A Message from Rabbi Maurice (Jan, 2005)

These days, when I stop to think about what I'd like to write in a newsletter article or share in a sermon, the field of possibilities feels especially wide open. There is no obvious topic in the cultural scenes we inhabit (TBI, Jewish, American) that bcommands our shared, ongoing attention. For example, we are in the midst of controversial wars in America and Israel, and yet we aren't focused on these crises. The wars in Iraq and in Israel-Palestine capture the full attention of a small segment of our community, and only the occasional attention of the rest of us.

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Faith and the Progressive Vacuum

And so it is with the other issues that characterize our Jewish and American civilizations today. Hot topics like marriage equality for gays and lesbians, environmental policy, or racial profiling each have dedicated activist followings, but for most of us these subjects grab our attention now and again, and then recede into the background of our busy and fragmented lives.

We live in a moment in which there is an absence of a general progressive vision capturing our attention and focusing our hopes and energies. Many of us make time to work on a progressive cause, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to work, in general, for progress. Personally, this makes me feel sad. As a Jew, I want to work for a holistic tikkun olam (repair of the world) along with people of every religion and background in a spirit of hope and interconnection. But when the different organizations that do good have become as niche-oriented and specialized as cable TV channels, it's easy to doubt whether it's possible to do that.

In my sadness about our current culture of distraction and disjointed attention, I have looked for wisdom. What have others said about such times – times when there is no holistic movement towards bettering the world,times of a progressive vacuum? I have found some comfort and inspiration in two areas of study – one Jewish, one secular: Jewish mysticism and quantum physics.

Before I go further, let me be candid – I have only scratched the surface of both of these areas of study. But I have learned from scholars like Daniel Matt (an expert on the Zohar and a student of physics and astronomy) that there is a sense in both Kabbalah and current physics that a vacuum is not truly empty. From these sources we learn that a vacuum is in fact teeming with possibilities, bubbling and brewing beneath the surface, and waiting for a catalyst to snap something into being.

Perhaps it is faith in the vacuum that we need now. Faith that our patchy work for progress does stimulate the possibilities hidden within the seams of the vacuum, until a new and mighty force emerges from it. Perhaps we need a faith that will support us to keep finding an extra hour or an extra $25 to give to an organization that’s pushing for an admittedly fragmented piece of justice. Or to say it in terms that honor Tu B'Shvat, the Birthday of the Trees (Jan. 25th), perhaps we need a faith that the trees we keep planting and watering in small groves of justice will grow tall enough that their branches will eventually span the gaps between the groves and touch one another, and in this way a new progressive movement will be born, strong as a forest and nurtured by roots in many fields.

Rabbi Maurice