There is no question
that the world is pretty awesome for my daughter. Granted, she is limited in many ways: she can’t
talk, control her bladder, or even walk without bumping her melon
frequently. But, imagine a world where a
hanger could provide a solid twenty minutes of entertainment. Or where an avocado could be more than just
food, but a mushy delight for the fingers.
Or where a simple cupboard is a hidden world of endless mystery. Depth is everywhere, and that is awesome. On the other end of the spectrum, the scourge
of our generation is boredom. Nothing is
so exciting and every minute requires at least a new and usually a more intense
stimulation. What are we missing, and
what skill does my daughter still have?
The answer comes from an
unlikely place. A Yale professor spoke
at West Point on the topic of leadership.[i] The title of his speech says it all, ‘Solitude
and Leadership, If you want others
to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts’. He cites a study done at Stanford that showed that the multitasking
generation that is able to facebook, text, and study at the same time has
severely impaired thinking. Multitasking
is not a skill, but an impediment to real, deep thought. The crisis in leadership starts at home, and
by home, I mean ones most personal home-his headspace. Without
deep thinking, there is a paucity of ideas, and the ability to see awesome is
diminished.
This Yale professor was on to
something. This is exactly the idea that
Jacob taught the world as the first person to coin the term, ‘awesome’ or נורא. What did he see that was so awesome and how
did he get there? Jacob was on the way
out of Israel, in a desperate plight to seek refuge from a blood thirsty
brother. On the way, he went to the temple
mount for a prayer session, and a nap. During
the nap, he dreamed the famous vision of a ladder with angels ascending and
descending and none other than G-d staring down from the top. He awoke and realized that he was in a place
of intense holiness, ‘how awesome’! A three letter Hebrew repeats four times during
the dream sequence in a view verses, הנה. The
world is commonly translated as, ’behold’.
The English translation is not bad and its etymology is even
better. Behold comes from the old English
word, ‘to keep’. In other words, it means to hold on to one thought or observation
and take it in. The intensity of Jacob’s
vision and the realization of a higher being depended
on his ability to delve deeply into one thought and hone in on his vision of the
ladder.
That is why G-d is called
awesome, or נורא. He is a Being that can
only be reached through deep thought that is dependent on us, not on him. That is why the world נוראis passive. G-d can’t make us see His Awesomeness, we
need to think it through. Kids have an
uncanny ability to zone in on one thing and explore to its end, and that thing
becomes awesome (everything was created with wisdom), even just a hanger. [ii]
[i] For
a full text of the speech see William Deresiewicz speech at West point
[ii]
Granted, in a different way, kids attentions can be easily swayed, but when in
the moment the intensity is great and undistracted.
Multitasking is a scourge that may bring brain damage. Technology is blinding us.
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