How to Gain Perspective?

The view from the mountain

On this Shabbat evening and the evening of Shavuot holiday, beginning tomorrow night, we continue to strive for peace and the next level of reconciliation among all people. We resolve to not give up on working toward making the world better for all inhabitants. On Shavuot we celebrate the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. We glimpse from the high point and ask not to shrink our hope into the painful details and despair. We respond with kindness and contemplate wisdom. 

Sad about the violence in Tel Aviv I am reminded how fragile is the calm and our sense of freedom. I’m also encouraged by how caring, courageous and resilient the response has been. I reach to one of the luminaries of Jewish thought, Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz z’l for inspiration.

He taught there is no religious meaning in history. There is only an endless struggle for justice with a desire to help alleviate human suffering and fight against natural disasters and human made disasters. This endless effort gives our lives meaning. The human courage and ingenuity to invent and reinvent ourselves, endlessly, is the story of history. We are all in this eternal process together.

Thankfully, the impulse to help is greater than the urge to destroy. We mostly focus on the good.

May we resolve to be the champions of peace in the eternal struggle for the good. May we choose inclusive over exclusive as we remember our deep interconnectedness. May we hold up caring for all humans over religious righteousness which separates and causes us more suffering than we inevitably and naturally have to endure. 

Listen to Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz in his own words here: clip

Retreat at Kripalu with Rabbi Sigal