A MAGIC PILL FOR THE COMING YEAR

In May 1910, Americans were preparing for the possible end of the world. Thankfully, they had a solution. They could buy something called a “comet pill.”

I promise you, I am not making this up. This is what happened. Halley’s Comet was approaching Earth, and this particular appearance had generated tremendous excitement, because scientists had recently learned how to analyze the chemical composition of celestial objects, and astronomers discovered that the comet’s tail contained a poisonous gas called cyanogen.

In ordinary circumstances, this would have been an interesting piece of astronomical information. Unfortunately, on this occasion, astronomers calculated that on May 19, 1910, Earth would pass directly through the comet’s tail.

Despite the fact that scientists repeatedly explained that the gas was so thinly dispersed, it presented no danger whatsoever – the media, naturally, whipped things up. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

Panic followed. People sealed their windows. Gas masks were sold. Oxygen was purchased. Some people dug comet-proof shelters. And, inevitably, entrepreneurs began selling “comet pills,” which promised protection against whatever terrible substances Halley’s Comet was about to deposit into the atmosphere.

Human civilization has never yet encountered a panic that somebody could not find a way to monetize.

And it didn’t stop at pills – a broker in Los Angeles actually sold comet insurance, promising a $500 payout if you were killed by Halley’s Comet. The premium was twenty-five cents a week. Quite how your family was going to file the claim if civilization had been destroyed was apparently left to the fine print.

Anyway, May 19 arrived. Planet Earth passed through the comet’s tail. And… absolutely nothing happened. The next morning, millions of people woke up, went to work, and presumably felt a bit silly about having panicked. Life went on, and everything was back to normal.

The comet panic of 1910 is one if my favorite stories, because it conveys something so true about human beings: we hate not knowing what happens next. And, whenever the future becomes frightening enough, we will do almost anything to convince ourselves that somebody does understand it, and that they have the solution.

As we enter 5787, there is certainly plenty to be uncertain about, which means that if I offered you a pill that guaranteed you safe passage through the coming year, I suspect I could sell quite a few pills.

So here is the question: What pill have I got for you as we enter 5787?

The situation in the Middle East remains very uncertain. The conflict involving Iran remains unresolved, the Strait of Hormuz remains a source of instability, and diplomacy and military confrontation seem to take turns dominating the headlines.

Meanwhile, for Jews around the world, the atmosphere has changed in ways that would have been difficult to imagine a few years ago. In the United States alone, the ADL recorded 6,274 antisemitic incidents in 2025—an average of seventeen every single day. Physical assaults have reached their highest level since the ADL began keeping records, and three people were killed in antisemitic attacks this past year.

The fact is, many Jews feel less secure now than they have for decades. Jewish institutions spend staggering sums of money on security. University campuses have become battlegrounds over Israel and Zionism, and Jewish self-identity. Jews who never imagined they would have to explain or defend Israel, or their Jewishness. Wearing a kippah, or a Magen David, or anything else that visibly identifies you as Jewish, is something you need to be conscious of before walking into certain places.

So, yes, there is uncertainty.

But there is something about the Jewish conversation over the past few years that has really begun to bother me. We spend so much time describing the threats to the Jewish future that we sometimes forget to notice the Jewish future actually unfolding in front of us in the present.

Some of the numbers are extraordinary. There are now 7.8 million Jews living in the State of Israel out of a worldwide Jewish population of about 15.8 million. In other words, about half of all the Jews in the world now live in the Jewish state.

Let’s look at that in historical terms. In 1939, just before the Holocaust, there were roughly sixteen and a half million Jews in the world, but only about 450,000 Jews lived in the Land of Israel. Today: 7.8 million Jews. Isn’t that amazing?

Another thing: Hebrew, our national language, is no longer a language preserved in books. It is a live, spoken language.

And another thing: Jerusalem is no longer just a place Jews face while they pray. It is a city with impossible traffic jams and high rises going up in every direction.

And there’s so much more. Jewish farmers farm Jewish land. Jewish scientists develop world-class technology. Jewish soldiers defend Jewish cities. Jewish politicians spend enormous amounts of time attacking other Jewish politicians, which, whatever else you may think about it, is surely the ultimate proof that Jewish sovereignty has been completely restored.

And there is another story going on as well, one that gets remarkably little attention – even though it is much closer to home.

The Orthodox Jewish community in America is growing. Orthodox Jews constitute only about 9% of American Jewish adults overall, but among Jews aged 18-29 that figure rises to 17%. Orthodox Jews have an average of 3.3 children, compared with 1.4 among non-Orthodox Jews.

In the New York metropolitan area, which is the largest Jewish population center outside Israel, of children in Jewish households who are actually being raised Jewish, 64% are being raised in Orthodox households.

This is not a victory lap for Orthodox Judaism, and it certainly does not mean we can afford to be complacent. Orthodox communities have serious challenges of their own: affordability, education, housing, retention, spiritual complacency, and all the other problems that arrive whenever human beings organize themselves into communities.

And yes, the Jewish world as a whole has profound problems. Assimilation remains enormous. Out of faith marriages remains a big issue. Jewish ignorance is huge.

But there is one conclusion that is very difficult to avoid: Wherever Jews are deeply committed to Jewish life, Jewish life has a future.

