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Finding Reason in the Midst of Chaos
After last week’s Oregon massacre and last month’s Virginia shooting, it’s worth looking back on these thoughts from the days after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing:
Zebadiah Carter describes himself living in “an era when homicide kills more people than cancer and the favorite form of suicide is to take a rifle up some tower and keep shooting until the riot squad settles it.” In 1980, this remark by the main character in a Robert Heinlein novel sounded like the science fiction that it was. Now it echoes like a prophecy.
Random acts of mass violence in the United States still horrify us but no longer shock us. We’ve heard too many stories, seen too many pictures. And too many of them are depressingly the same:
- 20 students and 6 adults murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
- 12 killed and 58 wounded at the Century Theater in Aurora, Colorado.
- 13 killed and 30 wounded at Fort Hood.
- 32 dead and 17 wounded in the Virginia Tech massacre.
And those are only the bloodiest atrocities going back to 2007. The Columbine school shooting in 1999 adds another 39 victims to the tally. And, of course, Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 claimed 168 lives and injured nearly 700.
Now we have to try and make sense of this latest act of senselessness — the Boston Marathon bombings, which shattered an iconic American institution and shook our already precarious sense of order and security.
Amidst all the suffering and all the investigation, the question we most want answered is why?
We’ve asked the same question before. According to reports, Adam Lanza was bullied as a student at Sandy Hook; Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were bullied at Columbine High School; so was Timothy McVeigh as a boy in Pendleton, New York. There were also histories of psychiatric problems, as there were with Seung-Hui Cho before his attack on Virginia Tech, James Eagan Holmes before Aurora, and Nidal Malik Hasan before Fort Hood.
But these explanations offer little in the way of real answers. Almost all of us were bullied when we were younger without seeking murderous retribution against our tormentors, and most of us can lay claim to at least some kind of neurosis. More to the point, why is random violence on the rise, if the root causes have been around for generations? According to data assembled by Mother Jones Magazine, nearly 40% of mass shootings since 1982 have taken place in the last seven years (excluding robberies and gang-related incidents). If so, what has changed? And can we expect it to get worse?
Ultimately, it may be all about control. “These kids often feel powerless,” psychiatrist Peter Langman told LiveScience. “The one way they can feel like they’re somebody is to get a gun and kill people.”
“Out of control” is a term that seems increasingly characteristic of the world we live in. On the one hand, technology provides us with the power of information, opportunity, and access at a level unimaginable barely a decade ago. But on the other hand, our inability to manipulate so much power leaves us feeling both frustrated and inadequate, while the triumphs of others make us feel like pawns in a game we can never win. With the world at our fingertips, success and happiness remain damnably elusive.
And so we flail about with increasing desperation, constantly trying to push ourselves just a little harder and work just a little faster. Day by day, our sense of anger and resentment toward a society that promises so much and delivers so little builds within us until we feel ready to explode. In a world gone mad, what else can we do but get mad at the world?
The fallacy, however, is the world has not made sense since the beginning of time. Last weekend, Jews around the world paused in the midst of their Sabbath morning services to read the Book of Ecclesiastes, compiled over a lifetime by King Solomon, the wisest of all men, in his search for meaning and justice:
And I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither is there bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of knowledge; but time and death will overcome them all.
Really, all that has changed is our expectation. We have been taught to believe that anything we desire is within our grasp, that we are entitled to the love of poets, the wealth of kings, the pleasures and the power of the gods. Our culture has etched upon our collective consciousness the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And although Thomas Jefferson had the wisdom not to assert the right to happiness itself, that subtle distinction is lost on most of our generation.
Given the fantasy images of Pixar and Dreamworks, the superhero illusions of the silver screen, and the miracle gadgets that fit in the palm of our hands, what can we expect from a youth wholly unprepared for reaching the age of responsibility? And when they confront the seeming impossibility of leaving their mark on the world through any positive contribution, why should we be surprised when they choose violence as their final recourse to make the world take notice of their existence?
And yet, for all that, Solomon himself did not give in to despair and hopelessness, despite the words of lamentation with which he begins Ecclesiastes:
Futility of futilities — all is futile!
