Early this morning, about 3:45 AM, a body was found on the Route 10 freeway near Los Angeles (L.A. Times). Identity, cause of death, even gender were unknown pending investigation.
The article goes on to say that the right-hand lane was closed due to the incident, with consequent slowing of traffic in the two lanes that remained open. Restoration of full flow was expected for 8:00 AM.
Pause for a moment to consider this anonymous death, which found its way to general attention only by the sheer chance of blocking our freeway traffic for several hours. If you are like me, how many times have you moved past an accident on the freeway with gratitude that you would now be able to resume normal speed?
The world says: Move on, get on with it, drive on, get on with your life, don’t take it too seriously, get over it, suck it up. Keep the motion going, keep up the flow. At a higher intellectual level: This death, however tragic, is still a detail; it does not affect the larger narrative, which we believe, we know, to follow general laws, of history, of social and global evolution. In general, nothing is very surprising; events follow the patterns we have learned to expect, and our focus should be on understanding these patterns.
Now, from the good man Tobit, an entirely opposed viewpoint: Leave your meal, bury the dead, change your festival to mourning. Weep for “one of our own people.” Carry it to your house, wait for dark and bury it, clean off the dirt and blood. Eat your food in sorrow.
The body on the 10 was “one of our own people.”
We try to live in the assurance that events are logical and comprehensible. This is nonsense. Three months into the awakening of the Arab world, we have no idea how to respond. Unburied bodies are piled in the marketplace.
These are also “our own people.”
Thank you to Rabbi David Wolpe for his recent article on the continuing relevance of the Bible.
