Youth, Maturity, and the Tensions of 2020

Rabbi Russ Resnik

When I was seventeen, a nice Jewish boy still living at my parents’ home in the suburbs, I joined La Huelga. I marched into the state capital, Sacramento, behind Cesar Chavez and thousands of Mexican-American and Filipino farmworkers on the Delano Grape strike. Most of the workers had walked the whole three hundred miles from the grape-growing town of Delano to Sacramento. Many supporters, like my friends and me, had joined them for the last two or three days. One member of my group had an aunt and uncle who lived outside of Sacramento and agreed to put us up for the last night of the march. In the evening, we were chatting with the older couple after dinner and telling them about the Huelga and the injustices the farmworkers faced. They very politely said it was nice that we wanted to show our support, but shouldn’t we build up a nest egg before we started taking days off work or school and traveling around the countryside?

Now, even back then “nest egg” seemed like a rather quaint phrase, but I knew what they meant. We should be responsible, work hard, and sock away some savings before we started running around the country trying to save the world. To me, though, a nest egg could wait—I was in my first semester at college! Besides, although I was young and naïve, I knew the real issue was that Aunt and Uncle weren’t crazy about this grape strike, or about seeing a bunch of students and who-knows-whats from Southern California join the farmworkers’ protest. We were planning to confront the state establishment in Sacramento the next day and didn’t even have our act together enough to rent a motel room.

This scene was repeated around countless kitchen tables—and often with far less politeness—during those years. The generation gap was taking on Grand Canyon-scale dimensions. But this scene wasn’t unique to the sixties. It may have been heightened back then, but it’s always been part of the intergenerational drama. It’s one reason for the biblical emphasis—shared in many cultures—on honor for the older generation. There’s bound to be a gap, but respect and deference help to bridge it. So does emphasis on raising up and empowering a younger generation. Think of the stories of our ancestors that we’re currently reading in our weekly Torah portions, and the blessings that the parents impart upon their offspring.

In the chaotic year of 2020, though, the gap is more evident. It shows up in the tendency of younger folk to lean more toward positions they consider progressive while older folk have warmer feelings toward the status quo, or the status quo a few decades back. Of course the partisan divide isn’t strictly generational, but it’s definitely raising the community blood pressure, including within our own Messianic Jewish community. Election Day is a specific nearby date, November 3, but election tension is likely to linger long after the votes are in. So, what to do now?

There’s a lot to be said in response to that question, but I’ll start with this: we need to recognize that it takes both perspectives, youthful idealism and mature caution, to sustain healthy community. One side or the other might be right on a particular issue and we can argue our position with passion . . . and at the same time recognize our need to be balanced by the other side. We can advocate our position and honor the opposition, especially as we talk about these things within our own community.

I’m not among those who consider “politics” and “politicians” to be dirty words. Abraham Lincoln, perhaps our most honored president, was a master politician, and so were all his colleagues carved alongside him on Mount Rushmore. But current politics and politicians too easily resort to the lowest forms of partisanship, polarization, and dishonor. They act as if gaining short-term political victory outweighs all other concerns. We shouldn’t let that approach to politics infect our community. We’re community—not just another collection of competing interest groups—because we’re united in something far greater than the issues that divide us. And that “something far greater” can absorb, transform, and mobilize our opposing perspectives into a far greater, redeeming purpose.

Remember, most of us established and cautious leaders were starry-eyed idealists a few decades back. My idealistic quest led me beyond my suburban roots into the march on Sacramento with La Huelga, and then the 60s counter-culture, and finally the remote high country of Northern New Mexico. There Yeshua finally tracked me down and called me into his kingdom. It’s essential for me and Messianic Jewish leaders like me to remember that earlier zeal for justice, and honor it in others. We don’t want to miss the opportunity to speak into the lives of young people at a time when they’re extraordinarily open. We need to cultivate our regard and affection for younger leaders who are showing idealism and zeal today. And if we older leaders are wise, we’ll recognize that true community needs both—the stability and wisdom of the mature united with the zeal and imagination of the young.

One of my favorite rabbinic sayings comes from the sage Ben Zoma: Who is wise? The one who learns from everyone (Pirke Avot 4:1). We create community that will outlive our current political tensions when we seek to learn from everyone within the community. This means listening to learn, not listening to correct and convince the other. The Scriptures speak often about honoring parents and the parental members of the community, and perhaps not as much about valuing and honoring the perspective of the young, but both are vital. We can value youthful hunger for justice, not in a condescending way, but because we recognize how it energizes and advances the life of the whole community. And as we do, we build community that will weather the storms of 2020, and flourish in the years beyond.

Photo credit: Jon Lewis Photographs of the United Farm Workers Movement. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. (c) 2016 Yale University. All rights reserved.