But it is not Solomon’s opening words that contain his ultimate message. It is the words he offers at the end, in sharp contrast to all the observations he offers before:
The sum of the matter, when all is heard: Fear the Eternal and guard His teachings, for this is the entirety of Man.
Viewed superficially, this world is a place of chaos, without rhyme or reason, without justice or pity. Says Solomon: do not look at the outer trappings of creation, but search for the nobility of man. Recognize the greatness that compels a 27 year old first grade teacher, with scarcely a moment’s notice, to give up her life in the protection of her innocent charges. Admire the reflexive heroism of bystanders who rushed to help the injured at the finish line, without regard for whether another explosion might make them victims themselves. Do not lose hope in the face of wanton violence, but take inspiration from the lofty heights to which Man can rise.
In the marathon of life, some finish and some fall. But greatness is measured by perseverance, by pursuing the unique potential that resides within each of us us, by our determination to choose good over evil and show the world that the divine spark of the human spirit will never die.
The War to End all Wars
Originally published by Jewish World Review in September, 2001, two weeks after the attacks on the Twin Towers.
Once upon a time there were three little pigs. One built a house of straw, until the big, bad wolf blew it down and gobbled him up. One built a house of sticks, until the big, bad wolf blew it down and gobbled him up. But one built a house of bricks and was safe from all the huffing and puffing of the big, bad wolf.
Society teaches values to successive generations through its children’s stories. The story of the Three Little Pigs is one of our most enduring fables, teaching the importance of good planning and disciplined effort. But it also carries with it a more subtle message, that safety rests in our own hands and our own labors, that security can be bought for the price of a pile of bricks and a bucket of mortar. This ideal, if it was ever true, went up in flames together with New York City ‘s skyline and Washington’s military nerve center on September 11.
More appropriate now than the Three Little Pigs is Robert Burns’s adage about “the best laid schemes of mice and men.” Indeed, the World Trade Center towers were each designed to absorb the impact of a 727; what the architects failed to factor in was how the fuel carried aboard a transcontinental airliner would create an inferno capable of compromising the structural strength of steel support beams. Of course, we don’t blame the architects; none of us imagined the acts of incomprehensible evil that brought down those towers.
Which is precisely the point. We cannot imagine the design and the reach of evil. We can make our best effort, erect walls of brick around ourselves and roofs of steel over our heads, but we will never be completely safe. The world is too unpredictable an arena, the mind of the wicked too dark a cavern.
As if to drive home the instability of temporal existence, observant Jews around the world will disrupt their normal lives this week by moving out of their homes into little stick houses to live as our ancestors lived in the desert after their exodus from Egypt. But more than an attempt to recreate the experience of a fledgling nation traveling toward its homeland, the holiday of Sukkos offers us an opportunity to attune our minds to a most fundamental principle of Judaism — that however great our strength and the might of our own hands, however elaborate and well conceived our plans, life strews unexpected obstacles in our path that can scuttle our most certain victories and demolish our most solid edifices.
A sukkah may be built of virtually any material: wood, brick, steel, canvas, or even string may be used to construct its walls. But no matter how stable or how precarious its walls, the roof of a sukkah must be composed of s’chach, thin strips of wood or leaves, through which the light of the stars can shine at night. And when one sits in the sukkah and looks up at the s’chach — the barest representation of a roof that won’t protect him from even the lightest rainfall — he is inspired by the recollection of his ancestors who trusted in the protection of the Almighty, the One who took them out from under the rod of their oppressors and guided them through the inimical desert before bringing them safely home.
In his visionary writings, the prophet Ezekiel describes a great battle on the eve of the messianic era, when the all forces of evil in the world combine themselves into a great army called by the name Gog and Magog. The brilliant eighteenth century thinker Rabbi Samshon Raphael Hirsch interprets the prophet’s vision not as a military battle but as an ideological war between the philosophy of gog — “roof”– and the philosophy of sukkah, where those convinced that their fate lies in the power of their own hands and their own resources will attack the values of those who recognize the limits of human endeavor to influence the world.
