All to often I hear the phrase "I can't wait for 2020 to be over". Or likewise when something crazy happens the response will be "well it's 2020 and that is how things go".
There is no doubt that 2020 has been a challenging time period with a host of different huge challenges at any given time. With Thanksgiving being so different this year, the Covid numbers constantly creeping upwards and leaving us with a terrible human and economic toll, combined with an emotionally tense and negative election cycle and a whole range of other happenings, there has certainly been no shortage of negativity around us at any given time.
Yet where do we go from here, do we simply hold out and await the good of the future when things will get better and improve and just wish 2020 away, or do we somehow embrace the now even with all of its challenges and obstacles.
Last week I finished reading an amazing Memoir of a Holocaust Survivor (By the hand of Hashem) which was full of very powerful anecdotes of the best and sometimes the worst of humanity. In one incident he describes one particular moment of suffering, when after some grueling human losses of friends who were part of a forced labor group, they had a deep and painful discussion one evening. Many members of the group were despondent and in terrible spirits from the brutal conditions and from the loss of their young childhood friends and were on the verge of giving up hope.
At one point in the discussion, one Gerer Chassid stands up and says "my fellow Jews, es vet zeihn gut (it will eventually be good), and therefore let us keep our hopes up for the future". As he said this another fellow stands up and quoted from the Chassidic book of the Tanya and paraphrased a full chapter of the book that speaks of human suffering, and then said that the takeaway is "we need to somehow appreciate the good even now".
The author of the book describes this conversation and what a powerful impact it had on the group of survivors.
Without getting in to all of the philosophy of these ideas, I think it highlights a key Jewish perspective. And that is, that besides believing that the greatest good for mankind is what lies ahead of us, it is also about appreciating and understanding that the most powerful moment in time, is the now itself.
This does not mean that the now is easy and not challenging, but it does mean, that these challenging moments of the now, are ones that will never come back and are priceless in their potential. We can wish away the now or we can choose to embrace the now and make these moments meaningful and an actual part of what will help ourselves and the world around us be a better place both now and in the long term.
In this week's Torah Portion of Vayetze it describes many events that occur to Jacob our ancestor. Many of them were moments of great challenge and difficulties, yet as he says and describes those moments, he "lived" those moments and made them be an integral part of his life and the journey that humanity is on.
So yes, while I am hoping, praying and awaiting an end to the Coronavirus and the many other challenges that we are dealing with, at the same time, I believe that we need to embrace the now and realize what tremendous potential these challenging moments hold within them in terms of what we can do for the world and how we can come out better on the other side of this.
This can be done, by having more empathy and care for others, by doing more charitable work for the many who might be struggling now, spending more time with family, doing more meaningful things that we might never have had time for, working on oneself to be a better person, learning more Torah and enriching materials, working on spiritual growth, reaching out to neighbors and others, and of course supporting our health care workers in helping us overcome these challenges.
Ultimately it is by embracing the now, versus simply awaiting the end of this period, that the future will be a truly better and brighter one for all.
Down the line, let us be able to look back together at 2020 and say this is when humanity shone and grew despite the terrible challenges it experienced.
Good Shabbos & Shabbat Shalom
Yisroel