Marching With the Penguins (JW-March 4,2006)
Every year, penguins embark on a long, dangerous journey. Their destination is the locus of all penguin life, the area from which they all originated, their homeland in the Antarctic. Although they are birds, they do not fly, and although they make their home underwater, they do not swim. They walk. One foot in front of the other, trudging on into a horizon that’s all ice, snow and instinct. The impetus for movement is biological and perhaps also emotional. Despite the frozen clime, they’re on a regenerative mission of life: the search for a mate. In other words, it’s kind of like a national Jewish singles event — think of the United Jewish Communities young leadership conference, or a JDate-sponsored trip to Israel, with all the marriageable Jews sporting permanent formal wear.
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6 comments:
Very well said! I liked your article.
That was one of the funniest articles I have read in a long time. This imagery is lol funny. Thank you for bringing laughter to my shabbos table.
Dan
"There are more females than males; when females compete over the available mates-to-be, the males sit back passively and wait for the fight to end. I watch these penguins walking in a line like out of Anatevka, heads hanging low in an affect of dejection, trudging downtroddenly into an endless horizon, but still convinced that they are indeed making progress. It seems like some sort of tuxedoed shul formation ... a veritable congregation of the coupling-ready."
What a great article! Gotta love the penguins.
I liked the article, but unlike the cute Penguins, you and indeed most other humans can survive just fine being fairly solitary and uncoupled. We prove it everyday in our waking hours. We spend far more time away from home and loved ones than we do with them. In school, at work, or commuting to & fro, we scarcely spend much time with family today. It's a thought that comes to a few folks only after retirement, if they make it there. Cheers & Good Luck! 'VJ'
Wonderful! I thought it was more poignant than funny. I often feel especially sad about being alone when I find myself traveling alone, which is often. For one thing, traveling long distances alone can be such a pain, especially when you need to use the facilities after you've already picked up your heavy checked-in luggage, or when you need to wrestle your stuff into one of those airport shuttles. On the other hand, I took a solitude-filled two week trip to Brazil a year ago and I found the experience to be uniquely liberating. Thanks for another great column!
Here's another writer who did her own take on the penguins. Great writers think alike:
http://www.aish.com/societyWork/arts/When_Bad_Things_Happen_to_Good_Penguins.asp
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