Giving My Patience a Try

B"H

More news on the fearless patience of Faith: My verbiage and I have become involved in a back-and-forth on the very well-named Passionate Life blog. It has raised some issues that I find interesting, among them the nature of compassion and the missionary instinct, which I think I'll write about at length here, G!d willing. Meanwhile, I find myself asking several questions of the thin air in front of me:

1. Does the Israeli ban on missionary efforts have the effect of dulling an essential Jewish sensitivity to the spiritual dangers of such efforts?

2. Is Consumer Culture fundamentally missionary?

3. If so, is Consumerism therefore fundamentally un-Jewish?

4. Does the burden of Consumer Choice (in particular, its requirement that we be informed) impair our capacity to wait patiently for Revelation?

5. Is it just me, or have we become very picky about what Gifts we will accept from G!d?

Thoughts?