An Israeli Funeral

Every day we observant-type Jews pray for a messiah, a person, probably, who will bring the world out of darkness. I always ask for a few serious miracles to accompany that. 

That we believe this, well, it is a personal thing, but it is what they are singing in the video above, a funeral. In America you don't see this. But here we see the mother of a fallen soldier, Binyamin Meir Airley, leaving her son's gravesite, praying as she walks between two lines of friends and family (this is customary everywhere), Binyamin a cousin of a cousin of mine. 

Following the funeral is the shiva, the 7 days of mourning for first degree relatives. We say, when we leave them after a visit:

 המקום ינחם אתכם בתוך שאר אבלי ציון וירושלים  .

Hamakom (G-d) should comfort you among the gates of the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

Until I saw this video, honest, I'm not sure I ever really understood what that meant. 

To happier times!

therapydoc 

All the World Wants the Jews Dead

An article in Esquire, 1974 

Just the title of that article:  All the World Wants the Jews Dead,  is enough to make a Jew worried, depressed.  We should all be emotional wrecks. 

Cynthia Ozick wrote it in 1974 following the Yom Kippur War, a war intent upon Jewish annihilation. 

Jews should have been depressed then, for sure, but after a solid victory they waved such realities away. They are born to a greater purpose, this is the narrative they live by. We are different. Our fate is different. 

Cynthia Ozick is brilliant. 

Me? I'm energized, writing letter after letter to dean after dean to combat antisemitism on college campuses. It can feel a hopeless cause, at this point, but it is a cause and it gives me something to do when I wake up at four a.m.

More on that another day, fighting antisemitism, I mean, not my wake time. 

I'm overwhelmed, honestly, with the need for my services here in the United States, am so busy. Then I imagine the workload for therapists in Israel, how the need must be extraordinary. Trauma following a massacre, the sounds of missiles and the Iron Dome, all that rushing to the bomb shelter, it is bad for kids, bad for parents. Bad for everyone. 

Things apparently haven't improved for the Jews, they were never really good except for a few years. We call these respites our Golden Age, Golden Ages, never long enough. 

Not that we're sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves. No time for that. (Smiley emoticon) here. 

therapydoc

Hamas Propaganda-Stop the showing of this film

There's a documentary, Israelism, making rounds in community theaters and on college campuses,  sheer propaganda. It's biased and antisemitic. It has to be stopped. People will believe that Israel is an apartheid state despite two million thriving Arabs living ad prospering in Israel.

Here's what I wrote to a few dozen college deans across the country. Feel free to copy and paste, change, whatever, and send it off to ANYONE who might be sympathetic to this problem, persuasive, propaganda. Lies. . 

November 17, 2023

 

Dear Dean So and So,

 

I'm writing as a Jew and an academic, perhaps as an academic first. I understand the film Israelism is making the rounds in higher education. I am writing to urge you to personally censure a film that strongly insinuates Israel is an apartheid state, as opposed to a home to many, including two million Arabs living, working, yes thriving in Israel as physicians, nurses and judges. Israel is a free country.  

There is some important history of the land. I will keep it short. 

 

Yearning to return to the Promised Land Jews purchased property from the Turks in the twenty years previous to World War I.  Zionists drained swamps, desalinated water, planted orange grows, and developed a commercially viable environment. All the while living under the persistent threat of terrorism, deadly sneak attacks at night. 

When the British colonized Israel as a spoil of World War I to protect their oil interests, they invited hundreds of thousands of Arabs in neighboring lands to emigrate, to come to Israel to work, protect their oil interests, keep the Suez Canal open. Terrorism increased exponentially. 

 

After a horrific massacre in Hebron, a pogrom similar to the attack on October 7, wiping out an entire religious community, Jews armed themselves, readied for what would be the War of Independence in 1947, a war that began with an Arab terrorist attack that killed five Jewish people. 

