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AUGUST 25 • 2022 | 7

What makes you a futurist 
— someone who cares 
and wants to shape society 
toward a better tomorrow — 
is putting your device down 
when your child enters the 
room and thinking about 
how your every action will 
play out over generations. 
This is the mindset of a true 
futurist. This is longpath 
thinking. 
At its heart, the belief in 
a longpath or “longer-term” 
mindset is a Jewish one. 
After all, we’re the people 
who have dragged our story 
along to every outpost — the 
people who have waited on 
and insisted upon a future 
return. And just as our 
Passover story promises a 
transformation that does 
not happen overnight, the 
longpath view says that, 
yes, you can be an agent of 
change, not just a slave to the 
current climate, but it’s going 
to take some work.
For me, the High Holy 
Days manifest the essence 
of a longpath outlook best 
of all. Rosh Hashanah both 
reaps the harvest of the 
past and points us toward 
our most profound wishes 
for the future year — but 
you can’t get there without 
a Yom Kippur. On this day 
of teshuvah, which means 
repentance and return, we 
understand that to look 
ahead of us requires that 
we first look back on the 
year past and engage in an 
honest reconciliation with all 
we have been and all those 
we have wronged — both 
in our own eyes and God’s. 
It’s hard work, but if we do 

this with an open heart, we 
have a chance to not only 
envision a better future, but 
to participate in creating it — 
for us and for others.
The longpath view doesn’t 
just look deep into the 
future, but deep into the 
past. It holds that you cannot 
consider the future without 
transgenerational empathy, 
a clear accounting of all the 
preceding generations went 
through. Then, when you 
are ready to face the days, 
months, years, decades and 
centuries ahead, you must do 
your future-oriented thinking 
with future generations 
in mind. After all, your 
community and your world 
will belong to them.

THE FUTURE STARTS 
YESTERDAY
My father was a Polish 
refugee who escaped the 
ghetto and lost most of his 
family in the Holocaust 
— he went onto become a 
commander in the Jewish 
resistance. Years later, he 
used to say, “The future 
really started yesterday.” To 
move through the narrow 
passages and get to the 
land of milk and honey, we 
must adopt a mindset that 
integrates the far past and 
the far future. 
Transgenerational empathy 

is not merely a high-flown 
concept — it’s a practice, 
a way of taking the future 
seriously. On our mantel, 
along with photos of my 
parents and Sharon’s parents, 
and photos of us and of 
the kids, we have placed 
a few empty frames, a 
reminder of the generation 
to come. Seeing those 
empty frames is a subtle but 
persistent reminder that the 
decisions we make today, as 
individuals, as a family, as 
a community, are going to 
have everyday repercussions 
hundreds of years from now.
This Rosh Hashanah marks 
the beginning of 5783 in the 
Jewish calendar. That means 
we’re only 217 years from the 
year 6000. Some say that’s the 
latest time for the messiah 
to arrive and usher in the 
redemption. Others insist the 
messiah can and will come 
earlier. The real question is: 
Where do we want the world 
to be in 6000, and what kind 
of longpath thinking will 
help get us there?
To give you a little context, 
217 years ago Napoleon 
was crowned King of Italy, 
Lewis and Clark headed 
out on their expedition, 
Beethoven premiered his 
Third Symphony and the 
first steam locomotive had 
just had its first run. There 

was no electricity, no cars, 
no phones, no internet. The 
United States itself was a 
mere 29 years old.
Consider what can happen 
in two centuries. How would 
you like the world to look in 
Year 6000 and what are you 
willing to do to help make it 
that way?
It’s a mistake to think 
that the people who will 
be affected will likely not 
be your people. According 
to the handy Descendants 
Calculator, in 217 years, 
or eight generations, the 
youngest of my children, 
13-year-old Ruby, could have 
anywhere between 500 and 
87,000 offspring, depending 
on the average number of 
kids per generation. And 
that’s just one of my three 
children! 
What kind of a world do 
you want your descendants 
to live in? What do we have 
to do collectively to co-create 
that future?
We don’t need the answers 
this instant, but we do need 
to start making the small 
actions and asking the big 
questions right away. 

Ari Wallach is a futurist to Fortune 

500 companies, global nonprof-

its and philanthropists and is the 

author of “Longpath: Becoming the 

Great Ancestors Our Future Needs” 

(HarperOne, Aug. 16, 2022). 

HE ASKED THEM “WHO IS CALLED A ‘WISE MAN’?” 
THEY RESPONDED TO HIM, “THE PERSON WHO SEES 
THE CONSEQUENCE OF THEIR ACTION.” 

— BABYLONIAN TALMUD 32A

WHEN JUDAISM CONSIDERS THE 
LONG TERM, IT LOOKS TO THE PAST 
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