Alon Bakhut and a Warning Alongside It: On a World That Is Fading Away (Column 378)

Dedicated to Baby C, the grandson on the way,

who is right now in his last days before he begins to grow old.

To his mother, my dear daughter-in-law Keren, who carries him (and us) bravely.

And also to his grandmother (Grandma Daphna), who carries me and all of us bravely.

Enjoy!

It’s impossible not to open such a column with Nathan Alterman’s immortal poem, “Gan Meir.” I dedicated it to my dear friend, Major General (res.), judge, and Dr. Menahem Finkelstein, at the beginning of my article in the book written in his honor (while he is very much alive, may he reach at least 120) and released into the darkness of the world a few months ago. It seems to me no less fitting to open this column as well.

If we are granted that the fleet-footed time will not suddenly say to us: enough! we shall yet walk, my friend, along the paths of Gan Meir, leaning on canes, toward evening

We shall walk among green trees

where Tel-Aviv’s starlings will storm within them,

and our beards will be long,

oh, and all our bones will say,

oh, and all our bones, my brother,

will tell of a sighing old age,

in which there is a bit of sadness and tears,

but there is also something of contentment.

Above us the trees will sway

lit by the light of dusk.

We knew them when still in pots,

and now their tops are in the heavens.

And behold, in the splendor of their stature

they have surrounded us with noise and trembling.

The years that raised them up

are the very years that bent us.

And the young women who once strolled here

in distant years at eventide,

will sit in the golden light

and knit socks for a grandchild.

And the great, young city

through which a river will pass,

will rise like a stormy garden,

and there is no force that will uproot her.

Then we will look, my friend and brother,

at one another with a fading smile

in which there is a bit of sadness and tears,

but there is also something of contentment.

And little by little, from old age and weakness,

we will lower our heads onto a knee,

and children will draw near in a whisper

and say: the sons of Terah have fallen asleep.

If we are granted that the fleet-footed time

will not suddenly say to us: enough!

we shall yet walk, my friend,

along the paths of Gan Meir,

leaning on canes, toward evening.

The poem appeared in 1944 in “The Seventh Column” in Davar, and received at least two musical settings (by Hanan Yovel and by Akiva Nof). It was written for the opening of the park, and in it Alterman imagines his state at a later age (when the park will be younger than it is now).

This morning my wife Daphna and I, your faithful servant, came to an interesting realization: it’s not that we are aging, but that the world is getting younger and younger all the time, alarmingly so. I don’t know what to do with this insight other than the need I feel to share with you something from my life experience.

Like all our friends, I too feel that although I have reached the age of sixty (and one, but don’t tell), inside I’m exactly the same person as at fifteen. The jokes are the same jokes (truly excellent), the feelings the same feelings, and the inner world more or less as it was. I’ve gone through intellectual upheavals, and of course there were changes in my personal life (after all, I am responsible for a wife and six dwarfs and four and a half delightful grandchildren, if we include Baby C), and yet the inner core is exactly as it was.

And still, a person tells a wonderfully successful joke, and everyone around looks at him as if he’s landed from the moon. It seems these idiots don’t quite digest that this was a joke. Well, I console myself that they don’t even understand what’s funny about the Gashash troupe, so I’m in good company. This is exactly what I hear from my friends too (who, surprisingly, are more or less the same chronological age). Each of us drops a joke in front of his children or their friends, and immediately is sure he’s won them over. Now all the youngsters will surely understand that he’s totally with it (not from the world to come), one of the gang with a most excellent sense of humor (“cool,” even?!). But suddenly he notices embarrassed, somewhat bewildered looks, or at best a polite chuckle. And even regarding that chuckle, it’s not clear whether it’s a polite response to the “joke” (yeah, right) or just a titter at the expense of the old codger clowning around before them.

And little by little, from old age and weakness,

we will lower our heads onto a knee,

and children will draw near in a whisper

and say: the sons of Terah have fallen asleep.

So what’s going on here? Surely I haven’t matured. I’m still that fifteen-year-old with a superb sense of humor who has everyone rolling (even then it wasn’t exactly so, but again—don’t tell). So why don’t they laugh? Ah, the answer is obvious: they are simply younger than they used to be. In the past, when everyone laughed, I was surrounded by people my age. After a while, I noticed that the people around me began to be younger by about a decade. Very quickly I reached the sorry state where the world had become so young that among those around me were tots forty years my junior. But this amazing process continues, and now there are people around me fifty and sixty years younger, and I assume by induction that this will continue in the same direction. At some point the world will reach an age at which I’ll stop seeing it because of the temporal distance between us, and then no one will laugh anymore (I hope there will be a few who will shed a tear over the beauty that has withered to dust, an old Terah like me).

