Some Questions Don’t Have Answers

Rabi was once asked, “Why did you become a scientist, rather than a doctor or lawyer or businessman, like the other immigrant kids in your neighborhood?”

Rabi answered, “My mother made me a scientist without ever intending it. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school: ‘So? Did you learn anything today?’ But not my mother. She always asked me a different question. ‘Izzy,’ she would say, ‘did you ask a good question today?’ That difference — asking good questions — made me become a scientist.”

In our day and age, there is no shortage of good questions. The world is only getting more complicated and confusing with each passing day. And yet, despite the complexity of the questions we face, and regardless of our own ignorance or illiteracy on any given subject, we want to give the answer. We don’t hesitate to weigh in or stake out a position.

And the truth is, it is no wonder. We live in the information age, with access to terabytes of information at our fingertips offering answers to almost anything in milliseconds. We can consult  videos found online and repair our own cars, install our own home alarm systems, replace the control board on a clothes dryer, or design incredibly complex spreadsheets. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we feel capable and entitled to understanding any issue and having answers to everything.