Promise and challenges

Rabbi Mark Wm. Gross

This month marks a fascinating milestone in world history. Sept. 8 commemorates the occasion in 1522 when Ferdinand Magellan’s ship, La Vittoria, dropped anchor in Sevilla, having completed the first human circumnavigation of the world.

That may be a real yawn for us today, living in an era when international space stations orbit the planet every 90 minutes and a dozen people from our planet have left footprints on the moon. And yet that 16th-century venture in global exploration has a profound and timeless message for us to ponder as the Jewish new year begins.

Consider Magellan’s mission. The King of Spain sought to do an end-run around the Arab-controlled overland and Indian Ocean trade routes to the fabled “Spice Islands” of the Indonesian archipelago. He, therefore, outfitted the Portuguese navigator with a flotilla of five ships crewed by 270 men tasked with finding a southwest passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the far side of the Pacific.

The whole venture soon bogged down. Sailing vessels of old were moldy, rat-infested breeding grounds for every conceivable air-, food- and water-borne disease, and deaths at sea from infection, accident and drowning were routine. So it is that, once into the South Atlantic, the tedium of tacking against the wind and bucking the current took its toll on Magellan’s crew, to the point that three of his five ships gave up and turned back to Spain.

The other two fought their way around Cape Horn and all the way across the Pacific. But when Magellan rashly intervened in a tribal war in the Philippines and was killed, the crew of his flagship turned around and headed east across the Pacific for the long voyage back to Spain.

The crew of the remaining ship, La Vittoria, continued down the coast of East Asia, traded in the Moluccas for a cargo of cloves, and made the arduous westward voyage across the Indian Ocean and around Africa to return home. The 18 surviving mariners arrived in Spain on Sept. 8, 1522, after a voyage of almost three full years, as a literal skeleton crew, gaunt from scurvy and the privations of the sea.

But they disembarked with the distinction of being the first people to circle the globe. And more to the point, they had the gratification of having loyally acquitted their duty regardless of the personal cost.

Wherein lies a timely parable for all of us. This new year, on which we are embarked this month, represents both promise and challenges; it is an endeavor fully as mysterious and unknowable as the voyage on which Magellan’s 270 crew members set sail. There were some among them who demonstrated exemplary courage and dedication in their duty to the King of Spain. May all of us show ourselves faithful to the sovereign of the universe in the adventures that 5784 will bring us.

Rabbi Mark Wm. Gross serves at Jewish Congregation of Marco Island.