‘With more knowledge comes more sorrow’

Rabbi Deborah Blausten takes a controversial topic from Jewish texts and looks at a progressive response

We are 22 months into living through a breaking news event, with a daily barrage of case data, scientific studies and updates to guidelines and restrictions set by government. When the world around us feels so chaotic and confusing, the news cycle and its drip-feed of information seem to suggest that consuming more, reading more, absorbing more, watching more, paying constant attention to the numbers and the updates might give us back some of the control and security that the virus has taken away.

The author of Ecclesiastes writes of his desire to seek out all there is to know, and his frustration in discovering that even once he acquired all of the wisdom he sought, ‘a twisted thing cannot be made straight’; it didn’t give him the power he hoped it would. He then remarks that ‘to increase in knowledge is to increase in sorrow’.

What does he mean? Surely our tradition values learning above all?

Living through our current reality can, I think, help us see the value in this teaching. Staying informed is vital – it is how we learn how to keep ourselves and others safe. The challenge of the ever-buzzing digital landscape is how to not get sucked into the spiral of so-called ‘doomscrolling’, where knowledge leads us to sorrow and despair.

It is difficult to look away from the torrent of information telling us about the world, but scrolling Facebook, Twitter, or the news can have a toxic impact on mental wellbeing without making any material difference to physical safety. When there is so much bad news around, it is important to create boundaries around our intake and to be mindful of when the things we hope might protect us start to do us harm.