 

The difference between then and now is that now we have the video. Hamas journalists taped vicious gang-rapes, gleeful dancing with body parts (breasts carved from brutally murdered women), decapitated heads propped up on guns waving in the air. Congress only just saw this footage on November 15, 2023, the day of the rally to show support for Israel in Washington. 

 

In the Quran it is written that the murder of just one infidel (a Christian will do), dying in the effort, earns the murderer an immediate place in the next life, a much better life.

 

Terrorism against Jews is and always has been about this, killing infidels no matter where they live. It is not about sharing land, not about apartheid, not about a desire for a parallel Arab state, or equality. It is about death to those who do not worship Muhammed. Thus we had 9-11, and they threaten that we will see more.

The Jewish State refuses to make annihilation easy. Shame on Israel, I suppose. But the bottom line is that Jews may be many things, suicidal we are not. Their mantra, straight from the Torah reads: Therefore choose life. (I did say I am writing as a Jew).

 

The idea is that we choose life. This is why this war feels interminably long, slow. The Israeli army takes every precaution to safeguard the lives of civilians rather than bulldoze or bomb institutions that house innocents as human shields.

 

I urge you to persuade your university’s administration to cancel the showing of Israelism, to be on the right side of history. This is not about free speech. The film is propaganda, the same sort of thing propagated in Nazi Germany. Never Again really is Now. Civilization has sunk to the lowest common denominator once again. Hate and violence are glorified. 

Higher education is a place to come to learn, not a stage for political agendas. Perhaps that’s just an opinion. But I urge you not to watch silently as schools become pawns, caught in the upswell of emotion driven by individuals who value death and the elimination of those who disagree with their beliefs. If we really believe in the value of diversity then this type of dogma—this time in the guise of antisemitism—Jew hating—should not have a place at the microphone. 

 

Begin by censuring Israelism —slick, engaging, watchable—very dangerous propaganda.  

Thank you,

therapydoc 

Free Palestine? No Thanks

The Western Wall

 Free Palestine? No thanks. This is a YouTube video referenced in a previous post. I added a few things and didn't give over his whole talk but you can visit Oren at travelingisrael.com

Here's some of what he says: 

 

It isn’t as if the history of the Holy Land hasn’t been documented for over three thousand years. (Think the Bible). Thousands of books, mostly about Jews and the land of Israel. Discovered in archeological digs are Jewish coins, Jewish texts, and Jewish artifacts. Nothing about a Palestinian people. 

 

The Christian and or Muslim link is based on the Jewish link. Jesus was a Jewish man. People who eventually subscribed to Islam essentially misappropriated Jewish sites.

Think of directional prayer.  Jews, before they pray, look at the sun to determine East. We pray to the east because Jerusalem is East of Chicago. Muslims have traditionally prayed toward Cairo, Damascus or Bagdad, and of course, Mecca, turning their backs to Jerusalem. These are their holy sites. Jerusalem only became important during wars against Christians and Jews. Conquer it, then neglect it. 

 

Jerusalem is mentioned some 600 times in the Jewish bible. Not once in the Quran.  

 

There is discussion in the Quran of Muhammad having ascended from Al-Aqsa. Al-Aqsa translates to the most faraway mosque. Who knows where that might be, but we know that the holiest place in the world to the Jewish people is Jerusalem. The Temples, two of them, built at the top of Mount Moriah, were both destroyed by invaders. First the Babylonians leveled it and exiled the Jews, then the Romans. This place, now a mosque but known to us as the Temple Mount, is where Abraham went to perform God’s will (sacrificing Isaac), well before the Temples existed. Turns out he didn’t have to do that. So it is holy to the Jews from the very beginning of Jewish history. Yet the Muslims control this mosque and bar most Jews from visiting the site. The closest we can get is the Western (Wailing) Wall.

 

It was the Romans who changed the name of the region from Judea to Palestina, intending to 

disconnect the Jews from their land. Then 700 years later Muslims invaded and colonized the Land of Israel. This is when they determined that Muhammad ascended to heaven from the place where the Jewish temples stood. 

