Diane Joy Schmidt
Spiritual Perspectives April 8, 2023

It’s Passover again, beginning at the full moon of the springtime lunar month of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, and my apple tree usually blossoms now, though this year it seems to be a little late. Passover often falls close to Easter. Passover is to me the best Jewish holiday. The best memories, the best food, the best ritual—the Passover seder means the ritual order of telling the story of Passover with sweet wine, bitter herbs, matzoh and apples, a roasted shank bone, a roasted egg, parsley, salt water, and prayers and songs, which we can hold in our own homes, and lead our own ceremonies. 

There is something healing about saying the same words over every year, and every year the story of Passover becomes richer and deeper. At heart, it is a timeless story, of freedom from bondage, from darkness to light, emerging from the narrow places and embarking on a journey.

We read the Haggadah together aloud, the prayer book that tells how the Israelites were released from slavery in Egypt. Towards the end of the seder, we read that “each age uncovers a formerly unrecognized servitude—requiring new liberation to set man’s soul free.” That line always inspired me. This timeless, cyclical ritual affirms that humanity is evolving. However, this year I have to ask, are we evolving, or devolving?

“We’ll go down in history as the first society that wouldn’t save itself because it wasn’t cost-effective,” is a quote attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, the novelist. Well, maybe we aren’t the first—a similar story is told about other civilizations that misused their power, like the Anasazi and Atlantis. Our technology is doing us in, while promising that it will make us more competitive. For example, we knew we could have gone with ethanol instead of leaded-gasoline to fix engine knock, but you couldn’t patent ethanol, so we flooded the planet with lead. 

But in truth we know now that we can save the planet, cost-effectively! The most important and devastating report of the 21st century from the world’s 150 top scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that includes those from the worst oil-producing countries, was released this week, and shows that we can avoid raising the temperature of the planet beyond the point of catastrophe, and, that it can be done cheaper with wind, solar, reforestation, and methane reductions, than with fossil fuels and nuclear power. All that is missing is… the political will to do so.

Harmony has become increasingly out of tune, the music is going faster and faster and we dancers simply can’t keep up. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and now the stock market is careening towards a reckoning with inflation. We have a death wish disguised as ambition.

While there is an increasing sense of powerlessness and loss of control, we do need to inoculate ourselves against propaganda. The new big threat is that, with advances in artificial intelligence, computers can now spit out plausible essays—perhaps even smoother than this one. What does this means? As we churn through the next presidential election cycle, we will be exponentially flooded with false information, deliberately intended to increase polarization in this country—provocations seemingly from both the right or the left—a technique perfected in Russia—and tensions here will rise to an all-time high. At the least, we can remain aware of that. 

I always have the nagging feeling I’m never doing enough. My friend, a psychologist and son of Holocaust survivors, told me his philosophy of life is, if I remember correctly, for him that the purpose of life is to do whatever you can with whatever you’ve got, to the best of your ability, to offer as much of yourself, despite whatever problems you might have.

Even if we may not be able to control our destiny, we can choose how we face it. Viktor Frankl, survivor of four concentration camps, taught this and helped a lot of people in the camps to not commit suicide there. He later wrote a book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” that millions more have read. At base, we have the freedom to choose how we face life, and in that way not just be a victim of circumstances.  

Anna S. Redsand wanted to help the students she was counseling in Cuba, New Mexico, who were giving in to despair and drugs. She wrote a book for them and other young people, “Viktor Frankl, A Life Worth Living” (Clarion Books, 2006). Frankl became a pilot in his late 60’s, and in a lecture to youths, she wrote that “he told how, in a crosswind, a pilot must aim the plane higher, or farther north, than his goal in order to reach his actual destination. He said it was like this with human beings. If we expect something higher of ourselves, we will reach what we are actually capable of. If we aim only for what we are capable of, we are likely to achieve beneath our abilities.” This is a challenge to us, to do better.

This should make overachievers feel good that, even if they never achieve their most grandiose goals they will have contributed to the healing of the world, rather than adding to its problems. This is the task before us that Jews call Tikkun Olam, repairing the world. I think we can do this. We have to. 

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Diane Joy Schmidt is a writer and photographer in Albuquerque who was raised in the traditions of Reform Judaism and is an admirer of all things spiritually resonant. Schmidt’s Spiritual Perspective columns penned for the Gallup Independent received a first place in the New Mexico Press Women Communications contest this year. Visit her at www.dianejoyschmidt.com.

Published Gallup Independent; Times of Israel Blogs, 4/8/2023

ADDENDUM of primary sources:

The Passover Haggadah, quoted from on page 15, as shown in the above photo, was distributed at the A&P grocery store at Passover in Highland Park, Il. It is the “Haggadah for the American Family.” English Service with directions written by Martin Berkowitz, Rabbi, Temple Adath Israel of the Main Line, Merion, Pennsylvania. © 1958, 1963 and 1966, Martin Berkowitz. The inside front cover on early editions says, “The preparation and distribution of this Haggadah is sponsored by Standard Brands, Incorporated, makers of these kosher-for-Passover products for generations of Jewish homemakers, In this way Standard Brands carries on a valued and long-standing tradition of service to the Jewish community. K Certified Kosher for Passover. (pictured): Chase and Sanborn Coffee, Planters Peanut Oil, Tender Leaf Tea.”

