The Torah content for these two weeks has been sponsored by Judah and Naomi Dardik in loving memory of Rabbi Moskowitz zt''l, who taught his students to pursue truth by asking questions, who modeled love of Torah and learning, and who exemplified living a life of the mind.
 |
| Artwork: Future Sight, by Dan Scott |
My learning, my teaching, and my life (yes, I realize I just listed three synonyms) are shaped by the books I’m reading. Sometimes I can tell from the outset that a particular book will have a huge impact on my thinking. One of those books is Jane McGonigal’s Imaginable: How to see the future coming and feel ready for anything – even things that seem impossible today, published in 2022. I’m only halfway through, but I figured I should plan ahead by writing this prefatory article now.
McGonigal has the unique distinction of being both a future-forecaster and game designer. Her specialty is creating simulations that help people imagine the biggest global challenges we might face in the future. In 2008 she led a six-week future-forecasting simulation called Superstruct in which 10,000 people worldwide simulated living through five different threats, including a global respiratory pandemic that originated in China. The simulation was based entirely on the imagination of the participants: “we simply asked people to predict how they would feel and what they would do in their own lives during this kind of rapidly spreading outbreak.” Despite the fact that the simulation was entirely imagination-based, it yielded shockingly accurate predictions about the details of pandemic life during Covid-19.
McGonigal advocates a specific use of the imagination called episodic future thinking, or EFT. Here’s her description:
[Episodic future thinking is] the mental ability to transport yourself forward in time and pre-experience a future event. EFT is often described as a kind of “mental time travel” because your brain is working to help you see and feel the future as clearly and vividly as if you were already there. But EFT isn’t just thinking about the future; it’s simulating the future in your mind. It’s the difference between knowing that it’s probably going to rain tomorrow – a kind of “fact” or abstract thought about the future” – and vividly imagining yourself in the rain, trying to pre-feel the rain on your skin, and using everything you know about what tomorrow might be like to make the scenario more detailed and realistic. EFT might entail picturing where exactly you’ll be when it starts to rain, what you might be wearing, who might be with you, whether you’re likely to be annoyed by the rain or delighted by it, whether you’ll rush to get somewhere dry or stroll leisurely through it, and so on.
Her book is an eminently practical one, the full benefits of which can only be unlocked by readers who practice EFT on a regular basis. I’ve read enough to be sold on the power of EFT, and I’ve committed to practicing it every day for the next month. The main utility I hope to derive from my EFT practice can be summed up in Chazal’s definition of a chacham (wise person) as: “eizehu chacham? ha’roeh es ha’nolad” – “Who is wise? One who can see what the future will yield.” My rebbi, Rabbi Moskowitz zt”l, would note that Chazal didn’t say “one who knows the future” but rather “one who sees the future.” Chochmah (wisdom) is when the future is as real to the mind and the emotions as if it were perceived by the senses. How can we make our knowledge of the future real to our minds? By utilizing our imagination. In the introduction to his commentary on Mishlei, Saadia Gaon explains that this is the crux of Shlomo ha’Melech’s method:
Furthermore, sensory knowledge is easier and more real to the [minds of the] masses than intellectual knowledge since the sensory faculties exist in them from birth. Therefore, it is necessary to craft mashalim (examples and metaphors) for [the masses] in order to equate the dictates of the intellect with the dictates of the senses ... For this reason, when the intellect sees something detrimental or hears about something harmful and reveals it to the emotions and sees that they don’t trust it or accept it, [the intellect] should speak with them in a manner that they will understand.
This is why EFT needs to be vivid and detailed. The emotions don’t grasp abstractions and will not be moved by them. It’s not enough to tell the emotions that “the lazy man’s estate will deteriorate.” Instead, you need to say:
“I passed by the field of a lazy man, the vineyard of a man who lacks understanding, and behold! it was all grown over with thistles, its face was covered with nettles, and the stone wall was broken down. And I beheld, and I applied my mind and took discipline: a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to recline, and your poverty will come like a traveler, and your lacking like an armed man” (Mishlei 24:31-34).
The more details you imagine, the more your emotions will be impacted.
This article was just an intro. I hope to expand upon other benefits of EFT over the next few weeks. That is, in the future.
______________________________
If you've gained from what you've learned here, please consider contributing to my Patreon at www.patreon.com/rabbischneeweiss. Alternatively, if you would like to make a direct contribution to the "Rabbi Schneeweiss Torah Content Fund," my Venmo is @Matt-Schneeweiss, and my Zelle and PayPal are mattschneeweiss at gmail.com. Even a small contribution goes a long way to covering the costs of my podcasts, and will provide me with the financial freedom to produce even more Torah content for you.
If you would like to sponsor a day's or a week's worth of content, or if you are interested in enlisting my services as a teacher or tutor, you can reach me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail.com. Thank you to my listeners for listening, thank you to my readers for reading, and thank you to my supporters for supporting my efforts to make Torah ideas available and accessible to everyone.
Be sure to check out my YouTube channel and my podcasts: "The Mishlei Podcast", "The Stoic Jew" Podcast, "Rambam Bekius" Podcast, "Machshavah Lab" Podcast, "The Tefilah Podcast" Email me if you'd like to be added to my WhatsApp group where I share all of my content and public shiur info.
No comments:
Post a Comment