. . . streaming . . . investing . . . wrought with anger . . . Facebook . . . identity . . . an expression of forgiveness . . . Jew hatred . . . what does it all mean?
A decade.
Diversity beyond grasp.
A mosaic, a canvas too large to embrace it all.
Trump . . . Merkel . . . Netanyahu . . . Obama . . . A Nobel for Dylan . . . a World Series for the Cubs . . . a nuclear deal for Iran . . . assassination of bin Laden . . . journalists who no longer want to be dispassionate, only partisan . . .
Is it possible to identify overarching items in an impossible-to-grasp mosaic of reality? Do any discrete items unify or dominate or drive it all?
China stumbles, a bit . . . Big men, like Weinstein, fall . . . The EU dream is challenged by Brexit . . . Obesity grows . . . the Amazon rainforests shrink . . .
I. Technology
The first item that strikes us as either controlling or reflected in virtually all of the numberless hues and shapes on the canvas of this past decade is . . .
And what a decade: The march of climate extremes . . . the reduction in the dominance of the once seemingly invincible oil economies of the Middle East . . . the passing of colossal luminaries from Elie Wiesel to Toni Morrison . . . the emergence of companies that make the once legendary Standard Oil of yesterdecade look puny . . .
. . . the first item is technology. Look at those companies: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft. Apple. Look at all those results: WhatsApp. Tablet. Video. Post. Algorithm. Non-stop. Look at a different result: The wealth is unimaginable. The currency is tens or hundreds of billions of dollars (how quaint the once mighty “millionaire” sounds). The reach is beyond national, the reach is global. The impact is all pervasive and all intrusive. The consequence of all this communication and all these almost instantly available goods is, ironically: Sharpened loneliness. Spiking inarticulateness. Spiking suicide rate. Attention-span death.
It is the technology that interweaves just about everything, except for the artist’s vision (and even that is so often driven by new electronic communication or instrumentation), the spiritual adept’s teaching (and even that is so often driven by access to once inaccessible texts and teachings, now provided at the drop of a finger on a computer screen) and the athlete’s discipline (and even that is so often nurtured by technology-driven feedback). Indeed, technology drives so much of our changing world . . .
. . . fracking . . . dieting . . . diagnostic medical testing . . . investing . . . streaming . . . impeaching . . . electronic books, dashboards and oven settings . . . protesting . . . flying (and MAX crashing) . . . retiring . . . playing . . . firefighting . . . rapping . . . Uber . . . watching any TV show any time, any day, you want . . .
. . . this item, technology, brings us virtually every imaginable detail about the famous and the infamous . . . Putin . . . Zuckerberg . . . Clinton . . . mass shooters . . . Zelensky . . . W. Bush . . . popes . . . FBI heads . . . Snowden . . . Steve Jobs . . . Yazidis . . . Kurds . . . Criminals in the next neighborhood over . . . oh, and did we forget, all the doings of the royal family . . .
II. Jew Hatred
The second item that strikes us as either controlling or reflected in virtually all of the numberless hues and shapes on the canvas of this past decade is . . .
And what a decade: A man filled with hate shoots up a synagogue complex in Pittsburgh . . . ditto, in Poway, California . . . ditto, in Jersey City . . . zoning laws designed to keep chasidic Jews out . . . swastikas painted in every conceivable Jewish place, from a synagogue to a dormitory door . . . drive-by shootings in Israel . . . the common theme: innocents, dead.
. . . the second item is anti-Semitism. It is out of the closest. It is no longer hidden due to guilt over the Holocaust. It is, worst of all, inherited, in this sense: the anti-Semitic statements that, at the beginning of the decade, entered the classroom or the salon or the politician’s gaffe (how sincerely sorry they were, once caught), is now the patrimony of the students who heard it a decade ago, and those students are now in charge. And do they let loose . . .
. . . Israel is a terrorist state . . . the Jews control the school board . . . the Holocaust is a matter of opinion . . . the Jews in those funny clothes are unAmerican . . . Israel must be boycotted, divested from, sanctioned . . . if you’ve gone to Israel, you cannot fairly serve on the college student council . . .
. . . this third item, anti-Semitism, brings, even before the consideration of strategies to counter it, shock. What? This is happening? In our United States, with its Constitution and guarantee of rights for all? Here? How did this happen? It can’t be true. But then again, if it is true all over Europe, Paris, London, Brussels, why not here? . . . this third item brings American synagogues that look like European synagogues . . . fences, armed guards, security systems, millions upon millions spent on security systems, cameras, upgraded alarms, trainings, drills . . .
III. Humanity
The third item that strikes us as either controlling or reflected in virtually all of the numberless hues and shapes on the canvas of this past decade is . . .
And what a decade: its glimpse of the future, in which technology will be implanted, literally, in our brains; in which the definition of human biology will acquire a fluidity never imagined in Genesis; in which climate changes will perplex and frighten . . .
. . . the third item is the failed attempt to escape, transcend, redefine, ignore, distort our human vulnerability, pervasive and intrusive technology notwithstanding. The human being still relishes . . . a joke . . . a sunset . . . a come-from behind . . . an expression of forgiveness . . . a smile . . . an unexpected gift . . . a breeze . . . a drop in pain . . . a drop of water on a parched throat . . . a beautiful memory . . . a victory over “I can’t” . . . a childbirth . . . a child’s “aha” moment . . .
. . . this third item, being human, is an overarching item in this second decade of the 21st century because of the fear of the first item, technology, the fear of its addictive character built into its productive gifts.
And so, in this decade, 2010-2019, we struggle . . . We search for that extra hour of peace . . . We reach out to touch, or be touched by, a friend, or a vicarious pleasure, or a sacred tome, or a forgotten value, or a piece of art that captured the victory of humanity in another time and age . . . We puzzle . . . We question . . . We embrace the new . . . We want to make a difference . . . We see the homeless and the persecuted and the war-torn and we say we want to do something, and we ask: How? . . . And so, we keep trying . . . we keep going . . . Here we are, stepping into 2020-2029.
Copyright © 2019 by the Intermoutain Jewish News
