Moving to Israel – What are You Doing!?

Moving to Israel - What are You Doing!?

(July 9, 2010)

I was always fast. Really fast. As a kid, our games of choice had no wires, no components, and no bandwidth requirements…we played tag, we played pick-up games in the park until it was too dark to see, or your mom was yelling so loudly that even from two blocks away you heard her all too well.

But speed was my thing. I still recall the moment I realized that I was fast…I was about 9…funny thing is, I have never stopped running. Until now.

I have this image in my mind of a train. Traveling along the fixed tracks. Moving with certainty and purpose; no deviation. The train stays on its tracks. It’s not a prison train, it’s a nice train. Very posh inside, lots of services for the rider, speeding on to fantastic locations and destinations. I love the ride. I am blessed to be on this train. But still, I can’t help but notice those amazing sites racing by outside the windows. Sure, I know, “the grass is always greener…” But while the grass may not be greener, it is likely to be different. Maybe not even grass; maybe forest, maybe rivers, maybe people, maybe horizons…

Speed can be deceptive. Sometimes you can’t tell you’re going so fast. Traveling through a cloudless sky on a jet, even 500 miles per hour feels speedless. No reference points, no speed. Yet there we go, racing through space nonetheless. Too often, life on the train desensitizes us to speed. You don’t even notice time is going by so fast, until it already has.

A couple of years ago our son Josh (then 9) and I went to Kennedy Space Center in Florida with my dad. We had lunch with a rather remarkable guy named Story Musgrave. Among other things, Story is an astronaut who at the time had logged more hours on the Space Shuttle than any other pilot at NASA. His life story is inspirational. Born in 1935, he grew up on a farm in Kentucky and during his life of exploration he has earned master’s and doctorate degrees in math, physiology, medicine (surgery), biophysics, literature, business, computer programming and an undergraduate degree in chemistry!

I read an interview with him this month in “Flying” magazine on the dilemma of missing the forest for the trees from a pilot’s perspective. He described the pilot’s imperative of strict adherence to detailed checklists versus missing the miracle of flight and space travel and the experience of just looking out the window. The pilot’s dilemma that Story describes, just like the sole destination while on the “achievement train” helps me define the impetus driving me to pursue this year of exploration and adventure in Israel.

My friend and teacher, Rabbi (about to be Dr. too!) David Hoffman, shared some of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s thoughts on this topic with me last Thanksgiving. I have kept these words on my desk since he shared them with me because the message is so fundamental and yet so easy to miss.

Heschel said; “Indifference to the sublime wonders of living is the root of sin.”

As David wrote in his lesson; “an unwillingness to identify the wonders and acts of kindness present in each of our lives creates an obstacle for us to bring more loving-kindness and peace into the world.”

The writer who interviewed astronaut Story Musgrave reflected on the pilot’s dilemma as follows; “it involves balancing a left-brain, checklist focus with a far more right-brain immersion in a moment of experience. One might think that accomplishing that balance – in space or as a pilot within our own atmosphere – would be fairly straightforward, since we all have right- and left-brain functions going on within us every day. But…that balance can be hard to achieve.”

I look forward to engaging in the struggle to achieve more of that balance. I am asked frequently, “What are you going to do while you’re in Israel?” My answer so far is to be open to the experience, to explore the world, and to allow myself the privilege of seeing some of what’s going on outside the train. I’ll keep you posted.