A Rosh Hashanah Lesson For Liberals...

But first....Walter Russell Mead notices something that's missing in the aftermath of the highly unusual East Coast earthquake - centered just south of our nation's capital - last August:

A month has passed since the Virginia earthquake and it looks like the Washington Monument is going to be closed indefinitely until a team of engineers can check every stone....

The other Washington landmark significantly damaged in the earthquake was the National Cathedral, the magnificent stone church where many important national commemorations and funerals are held. The highest of its stone towers were toppled, and there, too architects are checking for structural damage.

In ancient times, the damage to two unique symbols of national identity by something as rare as an East Coast earthquake which did little or no damage to more pedestrian and less symbolic structures would have been highly noteworthy. We would be rending our garments, consulting the Sibylline books and repenting in sackcloth and ashes after so a clear a demonstration of divine wrath.

These days we do nothing at all. No doubt this is much more progressive and intelligent. After all, there is absolutely nothing going on in Washington or the country at large that could cause anyone or anything to warn us to mend our ways....

Related - something that was read during this morning's Rosh Hashanah service out in Jersey:

Many have said to the works of our hands: You are our gods! Strange, then, to see the emptiness in those who cast You out.  Strange to see the agonies of our time grow more numerous and more intense, the more our worship centers on ourselves.  Strange that men and women grow smaller without  You, smaller without the faith that You are with them....

The left, with their incessant self-involved navel gazing, has declared themselves to be the new gods, with the government as their virtual temple, and we as humble sackcloth-wearing petitioners, awaiting direction.  But the people grow weary of the high priests, as their nation writhes with greater pain with each passing day, despite the blithe assurances of the Temple-keepers.

And some folks are beginning to realize that a higher power - one much greater than their newly-proclaimed deities - has awoken, and is trying to warn them of the wickedness of their ways, before utter ruin descends upon them.

But their leaders - with wisdom deeply steeped in the unshakable knowledge procured by daily deep readings of the New York Times - keep repeating, like a prayer, that the signs are meaningless, and only repetition of the same rituals (taxing and spending and taxing and spending) can truly set us free.  All who dare think otherwise are knaves, fools, idiots, rednecks, and racists...

I wonder if this is how it felt in Sodom, and Gomorrah, the day before the fire and brimstone fell from the sky...