BALANCE, COSMIC AND EARTHLY February 21, 2025

A good friend is disturbed by photos of the cosmos. What is a human being in the vast universe? 

Rabbi Simcha Bunim (1765-1827) addressed this. He exclaimed that everyone should have two pockets. One should hold a note declaiming, The world was made for me. The other should hold a note stating, I am but dust and ashes.

We’re motes of dust on a planet that’s a mote of dust in creation. Yet we love our families and friends, our community and nation. At the same time, we can marvel at scientific discoveries.

I’ve just finished two short books dealing with our universe. 

The first is “A Traveler’s Guide to the Stars” by physicist Les Johnson. Johnson explains in “layman’s terms” how humans may leave Earth and travel to the stars. This will be no easy matter. The nearest stars are about 4.5 light-years from Earth; their light reaches us after traveling 186,000 miles per second for 4.5 years. Read the book, and you’ll see what interstellar travel might entail. We understand the physics, according to Johnson. Implementation will take much time and money.

The second book is a novel, the 2024 Booker Prize-winner “Orbital” by the British author Samantha Harvey. This is a poetic book—no actual plot—about six astronauts (okay, two are cosmonauts) orbiting Earth in the International Space Station. Harvey writes of what they see when they peer into space and what the earth looks like as the crew witnesses multiple sunrises and sunsets daily. She also peers into their psyches—how they balance the immensity of space with their lives in the station and on earth.

Today, achieving a sense of balance is difficult for many Americans. They see the president of the United States taking a sledgehammer to the government to establish one-man rule. Many friends express their concern that “a government of the people, by the people, for the people,” to quote Abraham Lincoln, will be reduced to serving the interests of oligarchs at home and autocrats abroad. Jews are particularly fearful.

What can one do? Some people retreat. They shut out the news and refuse to discuss the issues with family and friends. Others search for ways to stand up and be counted to help change the situation.

I prefer to keep up with the news and speak out. This weekly post often reflects what’s going on. Should elements in Washington who see the First Amendment as applying only to themselves come after me, so be it.

Having mentioned Abraham Lincoln, let me refer to a book I’ve just begun by Jon Meacham, “And There was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle.” Meacham quotes Lindley Murray’s 1799 anthology, “The English Reader.” Murray offers this advice, which Lincoln apparently took to heart:

“In seasons of distress or difficulty, to abandon ourselves to dejection carries no mark of a great and worthy mind. Instead of sinking under trouble, and declaring ‘that his soul is weary of life,’ it becomes a wise and a good man, in the evil day, with firmness to maintain his post, to bear up against the storm; . . . and never give up the hope that better days may yet arise” (pages 29­–30).

May we take these words to heart—and take heart from these words.

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