Reflection by Edgar Cahn
Being a transplant from nation to nation is nothing new. When you are Jewish, you are part of a nation that has been a transplant for centuries. We had the five books of Moses inscribed on a scroll, a tabernacle that had to be portable so we could carry it on our backs as persecution drove us from nation to nation and continent to continent. Right now, the United States is politically divided and paralyzed by the prospect of a wave of transplants coming from Central America. Except for Native Americans, we are all transplants. And we need more transplants to have the paid labor force needed as Baby Boomers age. We need other transplants from other kinds of bases to provide mutual health. For instance, TimeBanking enlists one labor force from another labor force in several ways: fifth grade students who can help third graders learn to read; teenagers who can create a culture of peer responsibility at a youth court; elders who can help other elders function as a non-biological extended family to raise grandchildren and provide informal support for each other. Our species specializes in becoming transplants. We just landed a rocket on Mars to see if our species could transplant itself there. What matters is not where we are – but what values and wisdom we carry with us – as we move from place to place, we sink roots, we explore, we create a base, we reach into the unknown. That is who and what we are as a life form.