 

You may be thinking, how crazy is that?  Muslims believing that Muhammad went to heaven on the holiest spot in the world for the Jews and yet this is not written in the Quran? 

Nothing, apparently, makes a place more holy than competition with another religion. The Muslims took the place holy to the Jews for 1500 years prior to the existence of Islam and made it their holiest place.

 

In the Waqd the Muslim authorities say that this is the location of the Temple of King Solomon. Meaning, they admit is.

 

When we get married, at the end of the ceremony we sing a sad song, the bottom line, that we will not forget Jerusalem. Jews have good memories. We have almost always lived in Jerusalem, even after exiles, even under the harshest of circumstances. 

 

The Islamization of Jewish sites is a real thing. In Hebron, one of the four cities holy to the Jews is the Cave of the Patriarchs where according to tradition Abraham was buried. To humiliate the Jews they could not enter, could walk up to the 7^th step only.  When Israel liberated Hebron in 1967 this changed. For the first time in 700 years, the place where the matriarchs and patriarchs are buried became accessible. This is the second holiest place for Jews. You may have heard of the slaughter of Jews in Hebron in 1929, a pogrom similar to what happened on October 7, 2023. The hate, the violence against the Jewish people never seems to quit, despite their contributions to humanity. I think I counted them somewhere on this blog, but just google this.

 

19^th Century and Zionism

So, we have this thing. It is a goal. Move to Israel, live in the homeland, make Aliyah, a word that means to go up. Jews have always migrated here. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries we came from all over the world. Europe, Africa, Yemen in small numbers due to the harsh conditions. But there has always been a steady flow. In the 1850’s there were more Jews than Muslims in Jerusalem. 

 

Even before the start of the Zionist movement there were dozens of Jewish settlements in the land of Israel. They bought land, did not steal it. In the last decades of the Ottoman Empire the Turks sold land to many European powers. Many settled in Israel to speed up the 2^nd coming of Jesus. No groups in Israel called themselves Palestinian. 

 

Before 1948 Arabs terrorized the Jews in Israel, this is nothing new, and destroyed Jewish cities like Hebron. Communities such as B’nei Yehuda, Kfar Saba, Kfar Uria, Ruhama, Hartuv, Hulda, Motza, Poria, Bet Shan, many rebuilt. Arabs also killed Christians. John Steinback’s uncle was murdered on his farm outside Jaffa, his wife and daughter sexually assaulted.  Mark Twain and Herman Melville wrote about how Arabs had neglected the land, their violence. 

 

From 1917 until 1948 the British and the French controlled the Middle East. Nobody liked them, not Jews, not Arabs, but the British needed to ensure they had oil from Iraq via Haifa and that the Suez Canal remained open. So they were pro-Arab. Colonialism is very fashionable these days but it is in the lexicon. Reclaiming your country is apparently colonialism now, if you believe the professors teaching students on college campuses today. 

 

The British Empire determined the borders, called this homeland Palestine, the Roman name for it and invented two nations that had never existed before, Palestine and Jordan. 

 

Another fact that tends to be ignored is that hundreds of thousands of Arabs from Egypt, Syria, and other places entered in the 1930’s and 40’s to work for the British. These are the people now seen as native Palestinians. At least half the Gazans came there during the British Mandate. 

 

They still have the right to self-determination. But when the UN proposed a division of the Land of Israel, just before the war that made Israel a State, the Arabs refused it and started that war, a war to eliminate the Jews. The morning after the Partition Plan the Palestinians attacked a bus, murdered five Jews, starting the war. When a city fell to Arab hands not one Jew was spared. After 15 months of fighting five invading armies and local Arabs, the Jews won. 

 

700,000 people were displaced as Many Arab villages were destroyed, 700,000 people displaced. This is what happens in a war determined to wipe out neighbors.  At the same time 800,000 Jews are brutally expelled from Muslim countries yet little is written about these pogroms which included 14 million Germans, 14 million Hindus, Muslims (the wrong kind, I guess), Ukranians, Armenians, Poles, people from the Balkans, and naturally Jews.

