This past week has seen too much horrible news, with the terrible bombings at the Boston Marathon at the forefront. Once again terrorism has struck our country and we are all reeling from the news. While we are all equally horrified, we all react differently. Please allow me to share with you my thoughts – I would love to hear yours.
Let's start at the very beginning. The biblical narrative of creation describes a world that was initially perfect, an idyllic Garden of Eden. Then, due to the eating of the Tree of Knowledge, the world became a lot more challenging. Suddenly we have to work for a living, we have to deal with pain in childbirth and child rearing, and we have to deal with death.
Whatever your perspective on this narrative may be, there is deep wisdom embedded within it: We understand that although the world we inhabit may be tough and harsh, and despite being faced with senseless pain and suffering, essentially this world has the potential for good. After all, that’s the way it was initially created.
It is important that we understand both aspects well. If we try ignoring the harsh realities of this world, then our reaction to experiencing pain and suffering is confusion, Why do bad things happen? On the other hand, if we resign ourselves to the fact that this world is dark and painful, we become cold, callous and indifferent.
Currently, we live in a state of Galut, exile. This means that the barometer for what is good and desirous is not synonymous with what is holy and true. The time of Galut is likened to a dream in which things that don’t make sense can happen. Galut means that there is evil in the world and we have to recognize it as such. But Galut doesn’t leave us without options – on the contrary, we have the ability to reinstate this world to its original, idyllic, Garden-of-Eden state.
When we recognize that the current state of the world is such, we don’t react to tragedy with why, rather, we react with what.
What can I do to bring this world one step closer to the way it was intended?