In the immediate wake of the World Trade Center destruction, cries rang out for vengeance and military retribution. Since then, more measured voices have asserted that this war will be like no other, without defined enemies or defined borders, without clear strategies or decisive victories. This is an unfamiliar kind of crisis, where we find our capacity to respond in our own defense or to secure our own future profoundly diminished in a new world order.
So now the citizens and leaders of the world’s last remaining superpower must grapple with the uncertainties of a violent present and a murky future. Some will respond by declaring that we must work harder to take control of our own fate. Others will concede that we will never be secure again. And they will be right: no building, no bunker, no shelter made of brick or concrete or iron will guarantee our safety from the perverse imagination of extremists who can rationalize indiscriminate mass murder.
Yet for all that, the Jew sitting in his sukkah will look up at the heavens and be at peace. He will recognize that the best laid schemes often come to naught and that, after doing all that can be done, we are best off leaving our fate in the hands of the One who placed the stars in their courses, the One from whom protection ultimately comes for those who trust not in their own strength, but in the source of all strength.
As the winds of autumn blow with the first hint of winter, we may shiver with cold but never with fear. The illusion of the roof we can see reminds of the invisible reality of the wings of the Divine presence. We neither abandon ourselves to fate nor try to seize hold of it, but turn with confidence to face the future, secure in the knowledge that we have prepared ourselves as best we can to meet whatever life holds in store for us.
Gaining Entry to the Glorious Kingdom
Aaron [the High Priest] shall place lots upon the two goats: one lot “for God” and one lot “for Azazel.” Aaron shall bring close the goat designated by lot for God and make it a sin-offering. And the goat designated by lot for Azazel shall be stood alive before God, to provide atonement though it, to send it to Azazel into the wilderness.
Leviticus 16:8-10
One of the most puzzling and disturbing rituals in Jewish practice is the goat “for Azazel.” During the afternoon of Yom Kippur, two goats are brought before the Kohein Gadol, the High Priest. By lot, one is chosen to be placed upon the altar as a sin-offering, while the other is taken out into the desert and thrown alive over the edge of a sheer cliff.
What purpose could such a practice possibly serve?
In truth, the symbolism of this ritual is astonishingly simple and frighteningly relevant. The two goats, identical in every way, symbolize the two possible futures that stretch out before every single human being. Like these goats – which appear indistinguishable from one another – many of the paths open to us in our youth seem equally attractive and filled with opportunity. Every child demonstrates both qualities of virtue and qualities of selfishness. Whether our higher or lower nature will win out in the end can never be reliably predicted.
Only over the course of a lifetime will it become evident whether the individual has chosen the path of righteousness, dedicating his life “to God,” like the goat offered up on the altar, or abandoned virtue for the path of wickedness, wandering through life into the wasteland of moral confusion and making himself into an offering “to Azazel,” a name commonly associated with the Satan but often left undefined.
Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch explains that the name Azazel can be understood as a composite of two Hebrew words: az azal – “wasted strength.”[1] Rather than devoting his life to the ways of virtue defined by God’s law, a person may use his human potential for pleasure seeking, for ego-gratification, for ultimately self-serving ends. By doing so, he squanders the resources of physical health, intelligence, and imagination in pursuit of temporal rewards that leave him, for all his efforts, with nothing of real value. He will have wasted his life, as surely as the life of the goat flung over the precipice in the wilderness comes to a wasted end. Like that goat, his life will have served no purpose except as a warning to others.
On this Day of Atonement, we remind ourselves of the urgency of daily reflection upon our past and our future, of the need to contemplate the awesome indictments of the Day of Judgment that we have only just survived, and of the priceless opportunity we have to influence the verdict of the Celestial Court as it determines our fate for the coming year.
Will we choose to offer ourselves on the altar of divine service by committing ourselves to take greater care in our speech, in our actions, and in our thoughts? Will we show more consideration for our fellow men and conduct ourselves with modesty and humility? Or will we continue on as we have, like the goat wandering blindly into the wilderness of oblivion, persisting in the habits of spiritual and moral insensitivity that may have already led us to the brink of eternal desolation?
It should be an easy choice. But the most important choices that confront us are rarely easy; instead, we grope through the darkness of confusion, blundering through the days and years of our lives.
Except for one day a year, when our eyes are opened wide.
