Fear Not: Powerfully Simple Jewish Wisdom

Aconstant diet of bad news dished out by ratings-driven media that is ideologically committed to logically impossible ends is bound to create even worse news. No wonder anxiety is the background noise of our self-absorbed, politically-obsessed culture. The concept, called "angst" by the existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, author of the celebrated Fear and Trembling, has always existed in some form. But modernity has exaggerated the effects of anxiety through widespread narcissism and nihilism, without the added palliative of redemption and renewal so central to the Abrahamic tradition.