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Recently the Gen Z meme ‘OK Boomer’ has been the subject of media coverage, most prominently in Taylor Lorenz’s piece in the Times. The retort is a response to the apathy many young people perceive from older generations toward the salient issues of the day.
The popularity of the saying has taken hold in the iterative nature of Internet culture, where it’s been rehashed, remixed and at this point even been resold as branded merchandise.
As sayings go, “OK Boomer,” is nothing new. It’s as acid tipped and dismissive of the generation of the Baby Boom as Boomers themselves were of their elders.
As the Talmud notes, “the youth will embarrass their elders.”
Within that snark, within the iterative TikTok videos of young people rolling their collective eyes at the generation over 60 that itself didn’t trust anyone over 30, there is a powerful redemptive current.
In describing the advent of the youth rebellion of the 1960s, the Rebbe noted the truly revolutionary nature of youth.
While and older generation is set in stone, moribund with a fear of change, youth possess the dynamic ability to create meaningful change. It is the nature of youthfulness itself to see the flaws in the world given to them - and to seek to change it for the better.
“‘Don’t be affected by how the world looked before you were born,” the Rebbe said. “Your purpose is to transform it - to make it better and more beautiful than it is now.’”
In other words, the job of the young is not to embarrass their elders, but rather to coax from the world that birthed them something better - to make their elders shine. It is the place of the older generation to come to the youth and say, “this is what I received - and due to my own limitations, I could not build a better world - not the Jewish world nor the world at large. As such, that mantle now rests your shoulders.” The key is to channel that passion, that youthful desire for a better world, through the wisdom of the Torah.
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