We choose whether or not to take an optimistic view of the world.
I had a professor in college who was lecturing about the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. He said, you can read the novel as highly optimistic and affirming - the world is making progress. Or you can read it as pessimistic and cynical. The world continues to repeat its mistakes and might even be getting worse.
On the holiday of Shavuot we celebrate God’s revelation to our people. A classic view is that it happened on Mt. Sinai at a specific time - there was thunder and lighting, it was very very frightening, and then the revelation was basically complete.
One of the implications of this view is that the further we get from Sinai, the more generations elapse, the less insight we have into what God wants. This concept is sometimes expressed in the phrase מיעוט הדורות miyut hadorot - the diminishment of the generations.
I find this view depressingly pessimistic. The notion that as time goes on we have less and less insight, we are further away from understanding the truth. To paraphrase Paul Simon, we are dumber than we once were and smarter than we’ll be.
This is not the only view of God's revelation to us, however. There is also a view which says that God reveals the divine will to us קמעא קמעא kim’ah, kim’ah - a little bit at a time. The revelation didn’t all occur at once, it occurs over time, like a cosmic time-release capsule.
I find this view considerably more affirming, more optimistic. It suggests that the world is improving, that there is progress being made.
I’ve spoken to number of people about what is happening in Israel lately and depending on who I talk to, it leans optimistic or pessimistic in terms of what people emphasize and what overall narratives they proffer.
I had a professor in college who was lecturing about the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. He said, you can read the novel as highly optimistic and affirming - the world is making progress. Or you can read it as pessimistic and cynical. The world continues to repeat its mistakes and might even be getting worse.
On the holiday of Shavuot we celebrate God’s revelation to our people. A classic view is that it happened on Mt. Sinai at a specific time - there was thunder and lighting, it was very very frightening, and then the revelation was basically complete.
One of the implications of this view is that the further we get from Sinai, the more generations elapse, the less insight we have into what God wants. This concept is sometimes expressed in the phrase מיעוט הדורות miyut hadorot - the diminishment of the generations.
I find this view depressingly pessimistic. The notion that as time goes on we have less and less insight, we are further away from understanding the truth. To paraphrase Paul Simon, we are dumber than we once were and smarter than we’ll be.
This is not the only view of God's revelation to us, however. There is also a view which says that God reveals the divine will to us קמעא קמעא kim’ah, kim’ah - a little bit at a time. The revelation didn’t all occur at once, it occurs over time, like a cosmic time-release capsule.
I find this view considerably more affirming, more optimistic. It suggests that the world is improving, that there is progress being made.
I’ve spoken to number of people about what is happening in Israel lately and depending on who I talk to, it leans optimistic or pessimistic in terms of what people emphasize and what overall narratives they proffer.