New York Times Magazine – “The Brilliant Inventor Who Made Two of History’s Biggest Mistakes” by Steven Johnson https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/magazine/cfcs-inventor.html

The Guardian newspaper- “The path to radically lower emissions tucked away inside the devastating IPCC report” by environmental editor Damien Carrington, Dealtown newsletter, April 6, 2023

Vanity Fair April 2023 p. 34-35 “Journalists see artificial intelligence bots like ChatGPT as a potential threat–and an opportunity,” by Joe Pompeo.

“Viktor Frankl, A Life Worth Living” (Clarion Books, 2006) by Anna Redsand. Quoted with permission of the author. pp. 118-119.

Quote attributed to Kurt Vonnegut was seen posted as a ‘meme’ on Facebook (tried to verify but was not able to)

Reference to Anasazi, with wording “misuse of power” – suggested by copyeditor F.M.

Inclusion of NMPW 1st place suggested by and worded by Christina Tsosie, Managing Editor, Gallup Independent.

Spiritual Perspectives, Gallup Independent 1.19.22

I just lost a friend, she didn’t die, but I feel she is lost, and I’m not able to save her—she’s joined the anti-vaxxer movement. When we met 45 years ago we were young, new in the city, both very gullible, very lost, very much needing a strong person to follow. We met during that intoxicating wave of New Age spiritualism, in a group led by a woman spiritual teacher promising answers; we were the perfect suckers. I eventually grew out of it and moved away; she moved into an urban ashram and worshipped another guru for decades, which helped her to maintain a foundation in her psyche. Still, we stayed in touch — I thought she was bright and creative and we shared a background that we were both Jewish. 

Then, out of the blue last week, B. emailed and asked me why more Jewish people weren’t speaking out against the vaccine mandates — she’d been listening to some ‘rich podcasts’ that ‘exposed’ people like Fauci. I was shocked. I sent her an article by a Jewish journalist explaining why comparing public health recommendations to Nazism was so very disturbing to Jews. As one non-Jewish friend of mine said when I told her about this, “How is being told to wear a mask and get a vaccine so you don’t make everybody sick worse than being hunted down and killed in a concentration camp?”

B. also told me she was concerned that the vaccines would do something to her. I sent her a solid scientific explanation of how the vaccines work, they signal the cells in the body to fight the Covid virus. B. said she would share this information with her friends and they’d discuss it. I was happy, I was satisfied she’d listened to reason. 

But then, a few days later, she emailed me with the excited note— ‘things are moving,’ about an anti-vaxxer march in Washington D.C. that was coming up. I realized then, she was lost. 

This all made me so very angry, and made me feel quite hopeless, and really shocked me that someone I actually knew and respected, was succumbing to this sort of group madness.

As it turned out, the demonstration was very sparsely attended, but one obscene statement by one speaker, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (yes, son of assassinated Bobby Kennedy), has lingered in the press: he said that being asked to wear masks and get vaccinated is worse than what Anne Frank was subjected to in the Holocaust. As I write this, today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Two out of every three Jews in Europe were murdered during World War Two by the Nazis. I am reminded of the importance of teaching about the history of genocides, and how they begin with the rise of autocratic populist leaders.

But what to do, even when my friend B. is falling for this? I found one article, “Why people believe in conspiracy theories, and how to change their minds,” by Mark Lorch, a professor of science in Great Britain. He said, don’t mention the misconceptions, that’s what people will remember. Then he explained what I had just experienced with B—the boomerang effect: “To make matters worse, presenting corrective information to a group with firmly held beliefs can actually strengthen their view, [and] tend to invoke self-justification and even stronger dislike of opposing theories, which can make us more entrenched in our views. This has become known as the ‘boomerang effect.’” The article recommended not challenging opponents’ worldviews, and to use stories to make your point. Ad agencies understand this. So, where are the public service campaigns to promote masks and vaccines?

Then, I read about “The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness,” by Greg Boyle, S.J. in “America, the Jesuit Review.” The book reviewer, Mary Gibbons, quotes Boyle: “We’ve mistaken moral outrage for moral compass,” Boyle writes. “Moral compass helps you see with clarity how complex and damaged people are… I suppose if I thought that moral outrage worked, I’d be out raging. But rage just means we don’t understand yet.”  He recounts an incident when 10 people were killed in a Texas high school shooting a number of years ago. Senator Ted Cruz said, “Once again, Texas has seen the face of evil.” But Boyle remembers the words of another commentator: “[A] teenage girl and fellow student of the shooter said, ‘The one who did this must have been carrying a world of pain inside.’ Understanding love is who our God is. Love this way announces the Tender One.” 
I think again about B., who’d had an abusive upbringing that left her fragile, and how today in joining a new, seemingly ‘fringe’ community, she’s found that intoxicating draw again; ‘We’re in on a secret that no one else is. We’re special.’
I feel frustration that someone so close to me would fall prey to this madness and that I wasn’t able to stop them, that they didn’t listen to me. I know she needs something, to hang on to. I am sad though, that this is what she chose. It worries me. 

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Diane Joy Schmidt is a journalist, novelist and screenwriter in Albuquerque who was raised in the traditions of Reform Judaism, and is an admirer of all things spiritually resonant. Visit her at www.dianejoyschmidt.com.

1st Place, General/Columns New Mexico Press Women