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I asked Sylvia why she felt that the same closed-eye approach, that had allowed the Yiddish culture to be destroyed, should be deemed an ideal platform for social relationships.
She didn't answer.
I further pointed out that because of the continuing closed-eye approach, a great tragedy is in the making in today's world, as mankind refuses to take the necessary steps to prepare its world for the return of the Ice Age. "Instead of opening its eyes, society seems to close them ever tighter, especially socially," I said. "How many marriages have become fascist prisons in modern times, in which people are abused, exploited, dominated with an iron fist, or are torn apart in conflicts and legal battles that destroy a people's very future as they wreck their families, and their children's sense of belonging, and their security?"
I suggested to Sylvia that even while we suffer these tragedies, we hail the dogmas that cause the tragedies, while at the same time, we keep our eyes closed to the universal principles of our humanity and the Universe, by which the tragedies can be avoided. I suggested that this closed-eye doctrinal approach is getting paper-thin, as an ideal, and is far from being the corner stone of civilization. "These are some of the great paradoxes of history," I said to Sylvia, since she still didn't react anymore. However, I noticed the faint smile returning.
"The same paradox exists now between us," I continued cautiously. "We are caught up in it, because nobody has bothered to resolve that paradox for thousands of years. Marriage has become a paradox that employs the same axioms that have been destructive throughout history, that define emotions as truth, isolation as idyllic, and the acquisition of property, even persons as property, as the highest goal in life. In a sense, we really do regard each other as property in this context. In this property-oriented sphere, any new love must be deemed to be a poison, because it violates the property rights. Thus isolation is deemed OK."
Sylvia raised her hand to stop me.
"No Sylvia, what I say is true. We've been caught up in this a long time ago. The brightest minds have tried to deal with this puzzle, and this at the height of one of the most profound periods of renaissance the world has seen, the Second Renaissance that unfolded with the Peace of Westphalia, the Renaissance that gave us Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms; which also set the stage for the founding of the USA. Even Mozart was puzzled and tried to explore the puzzle. Did you ever sing the role of Susanna in Mozart's opera, The Marriage of Figaro, Sylvia?"
"What has this got to do with anything? You are trying to obscure the issue again," Sylvia interrupted.
"No, I try to clarify it. The tale behind the story sets the stage for one of the most profound explorations in opera, Sylvia. The noble Count falls in love with Susanna, one of the maids in his court. She is to be married to Figaro that day. Nevertheless, the Count wins her consent to meet him in the garden in the moonlight. However, it isn't Susanna, whom he meets there, but his wife disguised as Susanna, to whom he pours out his love with words of such deep feelings, as she hadn't heard from his lips for years, and all this simply because he thought her to be somebody else. Mozart's music powerfully underscores this paradoxical setting, resulting from a mistaken identity. But why is it that the count pours out his affection in such an extraordinary fashion, simply because he fancies her to be somebody other than his wife? Isn't Mozart saying with his magnificent music, that the key to the puzzle is just as magnificent if it is ever found? He didn't cheapen the situation; he elevated it! I think Mozart was close to recognizing what had been missed for so long by society, namely that the principle of the universality of love makes its own claim on us, and when its claim becomes finally and courageously acknowledged, the outcome unfolds into an extraordinary event. The event becomes extraordinary, because a long suppressed element of the nature of love, its universality, is at last being accepted, though it has always been rooted in our heart and Soul, which before had been denied. When this breakthrough happens, love itself is finally coming to light in the way it has been designed to do as a principle of the Universe, that can only truly exist in the universal sense.
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