Think Again - Artemis II - Reaching out to the other side

There is another side. The side of the living souls, the place, where souls reside in that great big ballroom of heaven. Souls, excuse the pun feel like that they are living in heaven. We reach out to souls through prayer. We even speak to them, sort of, by reaching into ourselves, speaking to the other side, we reach out kindling those many spirited neshamot (souls). They in turn cross over to our side, reaching out to touch our dimension to fill our spirits, speak to us, to light the fire of belief, to instil within us, much courage and faith.

This week you may have heard amongst the bluster of consuming War News in the Middle East that four astronauts from NASA on the spaceship Artemis ii travelled to the other side. In fact, they travelled to the other side of the moon. They travelled out of space and returned with a big splash into the Pacific, having seen as they said in their own words, a new world, another world, another dimension, somewhere unhuman, somewhere never seen, somewhere Godly. All of them were filled with awe and wonder. They all declared that they were touched by something very Big, huge, other worldly.

I could not but wonder how great man could be if only we spent more time exploring the vast outreaches of the infinite universe, if we spent more time in the pursuit of infinite knowledge, if we tested the boundaries of Science, Philosophy, religion and the world of the eternal living soul. I don’t think we can ever discover the source of living life, the wonder of creation or understand the vast complexities of the Universe. To do so would be to understand the ways of God “for my ways are not you’re ways” says the Psalmist. To do so, to comprehend would make us a God. And that is impossible.

The debate rages of whether there are other forms of living life somewhere out there amongst the vast expanse of those many millions and billions of other worldly galaxies. Those galaxies do communicate with us each night through the sparkle and twinkling of shinning stars of the dark night sky. The light that reaches us from those stars take many years to reach us, so in fact what we witness in those sparkling stars are not the present but the forgotten past. Judaism has a principle of belief in the Sceptre of Israel and the Shooting Star of Jacob. I believe in the shooting Star of King David the Mashiach. One day, in the blink of an eye lid that Shooting Star will make contact, just like the stars. However, I don’t believe that there is life out there somewhere. I don’t believe we will ever find other civilisations, other worldly, other celestial life forms somewhere out there in the universe. Because finding life out there would require another Jewish nation somewhere out there to fit into the narrative of the Torah and Bible. Another Jewish Nation, well, that would be just too much to contemplate. I guess you can’t prove that there is life out there and you can’t prove that there is not life out there.

What I can prove, and share are the very words of the Four Astronauts of Artemis 11. In their first Press Conference they said.

• Reid Wiseman “No one will ever know what we just went through. But there are four of us and we know. We saw and gazed upon planet earth and could not believe but the whole planet fit into the very palm of my hand. Before we left, I could not wait for take-off and when we were there, out there, out of space, I could not wait to get back to planet earth. It is a special thing to be human. It is special to be on planet earth”.

• Victor Glover “I have not yet processed what we just went through. The Science I have, but not the emotion. I want to thank God. I have gratitude in God in what we just saw. This is just too big”

• Christina Koch “I learnt sacrifice, I learnt humanity, I saw tiny earth and all of humanity upon it but the vastness of the surrounding blackness is just, that’s something else”

• Jeremy Hanson “I felt four things, unbelievable bravery, contribution to mankind, love and joy. We went in search of joy and found it”