most of your friends, and your job?

How would you respond?

Would you adjust? Or deny?

Or cry?

Meet Csanád Szegedi, Hungarian member of the European Parliament.

He was a leader of the extreme-right Hungarian Jobbik party.

Extreme-right as in jingoistic, xenophobic, antisemitic.

Then (two years ago) he discovered the truth.

His maternal grandmother - then 94 - was an Auschwitz survivor.

And she and her extended family who were murdered weren't there because they were gypies.

"She opened up and she talked about her life and how she was sent to Auschwitz and how our family was annihilated. I was shocked. First of all because I realized the Holocaust really happened."

You can read more of his story here. As you can imagine, it has generated some headlines in both Germany and Israel.

For now I'd like to share with you his most inspirational quotation:

"It has changed everything. It is like being reborn, and the changes in my life are still happening. I had this set value system that I ahd to change completely. I had this value system until I was 30 and I had to admit that it was all wrong and to find the will to change."

There's the question for your table: That amazing ability to admit that he had been completely wrong, why would anyone want to do that?


Shabbat Shalom

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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

The goal of this blog is stimulate a more penetrating conversation at your Shabbat table. Don't read it now - print and share!




OK, let's have the truth (today's first question for your table):

Who - sorry whom - do you prefer:

A. Lance-the-suspected-PED-abusing-teammate-and-journalist-bullying-Tour-de-France-Champ Armstrong or...

B. Lance-the-convicted-and-banned-but-still-bullying Armstrong or....

C. Lance-the-confessed-and-partially-apologetic Armstrong???

D. None of the above?

Perhaps you're waiting for Lance-the-totally-repentant-Mr.-Nice-Guy Armstrong ??

Sorry, if he was truly repentant, he would have looked at the camera and said, "I cheated, it was stupid, I am sorry."

To some, this looked like a staged PR event to save his $100 million brand.

So here's Question 2 for your table:

What do you think? Was his confession real, or no more trustworthy than the cheating that got him here?

And finally, the inevitable Question 3:

What do our answers to Q1 and Q2 say about you and me?

[Soapbox: LA's mistake was not the cheating per se. The cheating was a symptom of an underlying confusion. He was, and apparently still is, confused about the definition of greatness. He thought that greatness = looking good, and didn't or doesn't realize that greatness = being good. See Chapter 7 of The Art of Amazement.]



 
Shabbat Shalom 

PS - An Onion classic