The sages tell us that one who answers amen has greater merit than one who recites the blessing itself: no praise of the Almighty is complete until it is reaffirmed by another.[2] However, we learn elsewhere that in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the congregation did not answer with the tradition amen but with the phrase “baruch sheim kovod malchuso l’olam vo’ed– Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever.”[3]
Rabbi Samuel Eliezer Edels (Maharsha) explains that amen is an expression of emunah, the faithfulness that compels us to remain true to God’s Law and to our spiritual mission even when the darkness of exile envelops us, even when human logic would abandon all hope that there is any rhyme or reason, that there is either Judge or justice.[4] Amen is the affirmation of our faithful belief in the existence and the divine plan of our Creator even when our senses can make little sense of our existence. When we declare amen – it is so! – not as an obligatory act but as a willing response, we testify to others and to ourselves that the hidden face of God hides from us only so that we can raise ourselves to new spiritual heights by seeking out the divine presence.
In the courtyard of the Temple, however, the radiance of the Shechina (the Divine presence) illuminated the eyes of all who stood in the holy courtyard facing the inner sanctum. Those who made the pilgrimage and passed through those gates were rewarded with a vision of such profound spiritual clarity that every shred of doubt evaporated and absolute certainty overtook them. There was no room left for emunah, and no need to cry out amen.
Instead, the ministrants would proclaim blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever, a formula reserved for the malachim — the celestial emissaries that reside in the heavenly spheres — but which we are allowed to intone only in a whisper.
And why are we not permitted to say these words out loud? Since we do not know and cannot know the name – the essence – of God’s glorious kingdom, at least not until we have lived out our lives in this world and made our transition into the next. We have no right to praise that of which we have no knowledge, and so we dare only speak of it softly in anticipation of the day when it becomes our inheritance.
But in the Temple, in the presence of the Shechina enwrapped in the light of holiness, one gained sufficient clarity so that he could cry out with the malachim, not as an expression of faith but as declaration of absolute knowledge.
And there is one other occasion when we are permitted to proclaim this formula aloud: on Yom Kippur.
On Yom Kippur, we shed the trappings of our material existence and enter the realm of the malachim. Indeed, if we have prepared ourselves properly over the Ten Days of Repentance, then we do not merely give up eating and drinking; rather, we lose all interest in physical indulgences, attaining a vision of such spiritual clarity that we might as well be in the Temple itself, or in the celestial spheres alongside God’s divine emissaries.
And when the day is over and we return to the mundane existence of the physical world, we should find ourselves transformed, no longer malachim but much more than flesh and blood. With renewed spiritual energy and awareness, we are equipped to resolve the contradictions of the higher and lower worlds, and the paradox of the Almighty’s hidden and revealed self.
And this we can accomplish a hundred times a day, with every blessing we pronounce and every amen we answer.
Maharsha goes on to explain that the Tetragrammaton — the four letter name of God as it is spelled out in Hebrew – yud-kay-vav-kay – represents the Almighty in His ultimate form, all powerful and eternal, Master of the glorious kingdom whose name is known only to the malachim. On the other hand, the spoken name of God, the name in our prayers and our blessings – Ado-noy – represents the Creator as He reveals Himself to us as Master of our world.
With every blessing that we recite, we have an opportunity to act upon the revelation we experienced on Yom Kippur, uniting the revealed and the concealed names of God, proclaiming the unity of the Master of the Universe. And even more so when we respond amen.
According to Jewish numerology, or gematria, every letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical equivalent. The numerical values of God’s written name – yud-kay-vav-kay – is 26. The gematria of God’s name as we pronounce it – Ado-noy – is 65. And when we respond to another’s blessing, affirming our faithful conviction that the same God we perceive imperfectly through our limited human eyes is one with the ineffable God who created the heavens and the earth, we ourselves transcend both the simple obligations of Torah observance and the finite nature of our earthly existence with one simple word: amen – with the gematria of 91, the sum of 26 and 65, representing the absolute unity of the Almighty.
And if we can achieve this awareness, despite all the darkness and confusion of our world, the malachim can do nothing but look on and covet the opportunity all of us have to serve our Creator in the way that is uniquely our own.
