29 July 2016

The Ageing Process Leads to Extremism

23 Tamuz 5776
Erev Shabbat Kodesh
Parashat Matot

It didn't used to be like this. In the distant past, from one generation to the next things stayed pretty much the same. For the first 5600 years of human history people got around much the same way - on foot, on the back of an animal, in a vehicle pulled by an animal or in a boat. However, in modern times, in less than one hundred years, mankind went from that to speeding down a highway in an automobile to flying in airplanes and then to blasting into space on the back of a rocket.

Like everything under its domain, time is speeding up. Things are changing so fast that each generation now seems to inhabit a vastly different reality from the one that preceded it. It is not at all uncommon to have four generations living side by side, but in many cases they are living amidst vastly different concepts and perceptions of the world around them.

I have found that given time, the older generation which simply adheres to the norms of its own era will suddenly find that society has moved on and left it behind, leaving it at the extreme edge - on the fringe - of the new one.

If you are a "senior" citizen, your views, which were considered the norm yesterday, will most likely be viewed as extreme by the younger generations today - the younger, the more "extreme". 

Who knew that the ageing process could lead to extremism? (A bit of sarcasm.)

Because of the trend for society's norms to fluctuate this way, we must tether ourselves firmly to the timeless, changeless Torah which is our only sure and solid foundation. If you want to know if you are really extreme or only appear to be extreme based on society's changing mores, look to the Torah and align yourself with the Creator's will.

~ Shabbat shalom ~

5 comments:

  1. Hindsight often leads to wisdom :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. How true. But, the ones really who are 'extreme' are the new generation where normalcy, the fear of G-D, respect for those of the previous generations and just plain old common sense, no longer seem to apply. Without Torah as the Guide for the Jews, and its laws pertaining to the rest of humanity, the world can only go backwards; this is why this is the era Moshiach must come. nili

    ReplyDelete
  3. Best post I've heard lately. Yasher koach. I will be using it and quoting you.
    Shabbat shalom

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dear Devorah Chaya, As an Admirer of your Blog and Daily Reader, I would like to ask you and your readers to consider a possibility. We hear discussions asking "why Mashiach has not come yet". I want to ask you to reflect on this. What if Mashiach IS here, IS aware of his identity, HAS received his Additional Soul, and IS working behind the scenes to bring the Redemption in daily 24/7 consultation with The Creator, Who does not feel that it is YET time to OPENLY reveal the identity of His Servant. Think about this, most people (I am speaking as a person on the Autism Spectrum looking at "normal" people/Neurotypicals) cannot handle almost ANY reality. ANY unvarnished TRUTH not doped up with euphemisms and double and triple talk. "Truth" for Neurotypicals ("norman" people) is belonging to a Group and accepting the doctrines and dogmas of that Group. And NOT CAUSING TROUBLE by asking questions, which turns anyone who does this into an Enemy of the People of the Group. ANY Group (including all of ours). Remember what happened when Orson Welles read "War of the Worlds" on his radio show in 1938? Even though Welles announced at the beginning and end of his show that he was reading a script based on H.G. Well's story, people nationwide WENT CRAZY. Including otherwise SEEMINGLY "normal", "rational", "respectable people" (not just religious crazies in robes with staffs waving their arms and proclaiming the End of the World). If THAT was the reaction to a RADIO SHOW, what will be the reaction to THE REAL THING? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio_drama) "Orson Welles tells reporters that NO ONE CONNECTED WITH THE BROADCAST HAS ANY IDEA IT WOULD CAUSE PANIC (October 31, 1938)"

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dear Devorah Chaya, Another example (tragic, heartbreaking and true). Many years ago we had an Israeli Yemenite lawyer, whose wife was Ashkenazi. He told us the following story. His Ashkenazi wife's Mom was in the Shoah. She thought all her Family had been murdered by the Nazis. One day his wife's Mom, who made aliyah to Eretz Yisrael, was sitting at a bus stop in Israel. Another old lady was sitting next to her. They started to make girl talk. It turned out the other old lady was HER SISTER, whom she thought had been murdered. The shock of this discovery was so OVERWHELMING that his wife's Mom had a stroke and became paralyzed from the neck down. Now think of THE ENTIRE WORLD - 6000 YEARS of mass murder, mass torture, mass theft, mass lying, rape, you name it, we've done it. And it ESCALATES 24/7. The ENTIRE world is waiting. The ENTIRE world is DESPERATELY waiting. See where I am going with this. Do we want to see more people paralyzed by strokes? Or dead of heart attacks. Or going looney? It must come b'adinut (GENTLY). This World cannot handle it otherwise. I mean the Revelation of Mashiach who is (in my Autistic opinion) already here and working behind the scenes. Shalom, Aryeh Yosef

    ReplyDelete