It’s not a surprise. Because when Jews build Jewish homes, educate Jewish children, observe Shabbat, learn Torah, celebrate Jewish festivals, marry other Jews, spend time in Israel, speak Hebrew, support Jewish institutions, and treat Judaism as the organizing principle of their lives rather than an occasional cultural accessory – guess what, there is a fairly good chance their children will know they are Jewish, and will want to continue on that path.

Apparently, commitment works. Go figure!

And that brings me back to my pill. People bought comet pills in 1910 for one reason: they were frightened by a future they could not control. They wanted someone to give them something that would guarantee that everything would be all right.

And we, the Jewish community entering 5787, want precisely the same thing.

We want someone to tell us what is going to happen with the war in the Middle East.

We want someone to tell us whether antisemitism is going to get better or worse.

We want someone to tell us what America will look like in ten years, whether Israel will be more secure, whether our investments will go up, whether our children will be okay, whether our health will hold up, and whether the coming year will bring happiness or heartbreak.

The thing is: Rosh Hashana arrives and tells us something we don’t particularly want to hear: You are not going to know! The central prayer of these days acknowledges that brutally: Mi yichyeh umi yamut—who will live and who will die; who will experience tranquility, and who upheaval; who will rise, and who will fall. We have no idea, and no way of knowing. God does not hand us the list. We walk into the year without knowing anything.

Rabbi Soloveitchik, describes two covenants binding the Jewish people. The first is brit goral, the covenant of fate. Fate is the Jewish identity imposed on us by history. In Nazi Europe, Hitler’s thugs did not ask each individual Jew how religious they were, or whether they regularly attended shul. They just saw saw Jews. That was enough.

Throughout Jewish history, our enemies have repeatedly reminded Jews that they are Jewish, even when they were trying to run away from that identity. Rav Soloveitchik describes this as an existence imposed upon the Jews from outside; the Jewish people are Jewish because the world treats them as Jewish.

And I think you’ll agree that we have all experienced a great deal of brit goral since October 7.

But, antisemitism cannot be the basis of a Jewish future. So Rav Soloveitchik says there is actually a second covenant: brit yi’ud, the covenant of destiny. Destiny is not what other people force upon us. Destiny is what we choose.

At Mount Sinai, the Jewish people were not united by a common enemy or a common danger. And they all said naaseh v’nishma. We will do what God wants. We will listen to what God says. They accepted a purpose, a way of life, a relationship with God, and an obligation to build something together.

Rav Soloveitchik describes destiny as active rather than passive, an existence that is chosen consciously.

And I believe that this is the great challenge facing us as we enter 5787, and in the years to follow. Our enemies can remind us that we are Jews. Let’s be honest, they will definitely do their best to do that. But they cannot and can never teach us how to be Jews.

And if our entire Jewish identity is reactive—if it consists only of responding to people who hate us—then, ironically, the people who hate us are setting our agenda.

Our answer to antisemitism cannot be to baton down the hatches. It must be more Torah, more Jewish education, more Shabbat tables, more children who can read Hebrew, more families going to Israel, more mezuzot on doors, more tzedakah, more Jewish marriages, more Jews who understand enough about their own history that some idiot on social media cannot dismantle three thousand years of identity in a thirty-second video.

And that is the pill I want to prescribe for 5787. Commitment.

Not certainty. I cannot give you that.

Not immunity from trouble. Judaism has never promised that.

Not a guarantee that the Middle East will settle down, or that antisemitism will disappear. Regretfully, that’s not happening anytime soon.

But I can tell you this: Jewish history contains overwhelming evidence that commitment is the pill we need to take.

When Jews commit to Jewish life, Judaism survives.

When Jews build strong Jewish homes, there are Jewish children.

When Jews learn Torah seriously, Torah is transmitted.

When Jews love Israel deeply enough to visit it, support it, and understand it, the connection survives whatever is reported on CNN and BBC.

And there is something wonderfully Jewish about the fact that the evidence for this appears at precisely the moment when the headlines look so bleak. If you watched only the news, you might imagine that the Jewish people are in terminal decline. But if you look at Israel, and Orthodox Jewish life in America – if you look at the birthrates, if you look at the schools, the yeshivas, the seminaries, the synagogues, and the growing committed communities, you see a very different story.

We have been living for thousands of years with our enemies confidently predicting the end of the Jewish people. But they have been remarkably consistent in one respect—they have been wrong.

But survival alone is just goral. What we must do with our survival is yi’ud.

And so, as we walk into a year whose contents none of us knows, I am not offering you a fraudulent comet pill. I am offering you a real pill.

Take your Judaism more seriously this year. Choose something. And that is your prescription for a good life.

Learn something you do not currently know. Add something to your observance. Make your Shabbat table better. Come to shul more often. Find a Torah class. Take your children or grandchildren to Israel. Learn enough about Israel to explain why you love it. Put more Jewish books in your home. Invite people for Shabbat. Give more tzedakah.

And above all, let the people around you see that being Jewish is not something you endure because history has trapped you inside it. It is something you choose because you believe it is magnificent.

The world has already reminded us that we are Jews. Now, what are we now going to do about it? That is the question we need to ask as we enter 5787.

And if enough of us answer that question—not out of fear, not out of anger, not because someone hates us, but because we need to be stronger and better Jews—then whatever uncertainty this year may bring, I am absolutely certain of one thing.

The Jewish future will be stronger because we were here to build it.