[1] Commentary on Chumash, loc. cit.
[2] Berachos 53b; Rashba, Sha’alos and Teshuvos 5:53
[3] Sotah 40b
[4] Ibid.
Do we really want a leader?
The second Republican debate provided three indisputable facts:
- The mainstream press can barely disguise its bias in favor of the democrat party. Virtually every question was designed to promote inter-party bickering rather than elicit either policy positions or evidence of executive experience and aptitude. Whether in the debate itself or beyond, the press devotes disproportional attention to Donald Trump, not because he is the front-runner, nor even because he’s good for ratings, but because he discredit the Republican party in the eyes of most Americans with his ill-mannered and self-serving bluster.
- Far too high a percentage of the electorate lacks any real understanding of the responsibility implicit in the right to vote. Donald Trump has insulted a war hero, insulted women, insulted his fellow candidates, and has skirted giving meaningful responses to specific questions while telling us all to trust how great a job he will do. That he maintains such a commanding lead over so many truly qualified candidates is perhaps the most depressing aspect of the primary race so far. True, represents a reaction against political corruption and political correctness. But incivility is not the opposite of either.
- Carly Fiorina stands head and shoulders above every other candidate. She is well-informed, specific and to the point, poised and articulate, strong yet civil. She’s exactly what the country needs, and she should be leading by a mile.
When the Children of Israel approached Samuel the Prophet to ask for a king, Samuel responded with anger and rebuke. It was not the people’s request that was wrong; it was their reason.
“Give us a king,” the people said, “like all the other nations.”
The surrounding nations submitted to the rule of kings to absolve themselves of the responsibility of making choices and of the consequences of their actions. A Jewish king was supposed to inspire the people to live up to their mission as children of the Almighty. But the people wanted to take the easy way rather than challenge themselves to strive for greatness.
Ultimately, this country will only find its way back to greatness when we, the people, stop looking at the window dressing, stop looking for an entertainer-in-chief, stop looking for who will promise us the most goodies or tell us what we want to hear. We can only restore our country to greatness when we rally behind a true leader who is qualified to understand complex issues, who is willing to make difficult choices that are best for the nation, and who has the character to earn trust and respect from friends and enemies alike, at home and across the world.
Yom Kippur: Playoff Season for the Soul
Guest post by Mendel Horowitz
Like a field of dreams Yom Kippur counts on ghosts to inspire. In Kevin Costner’s sentimental role, his character Ray Kinsella carves a baseball diamond from a cornfield after hearing a mysterious whisper “if you build it he will come.” Encouraged by the prophecy and by the spirits of departed ballplayers, Ray in the end discovers his estranged father behind the plate and engages him in a seraphic game of catch. The High Holidays too can be stirred by fantastic voices – inexplicable motivators of contrition, correction, change. On Yom Kippur, standing solemn before my Maker with ghosts of past defeats and not-yet triumphs at hand, I too will aspire to engage Him. I too will hew a future from the past.
This year, the portentous Day of Atonement falls on the eve of September 23, while Sir David Wright hosts the Braves and the Mets delight in their amazing dream. For believers in Flushing, on that weekend baseball might seem delightfully temporal, repentance as distant a notion as spring. For me, our pastime is irresistibly spiritual, her diamond silhouette an invocation, her metaphors as vibrant as her checkered outfield grass. In my synagogue, that holy day will be celebrated as an occasion of longing, an extra-inning playoff of abstinence and prayer. I may not be rooting for the home team that afternoon but I will be encouraged by baseball’s oddities.
Our national pastime is peculiar indeed. When Yogi Berra quipped “it ain’t over till it’s over” during the summer of 1973, the Mets were in last place, finishing July a dismal 44-57. By August 30 the team was 61-71, 6.5 games back with 29 to play. Before the season closed the Mets would claim the NL East, victorious in 21 of their last 29 contests. The Mets infiltrated the postseason with a record of 82-79, to date the worst percentage by a division champion. After raising the NL pennant and battling to a World Series Game Seven, it was finally over when the Mets fell to the Mustache Gang and their swaggering MVP.
