KNOWLEDGE IS POWER -- G-DLY KNOWLEDGE IS SUPER POWER.
People are searching for an earthly Eden. Whether it’s in a
bigger home, faster car, more extravagant vacations, everyone is seeking and
searching for the ultimate in happiness. Everyone is pitching you their product
as the answer. The answer, is right there
in front of you. However, unfortunately, the mentality is many times, the other
side of the pasture is greener.
A book came out not too long ago, on the story of American
Utopianism. Reformers who refused to take any assumptions about society as a given,
and turned to experimental communities. There were the Shaker colonies in the
late 18th century, the commune in the 1820s, George Ripley’s brook Farm near
Boston in the 1840s’, the Icarian experiment in the 1850s and the Oneida
Perfectionist Society.
One preached heaven on earth, and among other trials,
outlawed the use of rugs a favorite hiding place for devils. One foretold of
global warming and worked out elaborate schemes for harnessing individual
passions. One renounced private property. One professed atheism, based his
reforms on human sympathy and banned religious worship. And one, who tried to
enlist Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne, tended their cattle by day and staged
plays and wrote poetry after hours.
Utopias, reflecting the personalities of their founders.
Finite and biased human beings. Not to mention the Branch Davidians and
Jonestown.
One died in an apoplectic rage when his maid bungled his
breakfast, and one ended in a devastating fire that ended their experiment.
Some committed suicide and some got burned to death. Not much different than
the song artists of late and groupies who die of an over dose and addiction to
drugs and/or the Wall Street titans who end up ripping off everyone’s money.
Another book came out recently lamenting the lack of
innovative growth since the 1970s when annual growth has fallen below 1%
annually. The author wonders if Americas economic glory days are past and will
the best brains of the future build anything resembling our past innovations.
He supports the hypothesis that the Great Depression was a
period of innovation, was good for growth, that the New Deal policies brought
prosperity to a wider swath of Americans which engendered later technological
change. The author tries to explain it all and proposes policy fixes.
The other day as I was walking home from Shabbat services a
thought came to mind.
It is a fact that tall and handsome people get better job
offers than short and especially stubby people. So what’s one to do if he is
short and yearns the admiration and job position of the tall and handsome.
Maybe he would study the daily diet and practices of the
“more successful” fellow, and if more academic and scholarly, study the
practices of the parents who brought this tall and handsome person into the
world. That, might bring him/her to reach his/her “happy” objective. Over the
years, there were people who actually did think this way only to realize their
bitter conclusion after much investment of energy and money that there are
certain things that are pre-ordained.
The field of genetics is a relatively very new discovery and
very much in its infancy. We now know, there are certain areas in life that
predisposes a person to being tall or short, redheaded or blond and blue eyes.
The Great Depression isn’t something that anyone wished for
at the time, and probably even if they could replicate, would not want to,
notwithstanding any innovations that came as a result of that very difficult
period of time.
We live in a society that is forever claiming progress and
evolving, while more children are giving birth to babies, our SAT scores are
falling, more and more people are depressed, the divorce rates are through the
roof, and what concerns people are transgender bathrooms!!!
Look around. Our experiment to find utopia doesn’t seem to
have discovered anything worthwhile. As science continues to discover more and
more of what is in our Universe, our age old Torah and its teachings seem to be
more and more validated and confirmed.
We now know it is a good thing to eat fish and its omega 3
fatty acids. We, are encouraged to eat fish and wine (another good source of
health) at our Shabbat Meals.
We now know it is a very good thing to avoid the
transmission of germs by washing our hands regularly. Our tradition instructs
us to wash our hands before and after we eat and every time we come out of the
bathroom. Stem cells research is the wave of the future. Mysticism told us
thousands of years ago that at the core of everything it is all there in the
one, before it manifests into restricted specifics.
We are learning today in the field of epigenetics that while
certain parts of life are part of G-ds plan, genetics, there is a dimension of
the DNA that is subject to our influence. “Everything is in the hands of G-d,
except for the fear of G-d.”
The conclusion. There is no need for any more failed
experiments when we have a system, communicated in front of millions of people
by G-d Himself, that has successfully stood the test of times - AND WORKS.
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