 

Yes, there’s so much more. But let’s stop here. Let’s just say that Israel has learned that this is not about sharing. Fooled me once, shame on you. Twice? Shame on me. I think that's how the expression goes.

 

therapydoc

Natan Sharansky and Antisemitism and Universities, College Campuses

 Hidden Heroes: One Woman's Story of Resistance and Rescue in the Soviet Union, Pamela Braun Cohen

My friend Pamela Cohen wrote the book Hidden Heroes: One Woman's Story of Resistance and Rescue in the Soviet Union. Pam knows quite a bit about Jewish refuseniks and Natan Sharansky, one of the many held in Soviet prisons. He lives in Israel today. I had to share his important analysis of antisemitism on college campuses.  

Tablet Magazine

October 31, '23

Never Again Is Now

A call for a mass rally in Washington in support of Jewish students and Israel

BY NATAN SHARANSKY

Twenty years ago, upon returning to Israel from a trip to American university campuses as the minister in charge of combating antisemitism, I reported my opinion to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that U.S. colleges had become the beachhead of the battle for the next generation of American Jewry. For the first time, in an atmosphere of growing political opposition to the state of Israel, more and more Jewish students at leading universities—Harvard, Columbia, Rutgers, and others—told me in private conversations that they were afraid to voice their sympathy with the Jewish state, out of concern that doing so would damage their academic success and future careers.

At the time, I was startled and deeply concerned to see such self-censorship—not in the Moscow of my youth, but in the most powerful country in the free world. I was also surprised then that few Jewish organizations felt a responsibility to get involved in the life of students on campuses.

Much has changed since then. Today, practically every serious American Jewish organization runs programs designed to prepare Jewish students for campus life, including giving them the tools to fight against antisemitism, and to strengthen their connection to Jewish identity and Israel while they are there. In addition, Israeli shlichim, or fellows, have been added to strengthen Hillel teams at almost a hundred universities across the country.

Nevertheless, anti-Zionism—the new antisemitism—is a permanent feature of daily life at American colleges. What is more, Israel’s opponents are equipped with new intellectual weapons: postcolonialist and other “critical” theories, wokeness, microaggressions, and various other ways of conveying the simplistic neo-Marxist idea of a permanent struggle between oppressors and oppressed, in which the oppressed are always right and oppressors wrong, and should be silenced and attacked by any means possible. In this narrative, “white colonial” Israel is always the oppressor, while the Palestinians are always oppressed.

There were many efforts over the past two decades to fight the expressions of this pernicious narrative at universities. They included opposition to the constant flow of resolutions supporting BDS and a push to recognize the connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. There were ups and downs, successes and failures, but the struggle continued.

Despite these long-standing realities, however, no one was truly prepared for the reaction of leading American universities to the horrific events of Oct. 7, when Hamas sent its jihadi terrorists into Israeli territory to kill some 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and take over 230 more hostage. Just as Israelis were shocked by the failure of our intelligence and political leadership to anticipate and prevent such a catastrophe, American Jews and their allies have been shocked by the failure of university leaders to unequivocally condemn the rape, torture, mutilation, and brutal murder of innocent children, families, and elderly people by an organization that has made no secret of its genocidal intentions against the Jewish people.

Instead of unanimous condemnation, what we have heard from college campuses is the full justification of this pogrom—the worst in modern memory—in statements by campus organizations and in demonstrations celebrating Hamas. According to the worldview that guides these deplorable responses, voiced repeatedly by students and their professors, Israel must be blamed for everything because fighting against the Zionist oppressor is how the worldwide struggle against colonialism begins.

With this, the parallel between these contemporary critical theories and the Marxism-Leninism of my Soviet youth has received new proof. Recall that the major pogroms in Eastern Europe started in 1881, when Tsar Alexander II was killed and his murder blamed on Jews. The organization behind the murder, Narodnaya Volya (the People’s Will), was a predecessor of the Communist Party, with both an extremist wing responsible for the killing and a more moderate wing that spread propaganda to the people. When the awful pogroms started, the latter tried to defend these aggressions by explaining that this was how the social movement of the masses—and with it the worldwide revolution—would begin. They argued that their target was not the Jews per se, but an entire oppressive system, which their movement sought to overthrow in the name of justice and liberation.

