Dec. 09, 2001 - 22:57 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Wheezin' Season

Whatever it is, I think it has bottomed out and hopefully the course will now be upward. Bronchitis is not so bad but malaise put me to bed not too long after I got up this morning. discomfort reminded me of the flu, but I know it is not that. So I am up for a little while hoping to tire, go to bed and sleep again.

Not only is it that sniffles season, but it is also a season of joy and love. Seems like most all religions have some of their happiest holidays in the winter. With people of my faith and nationality, significant of course is Thanksgiving and Christmas, For Jewish people tonight is the first of the eight day Hanukkah. Moslems are in Ramadan or it may have passed already. I have read of other nationalities and creeds who have celebrations of love, generosity and worship during this time.

I suppose there are some double domes who will come up with a dingbat explanation, probably as wrong as only the experts can make it. I have no specific knowledge of why, nor do I really care.

But as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof sang, "Tradition," as he mulled over the pros and cons of same, pondering the restrictions and benefits of tradition, I too sometimes ponder, but for the most part I think I am for the procedure. I love the traditions of worship, generosity, charity, love and families coming as close together as they can. When we were young and living with our parents, we absorbed their traditions. When we were teens a lot of us were, "Rebels," just as today and tried to ease away from those starchy, scratchy traditions.

Then we grew up, as far as a kid can, married and began to have offspring. Then gradually as the kids grew so did painlessly building of the unique traditions, of a young family growing into the future. Many of them are reflections of our parents, some of them personal to our own little nuclear family. Traditions seem to me to be the glue of happy togetherness, or the coming together in sadness at a funeral - one that is usually done in the tradition of that group.

This time of year, for many of us is the time of atonement, giving from the heart, striving for closeness to our own and nearness to others of peacful creeds. A season of love striving to be as pure as it can.

Regardless, it behooves us to remember the, "Reason for the Season," and not get sidetracked in conflict, snide snottiness or selfishness.

But for me tonight, 'tis the Wheezin' Season . . . . . . . . . .

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