The Jewish New Year is over but the Kol Nidre sermon our rabbi gave has stuck with me. She started with a guessing game – “I’ll read four statements and you guess if they are modern and which are ancient.” One was about environmental destruction that could have been in today’s N.Y. Times but was actually from ancient China. Another, which spoke powerfully about the existential dangers of a new technology, was from ancient Greece – the dangerous tech was writing.
OK, I thought, she’s putting our current crises in context, giving us the long view. A welcome perspective right now. But then she said that every generation of Jews have been afraid that we’re the last…and this is a good thing.
What? Existential fear is a good thing?
She gave us examples of people reacting to their existential fear by writing passionately about what they love in their lives and the world. And these texts, born of panic, have helped weave a powerful web of culture and community across centuries. Our rabbi’s advice – we should all consider using our existential dread to inspire future generations.
That got me excited. What a gift – whenever I feel apocalyptic, I can join a long lineage of people who used their fear to inspire people who, as it turned out, did inherit their world.
Please join me by answering one or more of these questions and send me answer(s). I’ll collect them, add my own and send them anonymously in the next Gazette.
- What do you love so much about your life that you want it preserved for all time?
- What do you dearly love about our world right now?
- What do you want your great-grandchildren to know so badly that it would break your heart if they didn’t?