The rationalization of today’s Hamas sympathizers on campus are remarkably similar to these. And if the connection seemed largely theoretical before, today it is practical, articulated and even acted upon not by extremists but in the heart of the academy. While Jewish organizations were busy fighting tactical battles against BDS and other localized affronts, we failed to see that terrorism received an intellectual rehabilitation in the most prestigious segments of American society. Consider the words of prominent feminist scholar Judith Butler, who in 2006 proclaimed at the University of California, Berkeley, that “understanding Hamas [and] Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important.”

Even the presidents of leading universities—unlike the president of the United States—have refused to denounce Hamas’s evil, speaking instead about violence on both sides. Those who protest microaggressions are unable or unwilling to differentiate between the most awful forms of pogrom and the legitimate self-defense of the attacked.

As a result, if 20 years ago to be openly and proudly pro-Israel was bad for students’ careers, today it is a threat to their physical safety. The number of antisemitic events, including physical assaults, has skyrocketed since Oct. 7, and campuses are now flooded with the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” For those unfamiliar with geography, this means that there is no place for a Jewish state on the world map.

Israel is currently fighting a war for its survival. We realize that Hamas crossed a red line on Oct. 7 and that for the state to continue to exist, we have to win. In fact, we know that we are fighting not only for ourselves but for the future of the free world, to preserve the values of democracy and freedom in the face of an organization that would destroy them completely.

In a different way, the United States is also fighting a war for its survival. American universities crossed a red line in the aftermath of Oct. 7. The struggle for campuses is therefore a struggle for America and its values—for an America that is liberal, that supports free speech and human rights, and that protects all of its citizens, regardless of race or creed, from vicious, lawless assault.

In 2015, following the terrorist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and on Jewish targets in Paris, I asked the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut whether he thought there was a future for Jews in Europe. He responded that he could not answer my question directly, since he was not part of the organized Jewish community, but that he worried there may not be a future for Europe in Europe—that is, for a Europe that cherishes liberal values and is willing to defend them in the face of barbaric assault.

If there is to be a future for America in America, it is time to step up in defense of its core values, and in this American Jews can play an important role. Let us start with a March of One Million: students, parents, Jewish organizations, and allies coming together in support of academic freedom and against a primitive ideology that silences truth and justifies murderous rampages as a form of liberation.

We have done this before: In 1987, hundreds of thousands of Jews marched to Washington, D.C., to support their brethren in the Soviet Union, chanting the slogan “Let my people go.” In 2002, thousands rallied in front of the U.S. Capitol in opposition to terrorism and support for the Jewish state.

Only this time we will be fighting not only for our own people, but for America as well—for the values it represents and for its continued role as a beacon of light around the world.

therapydoc

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You and\

Europe’ Great Mistake

My b-i-l passed this on to me, a must read.

 *Europe died at Auschwitz*

Who or what really died at Auschwitz? Here's an interesting viewpoint. The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez and published in a Spanish newspaper. It doesn't take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe - and possibly to the rest of the world.

 

*I walked down the streets in Barcelona and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz !! We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims in the past 4 decades* !!. 

*In Auschwitz, we burned a group of people who represented culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who made great contributions to the world, and thus changed the world* .

 

*The contribution of today’s Jewish people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. Look at any donors’ board at any symphony, art museum, theatre, art gallery, science centre, etc.  You will see many, many, Jewish surnames. These are the people who were burned. Of the 6,000,000 who died, how many would have grown up to be gifted musicians, doctors, artists, philanthropists* ?

 

*And under the pretence of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the diseases of racism and bigotry, Europe opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride* .

 

*They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free money from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts* .

 

*And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs. What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe* .

 

*Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving in to it* .