Yogi was only half right. In all professional team sports – baseball included – a playoff berth is routinely clinched before the season officially ends. It can be over before it’s over. Baseball is, however, unique in disallowing any single game to be over before its final out. Only on a diamond can a team come back from any deficit with no buzzer, whistle, or horn interrupting its rally. No game is over till it’s over. Just ask Mookie Wilson, who in 1986 delegitimized Billy Buckner on the tenth pitch of his heroic at-bat after the Red Sox were at three times one strike from deliverance. Baseball is a game of second chances.
For diehards, Yom Kippur is a final opportunity in a season of do-overs. When the Israelites forged a golden calf at Sinai Moses was compelled to smash the original tablets, tossing the first pitch in an epic struggle for God’s favor. Throughout a heated summer Moses labored valiantly atop the hill, earning the right to carve new tablets by offering himself for his team. On Yom Kippur, his efforts rewarded, the prophet descended triumphant, with God’s unassuming pardon and trophy slabs in hand. From the assurance of spring through the worry of summer, Moses carried his team to a fall salvation. Not bad for a rookie.
Relived annually, the Jewish season of second chances gets underway with the advent of Elul, the final month before the New Year. From then, each morning after services a shofar sounds and a special psalm is recited, calling to mind the far-reaching potential of the ensuing homestand. For a meritorious few and their less fortunate opposites, Rosh Hashanah, thirty days later, is the conclusive day of judgement, when the righteous and the wicked are inscribed in their respective tomes. Yom Kippur occurs ten days after that, allowing unremarkable journeymen extra innings to settle their score. Before the season’s final strike everyone will have their say at the plate.
A forty day homestand of penitence offers adequate occasions for transcendance. The process of repentance can invigorate, awakening dormant courage from slumber. But introspection is notoriously difficult to maintain, the stretch from Elul to Yom Kippur wearisome, draining. Like an ordinary baseball season (which spans three of four climatic seasons) the Days of Awe rely more on storylines than thrills, more on drama than excitement. Baseball is neither raucous nor bold. When “90% of the game is half mental” its energy is bound to be subtle.
By some estimates 90% of the game is also spent standing around. According to the WSJ baseball’s fleeting moments of action account for but 17 minutes and 58 seconds of a typical three hour game. From on-deck circle to bullpen, from pathological glove adjustments to obsessive shaking off signs, baseball is an exhibition of exaggerated preparedness. Everything important in baseball happens in the heartbeats between anticipation. Apprehension is baseball’s charm; waiting, her mystique.
What made the pennant race endearing in ‘73 and the rally against Boston amazing in ‘86, were the unhurried ways they unfolded. Few things happen suddenly in baseball, it’s magic evolves leisurely in plain sight. No need for rapid eye movement or instant replay; baseball’s feats are taken in with a pencil and a stomach for suspense. In baseball, time is not something to play against but to toy with, the moments between activity more moving than the action itself.
The Day of Atonement is itself drawn out, prone to rushes of emotion and spans of boredom too. Between its haunting first inning and expectant last are 25 self-denying hours, an ascetic journey of supplication, ceremony, and song. Like baseball, Yom Kippur is a slow game, one that rewards patience with equal measures of elation. The enchantment of the day lingers in its tensions, its allure apparent in its yearning. A classic Yom Kippur unfolds without hurry, its promise swelling cautiously, its hesitancy bursting my heart.
As a religious orientation, baseball imbues the virtue of readiness, the modesty of reacting to something thrown at you really fast. At the plate and on Yom Kippur I can never be sure what may be tossed my way. All I can do is to prepare. Before the ghosts arrived, Ray Kinsella sculpted sacred space from profane, building it so “he will come.” Before knowing who he was, Ray was prepared for his arrival.
Absolution is never assured. To encounter Him on September 23 I will rely on ritual and superstition to get myself ready. My personal playoff will be lengthy, and if all goes well, improbable. I envision a nail-biter until late innings when, like Kirk Gibson, I will limp to the plate and achieve the impossible. Preferably with a longball. Preferably on a full count.
Rethink Everything
The ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur commemorate the Creation of the universe and the creation of mankind. Rosh Hashanah is called the Day of Judgment, reminding us that all our actions matter, whether great or small, whether public or private.
