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Tonight begins the 9th Day of the Omer (Arpil 28-29, 2008).
May that part of me that is broken in Gevurah in Gevurah be healed on this day.
Gevurah means strength, bravery, limitation, death (the ultimate limitation) and more, of course. In it's kabbalistic context it can also be the source of the rule-of-law (another name for this is din—pronounced "dean"). Out-of-control rule of law devolves to evil, which is also sourced in din.
Recently, I've heard remembrances of the events of 40 years ago, particularly the chaos at Columbia University and the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. I was 10 years old then, and my son is ten years old now. I was wondering, which is the scarier time in which to live?
I posed this question to my 81 year-old mother at the seder table and she thought that now was unquestionably the scarier time to live. Other talk got in the way and I didn't have time to question her further. As a regular to this blog, maybe she'll say more in a comment. But I've been thinking about this.
1968 had:
2008 has:
In the brief discussion I did have with my mom that night, in which I argued for 1968 as being scarier, I brought up the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, which I saw on TV the same night it happened. That wasn't a strong memory for her. I, as a ten year-old had supported Eugene McCarthy and was quite interested in the outcome, and was staying up late with my dad. It was very scary.
I think the thing that is the scariest in 2008 is the rice shortage, and that only got into the news a couple weeks ago. In 1968 we had nuclear missiles ready to fire on the Soviet Union and theirs toward us. The purpose of those missiles was to assure total mutual annihilation should one side attack the other. In Vietnam, 16,592 U.S. service-people died, the greatest number of any year in the war. That's compared to the 4,000+ men and women who have died in all five years of the Iraq war.
But what is the point of this question, "Which time is scarier?" Is it to assess my level of guilt for bringing my children into a deeply flawed world? I think what I'm doing is fighting off my sense of overwhelm. Hopefully not to ignore the current problems we have, but not to panic about them either.
[img_assist|nid=216|title=Shai on Day 9 of Omer 2008|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=240|height=236]There is an interesting article from the March, 2007 Atlantic by Jonathan Raush called, A Convenient Truth. It's not naysaying global warming by any means. He simply suggests that panicking doesn't help. He says that Republicans need to face up to the fact that regulations work (his big example is The Clean Air Act) and to Democrats that promoting the idea of impending doom isn't the right tone. The tone he thinks would be more effective is more practical, "let's role up our sleeves and get some work done."
But do people need fear in order to move?
On this night of gevurah in gevurah, may I find new strength and commitment to help solve the problems of our world, in a way that hopefully doesn't necessitate scaring my kids.
Comments
3 comments postedThanks for this post, Shai. Your articulation of the implications and valances of gevurah was helpful to me today -- I drew on your description of this sefirah in leading davenen this morning.
Thinking about fear as a motivator makes me think about yir'ah, fear/awe. Having just read the akedah again this morning, that takes me to the angel's statement to Abraham, "for now I know you are a God-fearing man" -- Abraham had yir'ah. And Abraham names the place Adonai Yir'eh, "God will see" -- not the same root as yir'ah, I don't think, but there's a kind of homophony at work. So vision/seeing, and fear/awe, get tangled up together in my mind.
I'm not sure fear is a good motivator. But awe is. And so is vision.
Rachel, nice rif on "fear." Good fear/awe go along with humility. And if human culture had a lot more of all of those traits maybe we wouldn't be in the environmental mess that we are in! The connection to seeing rings true as well. There are people who have seen our problems coming. Real bravery is acting when a knife isn't over your head. Abraham's biggest moment of bravery was when he himself held the knife!
i want to apply Rachel's last thought to politics, since your post is mostly in the political vein. Come to think of it, even in a nation's scariest moments, vision trumps fear. (I'm thinking of Churchill and the Battle of Britain and present-day Israel's earliest wars.) Fear sort of compounds a nation's problems. I've never considered this before. Thanks, Shai and Rachel.