Thinking that the past few years have seen a redefinition of the term “ERA” from a lengthy period of time for large swaths of people, to now be seen as a temporary phase or passing interest or style for an individual person.

One of the most honored words in the lexicon of time feels cheapened by reducing whole eras to individuals & personal phases!

Once upon a time, an era was something like the Victorian Era, which lasted for many long decades. Thanks to Taylor Swift and her Eras tour by age 30, and the common slang describing people’s personal eras, these long decades of eras have been compressed into brief passing temporary phases.

Since we’ve heard of it, (and you can’t avoid this stuff on your feed!) perhaps there’s a lesson in this for all of us – even if we aren’t famous celebrities:

Talmud teaches: each person is a whole world. It doesn’t have to be whole countries or continents or a global transformation. Each person is a world unto themselves says the Talmud and their time periods can be considered eras, too.

Alter Rebbe writes regarding Rosh Hashanah, that each year is a new world unto its own with it’s own unique divine revelation and spiritual opportunity. And in HaYomYom, Alter Rebbe is quoted to say: “One summer day & one winter night is (like) an entire year!” Eras!

The message is that nowadays time is compressed, eras can be accomplished in almost no time at all!

And there’s more emphasis on the individual. Spiritually, as well! Each of us and in short order can make a huge impact!

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And this is “Your Version!” We have to own it, it’s best when we make it our own.

The 3rd leg (the “D”) of CHABAD is Daas, which is the faculty of intellect that internalizes things, that relates to them, and makes it close, relevant and personal.

See our post about “This is My G-d, and the G-d of My Fathers”.

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I’ve never listened to this music, so I can’t speak to that part, and don’t know much else aside for what keeps popping up in our feed, but this message about compressed personalized Eras and making it our own, Our Version, is extremely relevant to our Jewish experience.