From The Bimah: Jewish Lessons For Life

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” Mark Twain I think of the Mark Twain quote whenever I ponder a signature piece of wisdom of my late mother that I resisted as a teen, but that I agree with as an adult. My mother used to say: “Lower your expectations.”  My mother’s rationale: If we go through life with high expectations, there is a higher likelihood we might be disappointed. If we go through life with lowered expectations, there is a higher possibility we might be pleasantly surprised.   I thought of my mother’s wisdom when hearing the sobering, indeed searing Israel at War Podcast with Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi. They confront the reality that 100 plus days later, Israel is scaling back its military operations in Gaza without having accomplished the aim that more than 90% of Jewish Israelis all agreed to on October 8: Wage war in order