Adjustment

I moved with my folks a few years back. What was the most hard to deal with was sorting through the accumulated junk of 25 years. We weeded out what we could, but there was so much that we said, "Not that! I can't give away that!" and it was dragged along to the new house. 

Now, yet again, we found ourselves sifting through that which was brought with us. And now, none of us had any issues loading it up onto the thrift store truck. 

I would say it was that we simply needed time to get used to the idea of parting with things. Our minds couldn't handle it five years beforehand; now we couldn't understand why we kept all that crap to begin with. 

I was watching a repeat of "Inspector George Gentley" (a detective mini-series courtesy of the BBC), an episode entitled "Gently with the Innocents." The series takes place in the 60s. 

After various plot turns, the truth comes out: The murder victim ran an orphanage during the war years, and exploited his position to sexually abuse and torture his charges. Remember, this is the 60s; the concept of pedophilia was a new one. Not that it didn't exist; it has been around since the dawn of humanity. Rather, it was not something the general public was aware of.

Detective Gently is shaken to his very core. He can't sleep. The young victim, now a grown woman, was never believed by anyone she had asked help from. When she tried to kill herself she was imprisoned, as suicide was a crime back then. 

In one scene, Gently is sitting on a park bench, after dark. A teenage girl bounces over, "Hey, mister!" and starts chatting, even asking if she can have a ride in his snazzy car. Still shocked from that which he has just uncovered, he says kindly, "I don't think that's a very good idea, sweetheart." 

That was the 60s; girls would approach strange men without worry. And now, everyone, every parent, every child, is all-too aware of pedophiles. Children are terrorized into never talking to strangers. What Gently found out no one in his office could accept; but as time passes, the mind can find itself able to deal with unpleasant truths. Our own community is always at a time lag; we will be able to grasp it soon as well.

The NY Times had this article regarding the end of the Tal Law: 

In Haredi neighborhoods, where those who do join the military have historically had a harder time finding a suitable spouse, “you can see army uniforms hanging out in the laundry,” he said. “People are not afraid to wear them anymore.

“Not a revolution,” Mr. Herzog said, “an evolution.” 

Time has an amazing capacity to heal.