You have judged this website in a twentieth of a second. Over a hundred trillion calculations can be made in the same timespan. But what about history? Can it be made in the blink of an eye?
“What’s new?”
“Nothing much.”
Sound familiar? Well maybe it shouldn’t. In recent years, so much is new, no one could possibly keep abreast of what’s going on even in a highly specialized arena of knowledge. Every day, science, technology and medicine are booming ahead at an ever-quickening pace.
Indeed more happens in an average second today than used to happen in days, or even years. In an average second on this planet, 2 new blogs are launched[1], 4 or 5 babies are born[2], and over 3 quadrillion calculations are processed by IBM’s new Blue Gene/P Supercomputer[3].
And while the accelerating pace of life has surely taken its toll on our stress levels, progress has more than compensated by delivering verifiable boons in our average health, longevity, knowledge, working conditions, leisure, nutrition, transportation, communication and personal wealth. Where is it all leading?
The most gifted of visionaries, The Lubavitcher Rebbe, often points to recent geopolitical shifts and socioeconomic trends as harbingers of the Days of Moshiach, a utopian future where man, G-d and nature will all live in a harmonious millennium of joy, wellness and sustainability.
But how realistic is this expectation? We live in a rotten world. Sure there are good trends we can point to, but there are also counterexamples: Pollution, terrorism, epidemics, to name but a few. Obviously the world can’t turn on a dime, or can it?
We have all seen how 9/11 changed the world in a moment, and Hiroshima is still in living memory. We all accept how one man, G-d forbid, could destroy the world. But we must remember: Good and evil are just two sides of one moral coin, so in principle, one individual can save the world as well, and quickly.
But how quickly is quickly? Our sages say “G-d’s salvation comes in the blink of an eye.”[4] For an average person on an average day, that’s about a 1/15 of a second.
For the man of faith it’s no problem. G-d makes the world anew every second anyway, so it’s no great surprise when He finally decides to “do it right”[5] for a change. But what about the “realist” who sees that nature has its own pace and things take time? Does massive immediate transformation make any sense in the world we live in?
Maybe yes. Here are some lyrics from Conversation in the Womb from the album Journeys[6] by Abie Rotenberg © 1984 that give an example:
 My dear brother, look around and tell me what your eyes behold. Don’t deny that you see, it’s only you and me, our existence it is empty, it is cold.
But dear brother, you must have faith that we are not the only ones, cuz’ in the distance there’s a place, where we’ll stand up tall and straight. Oh I believe that there is a world to come.
My dear brother, don’t be blind, don’t be stubborn, don’t be set. Imagination it’s alright. But it won’t light up the night. What you see is exactly what you get.
But dear brother, you will surely find when all is said and done, that the future it will show, there is so much we don’t know. Oh I believe that there is a world to come.
My dear brother, where have you gone? Is this the moment I have known? I can faintly hear the cry. My dear brother must have died. It’s all over now forever I’m alone.
But dear brother, please don’t mourn me when my life has just begun. what you hear are sounds of joy. “Congratulations it’s a boy.” Oh I believe that there is a world to come. Yes I believe… ‘cause what you hear are sounds of joy, “Congratulations it’s a boy.” Soon you’ll be with me in this world to come.
This song makes the next world a little more real for us, but what about radical change in this world, since it’s here that Moshiach is supposed to come?
Let’s take an example from the life of a cell, specifically a nerve cell, or neuron.
 Nerve cells pick up signals from other cells with their little branches called dendrites and process them in the cell body. Some signals build up the electrical charge in the cell body and some signals drain it. Eventually enough electrical energy builds up to trigger a pulse of electricity (called an action potential) to shoot all the way down the axon to its ends, where a signal is sent to other nearby nerve cells. The process looks something like this: Now picture yourself as a little atom, say a potassium ion, somewhere down the axon waiting for some action. You’ve been told that up in the cell body, they know that things are heating up and any moment now, there will be a major change in your whole chemical environment. There will be a bright light, a channel will miraculously open in the cell wall, and you and all your potassium ion friends will instantly fly out of the axon into a brand new environment you’ve never seen before.
“Naw,” you say. “Come on. We’ve been around for a long time and we’ve never experienced anything like that. Those guys up at head office are dreaming. Things just don’t change that quickly. And besides. They never tell us exactly when the big change is supposed to occur, just that it’s soon. If they are such big experts, shouldn’t they be able to … Hey! What’s that?! Whoa!”
It all happens in the blink of an eye.
Our sages are pretty precise when they choose analogies. They could have said that G-d’s salvation comes in a heartbeat or in a turn of the head or before you could say Jiminy Cricket. Why did they choose the expression in the blink of an eye?
 Thinking about blinking may get us some answers. Blinking as we do, some 10 to 15 times per minute on average, keeps our eyes clean and moist. It spreads three types of fluid at once. Tears from the ducts in the corner of our eyes do the rinsing. Oils from glands between each eyelash slow down the evaporation of the tears. And mucous lubricates the surface and adheres the tears to the cornea, or surface of the eye. Infants blink much less often, just twice per minute on average.
Blinking is a protective reflex response that kicks in when approached suddenly or startled, apparently to guard the eye from injury. The blinking reflex gets somewhat disabled, however, when we focus intently on a task or problem, the result being much less lubrication and cleansing for tired, grungy eyes. Batting your eyes every once in a while can help when working for long stretches of time.
Beyond all this, blinking has now been found to be correlated with mini-blackouts in the brain, particularly in the visual cortex and other areas associated with visual processing. It seems that by turning off those brain areas during blinks, we don’t get disturbed by the temporary darkness or the mechanical action of something sweeping over our eyes.
The Baal Shem Tov taught that whatever a Jew sees or hears can serve as a lesson in his divine service. How can our understanding of blinking help us better understand the salvation of G-d that comes in the blink of an eye?
Let’s think about cleansing. We need to wash our clothes every few days, and our hands several times a day. But eyes need to be cleaned every few seconds.
Eyes are the window to the soul. If the window is dirty we will see the next person and the world at large as dirtier than it is. Seeing the good in people and in the world makes it be that way in truth. Perhaps that’s why little kids don’t need to blink so much. They don’t see the world as dirty.
The second function of blinking is protection. Being too intently focused on worldly matters can make us lose our perspective, wearing ourselves down spiritually. The blink rests our materialistic side, turns our attention inward, allows us to align with our true values so that when we re-engage, we are balanced.
Finally, during the mini-blackouts we experience whenever we blink, we create a clean slate, a state of readiness, for the new world we are anticipating any moment, as we open our eyes to a world of goodness, kindness, and Moshiach revealed.
?העבר אין, והעתיד עדיין, וההוה כהרף עין, דאגה מניין
The past is gone, the future is blurry,
The present is a blink of an eye,
So how could you worry?
- Anonymous
[1] Technorati – July 1, 2007
[2] www.census.gov statistics
[3] CNet News, June 25, 2007
[4] Rashi on Exodus 12:41, Yalkut Shimoni Netzavim #960
[5] Of course, He’s always doing it right, but here we mean bring it to its ultimate perfection immediately, ie, Moshiach Now!
[6] To sample or buy this song online, save this link until Moshiach comes or after Tisha B’Av comes. (We are now in the annual 3 week mourning period over the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, during which listening to music is prohibited.)
|
