It's as if we sleep through our shared history, and then, waking up from the terror caused by strange dreams, we try to recall what we saw at night, relying on our memory, imagination and, more than once, our prejudices.

But remember: your dream is only yours. There is no collective dream, even if dreams carry countless recurring elements. You are the only one who has control over your dream, and the narration of it belongs exclusively to you. You can share your dream with others, but the dream and the narrative never change hands. Old-fashioned tyrants used to think in their puffed-up fists that they could direct their sick historical visions into collective wishful dreams, as if we all saw and thought the same thing like synoptics. They are seriously mistaken, even if their servants who eat from their hands obliviously believe that their master's dream is also theirs.

The Muses are only enlightened by this and continue their dance. Of course, dance is not eternal, it just seems so. They themselves, that is, their existence is eternal. And even if they sometimes hide from us, we cannot give up our certainty of their existence. After all, it would not be they who would cease to exist, but rather we ourselves.

It is history provided by the Eternal, which gives meaning to our wanderings, freedom and responsibility to our choices, inexhaustible ammunition from every moment of our past and every thought we have ever had, and sees a goal in the other person who is always perceived as you and never as that, a common path for Jews and Christians. You'd better watch out for this road until it's permanently covered in impenetrable fog and numbing gloom.

György Gábor (1954) philosopher, historian of religion, university professor (Institute of Philosophy, MTA Humanities Research Center; National Jewish Rabbinical University)