Less anxiety today also- as the news is still uneven about what is happening and what is needed to mitigate this deadly disease- we are in Palm Desert in our house here and the sense of happy and secure that I experience here makes me less anxious. Harriet and I have been talking about who we are without work, hanging out with friends, family, etc. I deeply understand Rabbi Heschel’s teaching about despair. In her book, “Essential Writings”, Dr. Susannah Heschel has a piece from an unpublished manuscript of her father’s, speaking of arriving at the gate of the seventies of the 20th Century says: “The supreme question is: How does the road sign read: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Or: To despair is to betray; at the end His mercy will prevail”.
Abandoning all hope is easy and allows us to be victims without responsibility. Unfortunately this has become a theme of blaming others and not taking responsibility for what is happening - from the tops of our government to our kids at home. Rabbi Heschel teaches us that “in a free society, some are guilty all are responsible” We all need to take responsibility for ourselves and for those around us and for “the stranger in our midst” as the Torah tells us.
How can we despair?? I ask myself. The Jewish people have been on the brink of extinction forever, yet we have persevered and we are resilient. We can look to our history and find the heroes are all regular people, Jewish History, American History and World History. We all can be heroic by not despairing and keeping hope alive- will you join me in this endeavor?