By contemplating that we will have to make an accounting before the One Judge, we become more aware of our own choices, more cautious in how we judge others, and more willing to rethink the many ideas and attitudes we take for granted.
Ultimately, we want to be the best people we can be, which means looking back on the past year to evaluate how we’ve succeeded and how we have fallen short. It also means looking forward to envision where we would like to see ourselves this time next year, and then setting the bar a little higher, knowing that we will always fall short of our goals.
Change isn’t easy. But it is inevitable, for better or for worse.
And it’s in our hands to see that we change for the better.
Remembering 9/11: Visionaries and Ideology
Who knew a trip to New York could be so emotional?
Our first stop was the 9/11 museum. I marveled at the artistic vision that had conceived the memorial pools, the water channeling down in rivulets that mirrored the face of the fallen towers, the continuous downward rush balanced by the redemptive feeling of water — the source of life — returning to the heart of the world. Here there was solace, closure, and consolation.
But a very different feeling accosted me inside. Almost upon entering the doors a single word brandished itself across my mind’s eye: Holocaust.
Obviously there is no comparison between the monstrosity of wantonly dehumanizing genocide and any single act of terror; obviously there is no equivalence between the systematic psychological, spiritual, and physical destruction of millions and a few thousand relatively instantaneous murders.
But then again, yes there is.
Read the whole article here:
Balancing the Scales of Freedom
Originally published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the week after 9/11, between Rosh HaShonah and Yom Kippur.
It was Judgment Day — exactly one week after the World Trade Center buildings collapsed and so many illusions along with them.
“Judgment Day” is the expression found in the traditional liturgy for Rosh HaShonah, the first day of the Jewish new year. And as I stood in the midst of the congregation intoning the High Holiday prayers, the vision of exploding passenger planes and twin towers crumbling to dust hovered before my eyes.
On Rosh HaShonah we will be inscribed … who will live and who will die … who by water and who by fire … who by storm and who by plague … Who will have peace and who will suffer … who will be cast down and who will be exalted.
The judgment upon Jews became kinder after the United States opened her doors to us a century ago. Where no one else would have us, America took us in, allowing us to live both as Americans and as Jews without persecution.
Yet for all that, American Jews often feel torn by opposing cultural forces, especially approaching our Day of Judgment in a society where there is no greater sin than “judgmentalism.”
Without judgment, however, society cannot endure. As good citizens we must judge others – not based on race or religion but upon actions and behavior. And we must judge ourselves as well, by constantly reexamining our motives and our prejudices and our values and our goals. To condemn even this kind of judgment as a threat to freedom is to retreat from our responsibility to discern right from wrong; it is to embrace the illusion of absolute theoretical freedom – moral anarchy – which is in reality no freedom at all.
September 11 brought us face to face with moral anarchy in the form of incomprehensible evil. Perhaps the first step toward confronting it is to remind ourselves that freedom is not a right – it is a privilege, and privileges carry with them obligations that are often inconvenient and occasionally painful. When Thomas Jefferson wrote that the tree of liberty must sometimes be refreshed with the blood of patriots, he warned that the threat against freedom can only be met by not taking freedom for granted.
Freedom is not democratic, as less than a score of suicidal zealots understood when they commandeered four transcontinental airliners. The duties of freedom are non-negotiable, as New York firefighters and policemen understood when they rushed into crumbling skyscrapers. And the rules of freedom cannot always be legislated: sometimes we have to choose between necessary evils, as the passengers aboard United Airlines flight 93 understood when they drove their plane into a Pennsylvania field.
These are the kinds of judgments we must make, every day and every year, to preserve our society, all the more so in a nation built out of so many cultures and beliefs as ours. Every freedom of the individual cannot be permitted if it threatens the collective, nor can every interest of the collective be observed if it oppresses the individual. But when we share the collective will to make our society stable and secure, then the individual will set aside his personal freedoms for the national good and the nation will bend over backward to protect individual freedom.
This is the mark of a great civilization, and it rests upon an informed and devoted citizenry prepared to debate, sometimes passionately but always civilly, the moral direction of our collective journey.