Or perhaps the verse will be fulfilled in us:

If we are granted that the fleet-footed time

will not suddenly say to us: enough!

we shall yet walk, my friend,

along the paths of Gan Meir,

leaning on canes, toward evening

You surely think I’ve flipped the time axis and now see time running backward (the illusions of old age). That’s really not true (for I am not old at all). Contrary to what emerges from pure physics (the kind valid at temperature 0), thermodynamics teaches us that time always moves forward (!); it is you who drift along it in the opposite direction. And about this the prophet cries out and warns: take note—you’re going the wrong way. You are swimming against the current and driving in the oncoming lane. Even if you are not run over by the wheels of time flowing toward you, you will go and disappear into the recesses and depths of history without noticing:

And behold, in the splendor of their stature

they have surrounded us with noise and trembling.

The years that raised them up

are the very years that bent us.

And if not a proof, then a hint: it is stated in the Talmud that Rav Ḥisda had two sons: Mar Yanuka and Mar Kashisha. Rashi explains (Ketubbot 89b, s.v. “Mar Yanuka”): “Rav Ḥisda had two sons, and their names were the same, except that the elder is called Mar Kashisha and the younger Mar Yanuka.” But Tosafot (s.v. “Mar Yanuka,” Bava Batra 7b) write: “He is the elder, and because he was born in Rav Ḥisda’s youth he is called Mar Yanuka. And Mar Kashisha is the younger, born in Rav Ḥisda’s old age.” Mark this well.

The theory of relativity teaches us two things: 1) that time and space are not two different things. They are two components of a four-dimensional space. Time, too, is a kind of space (indeed, its coefficient in the metric differs, and this is not the place). 2) that how we view things depends on the point of view (the coordinate system).[1] The conclusion from these two claims is that just as in the spatial context, someone observing from the standpoint of planet Earth will see the sun circling it, so if I place myself at the origin of the temporal axes, it’s no wonder I see the world around me indeed growing younger. In the spatial context, I explained that there is no “right” and “wrong” here (contrary to the common but mistaken discourse on the matter), and so it is in the temporal context. Here too there is no right and wrong. From my perspective it is entirely true that the world is getting younger, and this of course arouses in me deep concern for its fate. Its connection with me is weakening until in the end it will disappear entirely, the poor thing. I wonder what will become of it then?! So at least don’t say I didn’t tell you and didn’t warn you. You surely don’t see it. You probably think I’m aging, and thus you don’t see your clearly deteriorating state. If so, allow me to say to you honestly and bravely before you fade away completely: pay attention to your worsening condition! If you don’t do something about it (like, for example, trying to understand my jokes and those of the Gashash), you will disappear.

You’ll ask me: so how is there technological progress if people are drifting backward in time? That’s your mistake. Technological and scientific progress is indeed achieved with the advance of time, but only when my environment flows backward along the time axis, that is, becomes younger. I tell you this from experience. After all, the fact is that a few years ago, when my surroundings were less young, the world was less technologically developed. By the way, for some reason I have a feeling that idealism flows in the opposite direction along the time axis, but perhaps I’m mistaken. About this the wisest of all men, who long ago faded away in the depths of history—that is, made himself young to nothing—already said:

Do not say, “How is it that the former days were better than these?” For you do not ask this out of wisdom.

You think that moving forward in time brings scientific and technological progress, but this is of course a mistake. On the contrary, when the world goes and becomes young, it advances technologically. The farther the Big Bang recedes from us into the past, the more science advances. The world may belong to the young, but they too in turn become old and pass the world on to those younger than they. No wonder that nowadays, when I have a problem with my cell phone or laptop, I turn to higher instances: twenty-year-olds. And if the problem is truly serious, following the advice of my brother Danny, the wisest of men, I must turn only to experts no older than kindergarteners. As our sages said: “I saw an upside-down world; those above are below and those below are above.”

You have been warned!

[1] On a journey backward in time, see column 33.