A generation that doesn’t produce a new discovery that doesn’t “create” something new, impoverishes the world.
It certainly does no fulfill Judaism’s primary commitment to the “con-tinuation of the work of creation.”
It is not solely by bringing more children to the world that the world is created but, by helping them to understand how to think.
Jews are constantly discovering how to do things that haven’t been done before, and improving ways of doing things that are already been done.
They are taught from the beginning to be curious and “jump into the fry.”
This is certainly a risky attitude.
Judaism asks- this is the mistake of the clever people” wrote L. Magnus
There are many misses, maybe more than achievements. Yet this is how a Jew is taught to think.
Because, when achievements take
place they are usually incomparable in their magnitude and significance.
There is a special character needed to go with this disposition in life.
Some call it being “stiff-necked,” others “arrogance.” It is the conviction that this people has been chosen not to be allowed the luxury to “lie back.”
There is a Jewish way of thinking. There is a Jewish way of being.
It is demanding and hard, it is also rewarding in that enables those peak moments where a Jew looks back and a little bit ahead and can say:
there was a reason I came to this world, and I fulfilled it.
Realizing one’s reason of temporary existence in the world is the source of …fulfillment.
Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the days in between present an opportunity to review and meditate over one’s near misses and achievements.
They are also a source of inspiration to find those actions that make us human beings.