As people, we need crises. We may not like them when they’re going on, but they form us, and make us who we are. If I never go through the angst and frustration of adolescence, I will never become an adult. If a person never has a moment when he or she is afraid (s)he won’t be able to pay the bills, they may never learn to manage money. Without the Exodus, the Exiles, and the Holocaust, would our fathers have ever been galvanized into a single nation? Would they have stayed that way?
Today we can see this going on in Egypt. A defining crisis has come along that is bringing the Egyptian people together across the board. Muslims and Coptic Christians are working together to protest an oppressive government, and get freedom for themselves. I don’t think it’s premature to say that these protests will be the defining moment for an entire generation of Egyptians, giving them a sense of identity, of purpose.
But what does this mean to us? In every generation, the thing that brings us together is our crisis, but our generation of Messianics has had no crisis. We have no common cause. We have no reason to be.
Civil rights, world wars, depressions, and revolutions have irreversably altered the landscape of continents, cultures, and generations. Win or lose, these crises brought people together and gave them a common identity. For instance, I don’t know if any of you are interested in European football, but after a twenty-six game streak, Manchester United lost to the worst team in their league. This crushing defeat still serves to bring us Man. U. fans together, to identify, and sympathize.
If we cannot find a common cause to work for, it seems likely that we will cease to be. Sure, individuals may find a reason to be Messianic, but individuals aren’t enough in a way of life that really requires a community.
Since we have no obvious crisis to rally around, our only other option is to offer the best answers to the crises we are already facing in the world today. There are plenty that need satisfactory answers. We are in a world at war, a subject that Messianic leadership has remained silent about. We have a generation in a moral crisis, struggling to form its own identity in a dizzying world. We have economic catastrophe lurking viciously, biting at our heels, and the only responses we’ve gotten from the community are so absurd and apocalyptic that our generation can hardly be expected to accept them.
What is the word on the street about Egypt? Nothing earth-shaking. Messianics seem largely unconcerned, complacent. We could be standing up to support an oppressed Egyptian people. We could remember that God calls on us to defend the downtrodden because we were downtrodden. Anything is better than pretending it doesn’t matter to us. Who knows if we have come into the kingdom for such a time as this?
David,
ReplyDeleteR. Akiva Tatz has a wonderful shiur on this very topic. He says that "crises leads to redemption.'
Redemption comes from Hashem ultimately, but it usually comes through people and the good works they perform for the "downtrodden" and lowly.
Shalom- L
Question: Does a common cause require a crises? For example, what about the Tower of Babel? There was no crisis, but the people were unified to a task (albeit to an evil purpose).
ReplyDeleteIt does seem that crises is the far more common trigger for unity. Just questioning if it is possible for a common purpose can be found without crises. Like perhaps the rebuilding of the Temple.
I think you'll find a manufactured crisis even at the Tower of Babel. "Lest we be scattered" (Gen. 11:4).
ReplyDeleteBut I don't know that a crisis is absolutely necessary.