Frailty (Godpost #1?)

My PC just ate my post so I'll do my best to rewrite it from memory. Most of you know that I have a pulpit in the Bronx. Yesterday, either while we were sleeping or preparing for the coming festivity of Simchat Torah, some burglars broke into the building. They cut the padlocks on the fridges of the kitchen and, as far as we know, took a phone but no food. They did bend the locks on the synagogue's food pantry to the point were it is impossible to open it anymore. Vandalism? Miracle? I don't know. What I do know is that I am incredibly grateful that I slept through the ordeal: God knows that fighting thugs (especially in one's pijamas) is not a skill chubby and outgoing rabbis tend to be proficient in. And though so far nothing of worth was stolen, we all know the feelings of violation and insecurity that follow such an event. I remember growing up in Cedritos and having my house broken into constantly so the uncomfortable feeling is somewhat familiar. Nevertheless it does come to show how frail our securities are. We trust thin sheets of glass to protect us from each other's greed. We trust thick bars of iron to shield us from humanity's oft random murderous intent. We trust the men in white to protect us from disease, from decrepitude, from excessive fat, from our own gluttony. Alas! No wall is thick enough. No building is safe enough, either from the force of nature or the cunning of evil in men. So we have to face our frailty. We have to acknowledge that our bodies are not eternal. That sometimes the innocent (however you want to define the innocent) suffer. That there are people that will hurt you to satisfy their greed, their lust. And, if you happen to fall on the bad side of some people's prejudices, there are men out there who seek your annihilation. Confronted with frailty and the fact that this certainly does not seem to be the best of all possible worlds (despite Mr. Leibniz's learned proofs) there are, in my opinion, three possible answers: despair, wisdom and faith. Despair, despite its lacrimous associations, often wears a smiling mask. When our highest achievements can be loaded into an ipod, when we seek the meaning of our life in the mall and in the glittering paths of Times Square, we have despaired from life meaning any more than that. We desperately seek to forget our frailty by embracing the loud world of hiccupping computers and of fat-free-no-committment-satisfaction-guaranteed-or-your-money-back world of results. Wisdom, so rare in these days, requires looking frailty in the eye and understanding its unavoidability with Roman Stoic virility. Memento mori! How I wish I could be wise. And then there is faith. Alas! Sometimes the hardest thing is having faith in faith. We believe that faith is too lofty for us sinners and that it requires a leap, a jump into the reasonless and often angry world of the gayhatingrockhurlingayatolahfollowingselfflogging fanatics. If my faith is not able to move mountains then it is not a faith worth its salt. Yet, faith can also be a reasoned optimism, small and unpretentious, and, most importantly, not blind. This small faith, however, is oftentimes enough. At least for me. Shalom.