Elul 26: Zero-Sum-God ~ Sarah and Susan Silverman

Sarah: What if. This is the start of stories we tell ourselves, ingraining our fear of the yet unknown. What if I never fall in love again? Or write another joke?

Susan: Yes, to hold not-knowing with grace is a gift to ourselves — and to the world. To embrace possibility.

Sarah: My therapist says we are looking through a pinhole. And we distort that speck of reality into a big ghost story.

Susan: Or into a Big Truth everyone must share. Your struggle to embrace not-knowing is an important model. Too many people,
factions, nations, look through that pinhole and insist that the speck they see is The Whole Truth.

Sarah: Fear turns the future into a ghost story. If we gently remind ourselves, “Yo, self, that’s your fear of the unknown talking.” We could make room for ourselves and others to take risks, to become and to create.

Susan: What if more people asked a different kind of What If? Not, “what if something-horrible-is-sure-to-happen,” but, “what if” anything is possible?” Absolutism could melt into possibility. Our worldviews would not depend on the falseness of others’. We would not cling to the image of a Zero-Sum-God but to holy complexity.

Sarah: Oooh, Zero-Sum-God. I like that.


Sarah and Susan Silverman are sisters. Sarah is a comedian (@SarahKSilverman) and Susan is a Rabbi. (www.rabbisusansilverman.com) Both are activists.