 

*It is now approximately seventy years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, twenty million Russians, ten million Christians, and nineteen-hundred Catholic priests who were murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated. Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth' - it is imperative to make sure the world "never forgets."*

 

*How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Centre 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States? If our Judeo-Christian heritage is offensive to Muslims, they should pack up and move to Iran, Iraq or some other Muslim country* .

 

*We must wake up America, England, Australia & Europe before it's too late* !!.

 

" *If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools* ”.

Please do not just delete this message;  It will take only a minute to pass this along.

This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world 🌎 ♥️🌹🙏

Why Not Asking for Help is Dangerous

To a therapist, the best take from the Jerusalem Post video with Mosab Hassan Yousef (yesterday's) is his parting shot, the punchline. The moral of the story.

Mosab Hassan Yousef teaches me something

A Quick One:

We had guests last Friday night. FD and I had flown in that afternoon and hustled to get dinner ready before candle lighting. 

It wasn't that we didn't have help, we did. 

My sisters-in-law and FD's brother picked up dinner, delicious challah and desserts. They set the table. 

But you know how it is, so many last minute things to do before Shabbas, lights to set, configuring the oven to Shabbas mode. It is easier, sometimes, just to do these things yourself than to explain how. 

So I was tired by the time we got to dinner, Traveling kills me. By tea I was ready to crash. When it came to tea I grabbed the cakes in the kitchen and a cup of hot tea and summarily spilled it on FD's arm. He acted like I shot him.

True, I do want to learn how to shoot a gun, but trust me, I don't intend to buy one any time soon.  

Ever since Friday night he's been joking about being afraid of me. 

Upon the tragic splash my sister-in-law immediately chastised me, lectured: 

You do too much. You should have asked for help. 

My thoughts are on process. This is how a therapist thinks. Timing is everything. She criticizes me when I already feel badly about the spill. Let it be known in my defense, that FD didn't even have to rinse off with cold water. He sat there smiling. Well, not smiling, grimacing. But I don't like his sister in this moment. I say nothing. You do too much doesn't feel helpful. 

I know I am being unnecessarily defensive and deserve the 'blame'. But therapists hate blame and criticism. in social relationship. These are odious communications. This a judgement, too, I know. For the record I adore my sister-in-law. We're good.

I ask FD if I can get some ice, not worried about his white shirt. He says he's fine. I believe him. If not, ice would be an immediate go-to in our family. Ice is magic.

Only much later, yesterday, following that last video on the blog, does it occur to me that my sister-in-law is correct. I rarely ask for help and should. Not asking for help can be a bad thing. Nobody is omnipotent.

But face it, a lot of people successfully multi-task and many of us do things we never thought we could do with the help of a YouTube DIY video

Why should people ask for help? Isn't this a country that values independence and autonomy?

Socially, asking for help works on many levels. Asking for help does not constitute dependency. We're not crazy about dependency around here. We've talked about this before on this blog and will do so again in another post. Promises promises. Did you hear that a 69-year old man, Jewish, was beaten by a microphone at a pro-Israel rally in Los Angeles and died? For Heaven's sake. But let's stay on topic.

Why asking for help is a good thing

1. It makes other people feel good when they help us. 

Usually they feel good being helpful. Being helpful give us self-esteem. Also, people like to help.

2. Two heads are better than one. 

The outcome might be a lot better. Four arms better than two.  Help is efficient. Tasks go faster. How many times have I thought, I wish there were two of me. But then I think again. 

3. Help from someone else might help protect ourselves. 

Sometimes we take on tasks that are physically taxing, even dangerous. 

Falling off the step stool could be nasty. Dropping a sofa on a toe, ditto. 

4. It's sociable. 

People like doing things together, making it a we project, more credit to go around. Being able to say, WE did this is a way to bond, fosters brotherhood (sisterhood, they-hood). 

5. Most important, perhaps, relying on ourselves is sometimes actually risky.

On that note, let there be peace in the family, peace on earth.

therapydoc