{"id":39004,"date":"2017-10-20T16:15:07","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T22:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=39004"},"modified":"2017-10-20T16:15:07","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T22:15:07","slug":"off-the-pulpit-we-are-making-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/off-the-pulpit-we-are-making-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"Off the Pulpit: We Are Making Progress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By RABBI DAVID WOLPE<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">That is why we should marvel at the tremendous progress human beings have made. Yes, we have a million problems, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-35320 size-thumbnail lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-350x350.jpg 350w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 150px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 150\/150;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-35320 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-350x350.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a>Good is more laborious than bad. One wrecking ball can destroy a structure it took months to build; one driver can snarl traffic for hours in spite of thousands of good drivers; as Napoleon said to his brother, &#8220;Remember, it takes ten campaigns to create esprit de corps which can be destroyed in an instant.&#8221;a single terrible war can wipe out centuries of advance (see the first sentence above). Nonetheless, child mortality and extreme poverty have been cut in half in recent years and humanity&#8217;s ethical awareness has made remarkable strides forward.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Everyone acknowledges that we still have very far to go. But it matters to see how far we have come because inaction cannot be excused by: &#8220;it doesn&#8217;t make a difference anyway.&#8221; Indeed it does, and we can change the world &#8212; are changing the world &#8211; step by step. As Napoleon also said, &#8220;More battles are lost by loss of hope than by loss of blood.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t lose hope &#8211; goodness is a battle worth fighting.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Off%20the%20Pulpit%3A%20We%20Are%20Making%20Progress\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[8790,8795,8788,608],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39004"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39005,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39004\/revisions\/39005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}