What would you do in an apocalypse?
The title of this article is one thing I would do in an apocalypse. It is also the title of my memoir, though it is unlikely I will write it.
It is what I did this summer. When NYC was thick with the smell of burning and smoke, I showed up at a friend’s home, as planned prior to the grey air and brilliant hot pink sun. To her credit, she looked askance at me but joined me at the pool on her roof. She was, wisely, in a mask as I dove into my safe haven of water, assuming that the pool water and my iridescent goggles would serve as the protection I needed.
This was the same week that our small team made sure to call every congregant who we knew would be affected by the dangerous air quality. My calls started with, “It looks apocalyptic out there; is there anything we can do for you?” Most people just needed to talk. They couldn’t leave their house for doctors’ appointments, visits with friends and family, or to go to work. Some needed to share how fortunate they were, in the middle of such a distressing time, to have a community they could reach out to on Zoom and via phone.
Then the winds shifted, the fire was put out, and we all moved on—except for the other places in our country and world where the fires still pour their apocalyptic smoke.
How would you prepare for an apocalypse?
Earlier this month, a friend asked me what I would do during an apocalypse. She asked, “Would you go on your own with your family? Would you build a community? Would you join a community?”
During a different, politically apocalyptic time, I demanded that our small podded family create go-bags, which I became obsessed with, including gummy bears, which I named “go-bears.” I also spent a significant amount of my free time researching two foldable kayaks to house in our Brooklyn apartment.
And once, in a personal apocalyptic time within a global one, I was told I was sick and eventually would succumb to “locked-in syndrome.” This was during the Covid lockdown. While I could not fully grasp the terror of this diagnosis, I focused on grieving that I could not travel to all the people I loved and to one last gorgeous new place before the illness took over. There are still no words for my relief and fortune that this was a significant misdiagnosis. After the pandemic, I rededicated myself to visiting loved ones and to seeing new (and old) gorgeous places.
Thanks to people who have put a lot of effort into exploring this question very concretely, I’ve also learned from movies how to prepare. I’ve seen two whole movies in the past year in theaters, and they were both social commentaries of the apocalyptic kind.
The first movie was “Good Luck, Have Fun, Be Safe, Don’t Die.” Its message, to me, was that even though we are in a runaway train of modern-day disasters of our making (AI, guns, internet echo chambers, and apathy), we could all love each other and spend more time together and look out for each other, even strangers.
This month my teacher was the movie “The End of Oak Street,” which not-so-subtly reminded me that many of us act like the devastation around us is ours alone to deal with. Even though we often ignore others’ plights, we are all connected and interdependent, and it is time to take care of each other for our own sake and our loved ones, too.
What would be your wisdom for an apocalypse?
A few years ago, I was with a group of poets who taught me that the definition of “apocalypse” is both “a sudden event that causes massive destruction” and “a prophetic revelation of hidden knowledge.” Apocalyptic times are scary, but as my movie and poetry teachers remind me, they also reveal our most intrinsic selves, and therefore what is most important to us.
Here’s what I learned I need because of the apocalypses I survived:
1) Make excellent checklists. Whether you are good at this, excellent at this, or not good at all, trust me, you will be terrible at it when your apocalypse feels close. If you didn’t see it coming, make sure you call that friend with excellent checklist skills. They will make you a list, or they have one. For example, when my Abba (dad) died, a friend made me a list of all the things I needed to do and pack as I prepared for his funeral; that list was a godsend. I paid it forward by making a Jewish death and dying list of all the things I wish my family had been able to discuss and prepare during my Abba’s prolonged battle with cancer
2) Give yourself permission to try to change. You can keep in mind a list of three things (from a central Rosh Hashanah prayer, Unetaneh Tokef, based on a section of Bereishit Rabbah).
a) Do teshuvah: Return to your best self and repair your relationships with those who are important to you.
b) Tefillah: Engage in prayer in a way that actually changes you, by figuring out what you need to say to yourself and to something larger than yourself, and actually say it out loud (or in a whisper).
c) Tzedakah: Do acts of justice and balancing to remember that this isn’t only about you. Reach out to support at least one other person; no matter how in need you are, someone else needs help in whatever form you’re capable of providing it, too.
3) Hydrate and eat. I was recently looking through my phone and found photos I didn’t remember from my own personal apocalypse. The images are of my fridge, full of chocolate milk and lentils. This is because first, lentils are the round food of mourning; they were also one of my dad’s favorite foods (may his memory be a blessing). And second, while I suppose some blood runs in my veins, anyone who knows me knows that my veins must be at least 50% chocolate milk, and therefore my loved ones brought me infusions.
The ancient wisdom of the current Jewish Elul season, the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, is our own little apocalypse preparation time. After all, thematically Yom Kippur unfolds the drama of our own potential deaths. Jewish tradition would like us to prepare. We make an accounting of our year, our lives. We reach out to loved ones to wish them a good year and to try to repair our mistakes, just in case we don’t have too much time left to do so “later.” These are lovely and meaningful home and personal rituals. But we are also invited to spend a lot (and if you haven’t done the full Jewish high holiday season, I mean a lot) of time with our community. Because we cannot survive a personal or global apocalypse without each other.
My friend that asked me about my apocalypse plans and her wife are working on their physical survival skills for the apocalypse. All I have to offer are the intangible necessities: pastoral care, creative dyslexic-enabled big vision, and spiritual stories. But with my friend’s invitation to join her zombie apocalypse survival team, I have the most important thing of all: a caring community.