A Message From Our Editor March 2023
Written by Penina Taylor
I never understood luddites – people who shun technology. I’ve always been of the basic opinion that technology is good and that it enhances our lives in positive ways. Even though we suffer from too much information, decision fatigue, and the lack of ability to know what’s really the truth any more, I still feel that too much information is better than living in a bubble. Until recently.
Maybe I’m just getting old, or maybe it’s that I’m an idealist, but whenever I actually go to read the news nowadays, whether it’s about what’s happening in the US or in Israel, I immediately want to shut down the screen and go and hide in a bubble somewhere – or a log cabin in the woods, if that were possible. Everything is so polarized. “Right” and “Left” are derogatory terms used like weapons to throw at anyone we don’t agree with. Rabbi Sacks, Ztza”l, with the vision of a prophet described in his book, Not in God’s Name how this is what happens as people form groups of “us” and “them”. The answer, he says, is a role reversal – that we must walk in their shoes, if we are to understand “them”. That’s why we had to spend time in Egypt – so that God could tell us to be kind to the stranger, because we were once strangers in a strange land.
But with no disrespect intended towards the amazing Rabbi Sacks, Ztza”l, I think that we need to go one step further – it’s not good enough to understand “them” and be kind to “them”, we must strive to make “them” “us”. Easier said than done, I know. And I fear what it would take for humanity to see every human being as “us”, or even every Jew to see every Jew as “us” regardless of what they look like or how they practice (or don’t) Judaism.
What I do know is that the prophets of old, specifically the prophet Micah, have given us the key that is at least a beginning to the process, and I think that if each and every one of us were to strive for that, we would begin to see a huge change in the world we live in.
“He has told you, O man, what is good, and what Hashem requires of you: Only to do justice, to love kindness (or mercy) and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
Justice, kindness and humility are the recipe for healing the world. May we see it in our days.
