At 90 years old, William Shatner also known as Captain Kirk just became the oldest person to fly to space. The entire flight took just over ten minutes, as they ascended to an altitude of nearly 66 miles and spent a few minutes observing earth during the microgravity phase of the flight.
Shatner was very moved by the experience as he stated when he landed, "What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. I'm so filled with emotion about what just happened ... it's extraordinary,"
Space travel aside, the idea of continuing to journey on to new horizons no matter the age and time of life, is one that is inspiring, meaningful and incredibly important.
In fact, the very first word that was told to Abraham, the first Jew, by G-d, was the word “Lech”, “Go”.
In Chassidic teachings it is taught that one of the differences between some of the creations and man, is that man is referred to as a “Mehalech”, “one who is going”. In other words, an intrinsic element of a human is that he is designed to and does best when he is constantly moving forward and making progress.
Reaching new milestones and setting bigger goals for our growth are great and a critical piece of who we are. Of course, as we do that we have to know how to pace ourselves as we seek to grow in our learning, knowledge, actions and goals. Yet at the same time we also need to know that reaching a plateau in various moral and spiritual accomplishments and then staying put and ceasing to grow, is not something that is intrinsic to our purpose or to who we are at our core.
In addition, the desire and effort to be moving forward doesn’t always mean you will actually be moving forward, yet it does help ensure that you are either maintaining your current accomplishments or at least not regressing in areas in which we should really be growing.
The first job given to Abraham was to pick himself up and start a journey. The journey is still ongoing, except that we are now the travelers who are the ones moving forward from where Abraham and our ancestors brought us to.
Abraham may have not made it to Space, yet G-d did show him the stars and the heaven and promises him that his children will be like those stars, both in numbers and in their ability to continue to give off light in the darkness and help travelers know where to go as they continue on their journey.
William Shatner is a star in many ways, and he is also one of the stars that Abraham envisioned when he was told that his children will be like the stars of the heaven. Yet this week, Shatner taught us something else and that is that the ability to continue to grow and take on new milestones, is something that we should never stop yearning or living for no matter our age or stage of life.
Good Shabbos / Shabbat Shalom
Yisroel