JEWS BEHAVING BADLY #16 – IF I WERE A WOMAN DAIDLE DEEDLE DUM

Well, I’m not quite sure where to start with this one. Rachel Levine, our country’s Assistant Health Secretary (ASH), is our choice this week. She has actually been quiet for a little while, but I just happened to stumble upon her maiden (uhmm) speech.

I have to say that I was struck by a feeling I cannot quite describe, a stupefying mix of irony, sadness, and despair, making me conclude that we must be living in a digital simulation. There we have a man in a dress, not even very successful at doing so, talking seriously into the camera about the importance of mental health.

Dr. Levine, Richard as she was once known, is indeed a trained psychiatrist and pediatrician. Yet the limitations of attempting to live her inner fantasies out in the open are alas lost on her.

Going back to my feeling, it can best be described as the opposite of what one feels when entering the hallowed grounds of an ancient temple, synagogue or cathedral. The opposite of sensing the sacred, and instead sensing deep desecration.

Why? Because the sacred, if anything, is our continuous strive towards the good, the true and the beautiful. Yet here is Dr. Levine replacing the good with a policy of “focusing on systemic racial disparities”; replacing the true with showing up in a dress and a wig; and replacing the beautiful, with, well, this one is self-evident.

And really, as if to top it off, this pediatrician also promotes offering children the means to self-mutilate, on their path to “transitioning.”

H.P. Lovecraft has a great story, telling of a priest climbing up a mountain, eager to reach the top and encounter the glorious gods face to face. Instead, alas, upon the desolate summit, he meets not the gods, but a gathering of blasphemous monsters. Such is the fate of those of us hoping to find inspiration amongst us leaders.

And thus, Dr. Levine is awarded with this week’s Badly Behaving Jew title, and with it a kick from Balaam’s donkey.

Poor Tevye who wished to be a rich man, never quite accomplished his wish. Whether Levine has accomplished hers, you be the judge.