In honor of Shabbat, which begins tonight at sundown, and for those of us who like to "rest" from our emails, texts, and tweets, we offer two thoughts today, as we will for each Friday and Saturday of Elul.
Our Millennial Clock
There is a Clock ringing deep inside a mountain. It is a huge Clock, hundreds of feet tall, designed to tick for 10,000 years. Every once in a while the bells of this buried Clock play a melody. Each time the chimes ring, it’s a melody the Clock has never played before. The Clock’s chimes have been programmed to not repeat themselves for 10,000 years. Most times the Clock rings when a visitor has wound it, but the Clock hoards energy from a different source and occasionally it will ring itself when no one is around to hear it. It’s anyone’s guess how many beautiful songs will never be heard over the Clock’s 10 millennial lifespan.
No, it’s not the beginning of a posthumous JRR Tolkien novel. It’s not the prologue for the Hunger Games prequel. It’s not the plot synopsis for the latest HBO miniseries. Nor is it a metaphor for the earth, the universe, or even, ultimately, for our time here on earth. There is, really and truly, a clock ringing deep inside a mountain. Or, the beginnings of one.
Stewart Brand, an iconoclastic Bay Area writer, scientist, and “ecopragmatist” has been noting a disturbing trend over the last decades. Time, or at least our experience of it, is getting shorter. Victims of a societal “short attention span,” Brand argues that we need a corrective, something to rev us into thinking big, thinking beyond ourselves, thinking about a real long-term plan. His vision of a large clock was his way of answering that need; he writes: Such a clock would embody deep time for people.
We live in an era, I would argue, of shallow time. In the land of the 50-minute hour, we are overworked, over-programmed, and overtired (or maybe just me?). Multitasking doesn’t necessarily make us more productive—but certainly less focused. In just under a month, though, we take a break from that. We will gather right back here, and, at least for those hours and days—have a chance to reflect on time passed and time to come. For us as Jews, the holidays embody deep time, ancient and modern.
Our Sentence Does Not End Here
I recently read an article about the semicolon. More specifically, about Project Semicolon, a faith-based not-for-profit that seeks to help those struggling with depression, suicide, addiction, and self-injury. A semicolon is a punctuation mark that separates major clauses in a sentence. They use a semicolon as their designation because a semicolon is a punctuation mark used when a sentence could have ended, but the author decides to continue.
Everyone has moments of sadness, but depression is an illness. Many people struggle with depression and the dark thoughts that can accompany it. Often people who are depressed can feel alone, and Project Semicolon works to show them that they are not alone. Their mission statement declares:
We envision love and hope and we declare that hope is alive;
We envision a conversation embraced by [houses of faith] and addressed with love;
We envision a society that sees value [in others] and embraces it;
We envision a community that comes together and stands together in support of one another;
We envision a revolution of LOVE and declare that our stories are not over yet;
- Amy Bleuel, Founder and President
The same values are held by the Jewish community, and not just for those who are sick or in particular need of help. We lean on each other at all times, for all kinds of things.
Elul gives us the opportunity to declare how we want to continue the sentence of our life in the coming year. What will the next clause be? That is completely up to us.
May this Elul serve as a reminder that we get the chance to continue our story every year, and that our sentence is not over yet;
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