I recently cracked a lifelong run of never breaking any bones by cracking a lumbar vertebra. The experience gave me a new insight into solving the problem of people who hate Jews.
For a month I'd been seeing a physical therapist for back trouble. The PT is God's gift to her trade; she knows the human body like a Sherpa knows the mountains. She was teaching me exercises that not only cured my symptoms, but also were beginning to address the root cause. If she were a Middle East special envoy, she'd have the conflict licked, I thought.
But then she gave me a new exercise that involved standing on one foot, throwing a ball at a bouncy mat and catching it. Evidently she hadn't read the part of the playbook that says a boy will try to catch a ball no matter what. So when I pitched the ball in such a way that it bounced back low and to the left, I twisted and dove for it like a left fielder trying to intercept a ground ball. Not good. What ought to have been an innocuous game of catch led me to shatter good ol’ L1. It was like playing wiffle ball with the Taliban; they'd find a way to beat your brains out with the plastic bat.
I spent the following week unable to do much of anything, much less write. We don't have cable, and it was too difficult to get up and turn on the radio. My mind was too restive to read, and surfing the net while lying on my back was awkward; before long the computer screen would be resting on my nose.
So what did I do? I forgot. For what seemed like the first time in my life I forgot about Israel and “the Jews.”
No news, no Jews.
What a relief! A nuclear Iran threatening to wipe Israel off the map? Not to worry. First let me figure out how to flip from my back onto my side.
Do Bibi and Obama see eye to eye? Who knows? Better to crawl to the bathroom.
Anti-Semitism spreading in Europe? Whatever. I'm too young to have osteoporosis, so how could I crush that bone?
My aches and pains were liberating! Divide Jerusalem? I can't even decide whether or not to try to sit in a chair.
There was something blissfully relaxing about this back injury. I know I'll soon recover form it; maybe I'll become a health and fitness fanatic to stave off the encroaching demons of age and degeneration. I’ve already gone back to thinking and worrying about our people 24/7. That’s who I am and what I do.
But the episode did give me an idea. Maybe we can infiltrate “sleeper” physical therapists into places like Iran, Lebanon and Venezuela. The next time folks like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Nasrallah, and Hugo Chavez hurt themselves, the stealth PTs will go into action. Let the bad guys crush a vertebra or two; naybe they, too, would stop perseverating about Israel and “the Jews” for a change. What a relief that would be.
