Life as a Train Ride

By Shlomo Maital

         I recently took the train to Tel Aviv, to meet a friend.  Half the seats face forward, half backward.  On the train, I chose a seat facing backward, rather than what most riders prefer – a seat facing forward, in the direction of travel.   In Tel Aviv, a friend recounted a similar train ride, seated facing backward.

     He noted that when you face backward, you see far more of the landscape.  Your eye fastens on a feature of the landscape, and follows it as it recedes.

      When you face forward, you look out the window and try to look ahead, but the scene recedes quickly and changes every second. 

      In short – looking back gives you a clearer view of what is outside,  than looking forward.

      This is true of life.  We try hard to look into the future, but as on the train, it is very hard to see clearly.  Best we can do, is to have faith, be resilient, optimistic and deal with what life brings us from a foggy future.

      But at the same time, as with a train ride,  we can look back and see clearly what worked, what didn’t, what we did right, what we did wrong —  and constantly learn and improve.

      Jewish people celebrate the New Year 5784, which falls on the evening of Friday Sept. 15.  As always, we look forward, into the future, but mainly, we look backward, at our deeds, and do a spiritual reckoning. 

     Kierkegaard once said that this is the tragedy of life – we live life forward, but learn life looking backward.  Perhaps it is not a tragedy —  but rather an opportunity.