Brookwrite

Burning bridges

by Doug Brook
Southern Shofar Columnist

It's February. How many new year's resolutions do you have left? Feel like you're ready for another new year to start already? How about a new decade? A new century? Do I hear a new millennium?

Whatever your answers to these questions, you're in luck. (It just depends on whether your luck is good or bad.) There's lots of people who have gone to (or caused) a lot of trouble to help you get ready for the impending apocalypse, which will be ushered in by the forboding omen of seeing Dick Clark at his 314th New Year's Eve at Times Square.

First, let's look back to the Founding Fathers of this great country and thank them for ensuring that, no matter what, we will get at least one delectable taste of armageddon next year: another presidential election.

Slightly more recently, the powers that be in Redmond, Wash., combined with the powers that be in Rockefeller Center, the offices of the Mobile Register, and other giant media outlets to bring you the slightly more technological apocalypse: the Y2K problem.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Y2K problem (also known as the Year 2000 problem), we're not talking about the lack of availability of private clubs for New Year's Eve. The Y2K problem is that so many corporate executives and media moguls gave too many computers a convenient excuse for taking a long vacation for the next thousand years.

Well, in an exclusive in this column, I present to you a partial, inexpensive solution to the Y2K problem that is deeply rooted in Jewish tradition, law, custom, and cuisine.

That's right. You're reading it here first. You can reduce any potential Y2K risk by almost 15 percent by one simple lifestyle modification: become shomer shabbos.

For those of you who can't read my handwriting, what I said was to observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy in the strict modern observance which dates back centuries to the invention of electricity, that precludes the use of such things as money, electricity, automobiles, microwaves, and mechanical pencils. By following this you will no longer be burdened by any Y2K problems that could persist in ATMs, airport control towers, VCRs, or number 2 pencil lead.

For those of you looking for a more direct source of historical context for dealing with the new millennium, look to the Israeli government. It was recently announced that a bridge will be built this year in the Sea of Galilee (the upper west side). An underwater bridge.

You, like me, are probably thinking that if it's underwater, it's not so much a bridge, but rather a very leaky tunnel. (If not, how are you able to read this column?) This bridge will be just under the surface of the water, and will allow people to travel to the Middle East and personally re-enact the miracle of Jesus walking on water (that historical event first rumored in this column, then picked up by several mainstream publishers before we could follow up).

In related news, from City Hall in New York City, the mayor's office announced that they will ensure that no cleanup of the East River will occur this year, leaving it available for people who can't afford the trip overseas.

On the scene of international politics, recent events in Jerusalem indicate that the new millennium might finally bring a solution to all remaining political, physical, and athletic strife between the Jews in Israel and their traditionally not-exactly-loaning-them-cups-of-sugar neighbors. Some recent arguments and fights that have broken out near the Western Wall only involved one denomination of Jews attacking another.

This could be a harbinger for our people being too busy fighting amongst ourselves to have time to bother having trouble with others; thus providing the final, elusive solution for peace between nations and peoples in the Middle East.

But enough good cheer. Maybe we'd be better off staying in this year, decade, century, and millennium after all. Or maybe we'd be better off staying away on that Caribbean vacation for an extra week. Either way, there is more wisdom to find in our esteemed Jewish heritage. Remember, for us the millennium doesn't end for another couple hundred years or so. Have you started planning your party yet?

If not, or if you don't find any comfort in the Jewish calendar, and are now as afraid of the new millennium as several well-intended extremists would have you be, take heart. Perhaps a little Talmudic wisdom will help. So I leave you to recall a well-known turn of phrase, written for Hollywood by the great sage and college organization founder Hillel:

In the motion picture "Batman", Alfred -- the butler old enough to remember watching Hillel play tennis at Club Med(iterranean) -- asks Bruce Wayne, "if not now, when?"

And if none of this makes you feel any better about the onset of the new millennium, just remember that, despite all the hype, it doesn't really begin until 2001. And we all know what happens to the computers then...

Doug Brook is a technical writer in Silicon Valley who has already stocked up on extra batteries, Q-tips, and quarters for the laundry. He sees how these computers are built, and he ain't taking no chances. Heck, he'd just as soon trust a computer manual.