Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter, which I'll begin to answer
while the question of what we might mean by good and evil,
which you say we have neglected, is uppermost in my mind.
Perhaps it is because what I must and must not do, has
recently been an issue of such immediate, and at times
desperate concern for me, that I have found general
observations unnecessary if not indeed unhelpful.  The
answer, if it is to be meaningful at all, seems to me to
be found not in generality but in detail.  Paradoxically,
then, the fact that ultimately each situation is unique
means that general maxims or laws are inapposite, that
ethical rules cannot apply.  Consequently all ethics
entails an intrinsic contradication by which it is vitiated.

A similar rescission of ethics seems to me to be entailed
in the Biblical injunction: Judge not that ye be not judged,
an imperative to which I am always ready to subscribe. I
note the implication: judgment is application of a law, of
an ideal, and more broadly, of language itself, to a given
situation. The more I write, the more I become aware that
even the purportedly neutral and nonjudgmental recital of
facts constitutes evaluation, a circumstance of which I
became poignantly aware when I complied with the request
to write an obituary for my sister, and of which I am
reminded each time I receive a letter from one of my
sister's friends describing her personality. - That should
be enough, or more than enough, theory for one letter.

On the practical side of life, Klemens, Margaret and I
have decided that the memorial concert for my sister which
we had been planning proves not to be feasible, for several
reasons: The local people who might attend such a concert
would not be comfortable with the absence of formal
religious liturgy such as, in the absence of an officiating
minister, we cannot offer them. Most likely many of them would
be perplexed by the classical music that is congenial to us.
One of Margrit's friends has already suggested recruiting
local musicians to perform "blue grass" or "rap' music.
Finally, the sheer number of Margrit's friends of whom at
least some might be prepared to travel hundreds of miles
to attend such a concert, would create formidable logistic
problems of providing food and lodging which, given the
remoteness of the place, - administratively, it's not even 
a village, - I wouldn't know how to begin to resolve.

Instead I will try to resume writing, will practice patience,
and let time work the transformations by which we all survive.
Stay well and give my best to Ned.

Jochen