By Natan Margalit, Published in Tikkun July/Aug 2004 There are no words which, in themselves, are useless. There are no actions which, in themselves, are useless. But one can make useless both actions and words by saying or doing them uselessly. -Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz The Waste Culture Not long ago, as I was composting the rinds and peels collecting in my kitchen, my mind wandered to the words of a mystic rabbi who claimed that whenever any event happened in the world, it surely has a reason for existing—that it is up to us to find the spark of holiness even in our greatest mistakes. Those things that we’d like to hide from, tuck away, and forget, he said, must be held up to the light, because there is something in them, some energy which could hold the key to our happiness and fulfillment, that is calling to be redeemed. We live in a waste culture. Gangsters “waste” their rivals; partiers who drink too much alcohol get “wasted.” A recent book by Kevin Bales identifies the shocking reality of the contemporary slave trade as the story of “disposable people.” Another book, Wasted Lives, by sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (reviewed in […]
