Milestone Birthdays and Existential Crises

Milestone Birthdays and Existential Crises
Cantor Jenna Pearsall

We all experience it at some point in our lives, a period of intense self-reflection, a moment when we start questioning everything: why we are put on this earth, what’s the point of all this, and most importantly, who am I and what does this all mean? If you yourself are pondering any of the above, congratulations, you might be having an existential crisis! This feeling might come up around major life events, a milestone birthday, losing a job, sending your kids away to college, the loss of a family member, or perhaps entering retirement. It could come up when we lose something in our lives that we considered integral and fundamental to our personal identities, and we’re not sure what life will be like without its looming presence. These transitional moments when the rug seems to have been pulled out from under us often leads to a sense of dread, or as I like to call it, impending doom, where we wish time would stand still or just slow down a moment. In certain cases, people make drastic changes to their lives based out of a fear of their own mortality that seem out of left field and very unlike the person in question. And why am I standing here droning on about the phenomenon of existential crises? Well, it’s because I am currently having one. Next month is my birthday, and I, am turning…THIRTY.*dun dun DUN!!*

Now, I know what you’re thinking, 30 is still young and I should stop my whining, but this is a big deal for me! Being a 20-something living in New York is a fundamental part of my identity! I’m a little frightened by the prospect of closing out my 20s and entering a new decade, and this sense of impending doom is my current reality, so when I read this week’s parsha, I couldn’t help but read it through this lens of fear and threatened identity.

In this week’s parsha, Balak, the king of Moab, sees the Israelites from a distance and is immediately filled with dread. They’re too numerous, he exclaimed. There were so many of them that they completely obscured the Earth from his view, and that alarmed and unsettled him. He exclaimed, “The horde will lick clean all that is about us just as an ox licks up the grass of the field.” It’s interesting to me that Balak is not concerned about them killing him, but rather, he is concerned that they will strip them of their identity. Balak expresses plainly that he is worried the Israelites will overtake their identity as Moabites, taking away everything that is unique to their identities as a people.

He invites Balaam the prophet to come, saying that “there is a people that came out of Egypt, it hides the earth from view, and it is settled next to me. Come then, put a curse upon this people for me, since they are too numerous for me.”

God speaks through Balaam each of the three times he is asked by Balak to curse the Israelites, and instead of curses, blessings pour out. The first two blessings Balaam is unable to see the totality of the Israelites, only seeing a portion of them through the trees, but for the third, the Torah explains that he looked at the tribes head on, turning toward the wilderness, and out came “Mah Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov, mishkenotecha Yisrael. How fair are your tents O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel. Like palm-groves that stretch out, like gardens beside a river, like aloes planted by Adonai, like cedars beside the water.” The reality of seeing the Israelite camp from this new vantage point through the cedar trees has squashed their existing fear, their eyes unveiled by God. Where Balak saw formidable, murderous warriors, Balaam saw beauty, likening their dwellings to the exquisite nature in which they found themselves.

Now, you might not be turning 30 this year, but as we walk through life, we may be confronted head-on with one of these intensely transitional moments and milestones. At first we see the amorphous milestone coming from a distance just as Balak did, filled with a sense of dread and fear. This fear comes from a place of overthinking and insecurity in the unknown that can sometimes be toxic to the positivity that should surround these big moments in life. Just like Balak was overwhelmed by a formidable threat to his identity and existence, we too are overwhelmed when threats to our identity come fast approaching and there’s little we can do to stop their quickening pace. We need to take a moment to ask ourselves, what if this new chapter could be a blessing and not a curse after all? What if Balak had embraced the Israelites, instead of enacting his plan to curse the unknown? When we confront these challenges in our own lives, what is needed is a moment to really open our hearts and our eyes to the big change, just as Balaam did, internalizing that sentiment of Mah Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov and flipping it on its head, saying to ourselves how fair are MY tents and MY dwellings. Taking time to love ourselves through the challenging moments, dwelling more on what is integral to our identity that is remaining constant through it all, providing stability when we are threatened to go off-kilter.

Even though it’s still hard to admit it, I’m turning the dreaded 30 next month, but my identity will only get more solidified as I go into this new decade. In your 30s, I’ve heard that you get more and more comfortable with who you are, and hopefully you’ll be lucky enough to say that you’ve figured out where you want to spend your time, and who you want to surround yourself with. In my 30s, I hope to have many moments where I look around and think to myself, ‘this is where I always dreamed I’d be, and who I dreamed I’d be with at this point in my life.’ I’ll look around and exclaim Mah Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov, and remark how beautiful my tents have become. May we all strive to find the beauty in these moments that stretch us beyond our comfort zones and look inward to find that self-love that will propel us through.