Aging Thoughts

As I grow older (I am a crotchety 74 but who’s counting?), I find myself returning to thoughts of my youth. I recall my father, Rabbi Spector, talking about Job and found myself as a teenager immersed with the meaning of the words allegedly spoken to Job from the whirlwind in response to Job’s complaint that he was being treated unfairly and cruelly. Rather than respond to Job’s complaint, according to the account, God only asks Job where Job was when the mountains were created and the stars set in motion. My understanding of the Book of Job is that human knowledge is necessarily limited and incomplete. That understanding has stayed with me into old age. As a college student at the Air Force Academy I came across Martin Buber’s I and Thou thanks to my philosophy teachers. My early understanding of the limits of human knowledge and reasoning was extended to the implication that one should treat others with dignity and respect regardless of any other details about them such as race, religion, nationality, age, gender, and so on. While I have found it much easier to live with the notion of skepticism and limits to human knowledge and understanding that I found in the Book of Job, I have found it more challenging to live up to Buber’s implication that one should focus on I-Thou relationships rather than I-It relationships.

I recently experienced a near-death experience and fortunately escaped uninjured – I cannot say the same for my vehicle which was totaled. This is the second near-death experience I have survived and I am again wondering how fortunate I have been … and asking myself why? I am thinking I have been given a little more time to learn to live in the I-Thou world that Buber advocated for us all. So, “if not now, then when” as Hillel reminded us.