Sitting with a thought for years, even decades, feels a bit like holding a small ember, carefully tending it so it never quite goes out.
There’s something deeply Jewish about that—persistence, dedication, the belief that small, steady efforts, no matter how incremental, eventually lead to great things.
My journey with a seemingly unsolvable math problem was like that. I couldn’t crack it during my PhD, but I kept at it, quietly, persistently, for 50 years. When I finally solved it, I handed the solution to my old advisor, who, in his final days, could still appreciate it.
There’s a parallel here with the idea of “tikkun olam,” the Jewish call to repair the world. I sometimes dream of a future where, with enough time and effort, we find cures for diseases thought incurable today. Imagine placing the sick on a spaceship traveling at the speed of light—time slows down for them, giving us the chance to find a cure before they return.
It’s a wild idea, but it’s driven by the same principle: with persistence and faith, even the hardest problems can be solved.
Dimitri Kanevsky is a Master Inventor at IBM, research scientist at Google DeepMind, and co-developer of Live Transcribe.
For Every Jewel There is a Question:
Is there an idea that keeps popping into your head, waiting for you to listen?
One Response
I read Elul 1 and 6 and I am still going over them in my mind. I especially like the poem Now is Now in the first one and in the second reading especially enjoyed, “with persistence and faith even the world‘s hardest problems can be solved”.
Thank you for sharing.