This Rosh HaShonah I stood shoulder to shoulder with friends and neighbors singing ancient liturgical poems in praise of our Creator, just as so many Americans stood together the week before singing “G-d Bless America.” There were no agendas, no politics, no grudges, no rivalries. All of a sudden we were one nation, indivisible, a people with one noble history and many noble ideals whose differences vanished in the shadow of our many common values and common goals.
As the Jews have had ample opportunity to learn, now America has learned that nothing brings us together like a common enemy. What we have yet to learn is how to continue to stand together even in times of peace.
Rosh Hashanah Tailor-Made
NOBODY LIKES fundraising dinners. The speeches are dry, the menu is dull, and the seating arrangements seem to have been drawn up by the Marquis de Sade. No one looks forward to these affairs, and we attend them only out of a sense of obligation.
Since one dinner I attended many years ago, however, I have become more wary than ever of this kind of event.
The evening began unremarkably and proceeded unremarkably — up to a point. The food was better than usual, the speeches ran longer than usual, the company was as good as could be hoped for, and I never saw the dinner plate that slipped from the tray of the passing waiter and struck me squarely on the forehead.
“I didn’t hit you, did I?” asked the waiter in response to the alarmed gasps and cries from the people who shared my table, several of whom assured him that he had, indeed, scored a direct hit.
“Are you all right?” he asked, inevitably. A silly question, really. A pound-and-a-half of glazed ceramic packs quite a wallop after accelerating at thirty-two feet-per-second-squared from a height of six feet in the air.
At least I was still conscious, still sitting upright, and I didn’t think I was bleeding.
“Get a doctor,” someone said.
“He doesn’t need a doctor,” said someone else. “Get him a lawyer.”
The manager arrived with an ice pack. “Here, take this.”
“I was hoping for scotch with my ice,” I said.
He laughed, but didn’t bring me any scotch. “I’ll need your name and address, sir,” he said, handing me a pen and paper.
“Don’t sign anything,” yelled someone from the next table.
I scribbled my vital statistics. “I’m really very sorry, sir,” he said.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Just the scotch.” He laughed again and went away. I had figured the manager would offer me vouchers for a complimentary night’s stay. He hadn’t. (I never even got a letter of apology.) I hadn’t gotten my whisky, either.
I began regaining my bearings to a medley of more lawsuit jokes. From across the table, however, my next door neighbor offered the only profound comment of the evening: “What were you thinking about before you got hit?”
I knew exactly what he meant. According to Talmudic philosophy, there are no accidents, no coincidences, no random events. Everything comes about through the guiding hand of Divine Providence, what we call hashgochoh pratis: the spiritual imperative that governs how the external world acts upon each and every one of us. In other words, if I got smacked on the head, I must have had it coming to me.
This is a far cry from the popular notion that whatever I want, I have coming to me. As much as contemporary culture may insist that privileges and entitlements are birthrights, the Talmud recognizes only our responsibilities, both to other individuals and to society. When we live up to our obligations, we may expect certain rewards to come our way. But if we do receive an apparently undeserved blow, great or small, we should assume that the equilibrium of the cosmic scales of justice somehow needed to be set back in balance, and we should reflect upon the message that has just been sent us from on high.
Sometimes we can easily identify a concrete lesson to glean from such mishaps. Other times not. But the principle holds, even when we can’t perceive any clear cause and effect: this was necessary; now we need to brush ourselves off and get on with life.
The traditional Yom Kippur liturgy provides a poignant example in its narrative concerning Rabbi Yishmoel, the High Priest, who died as the skin of his face was peeled away to suit the whim of the Roman governor’s daughter.
The malachim, the divine beings who inhabit the heavenly spheres, protested in outrage: “Is this the reward for living a life committed to holiness?” they demanded.
“Be silent!” commanded the Almighty, “or I will return the world to void and nothingness.”
The incomparable 18th century genius, Rabbi Elyahu of Vilna, explains G-d’s reply with an allegory: a king once received a gift of fine Turkish wool, the most luxurious fabric in the world. It was so beautiful, in fact, that the king could not bear to think that even a tiny piece of it should end up as scrap on the cutting floor. He went to every tailor in his kingdom and asked each to make him a suit without letting even one thread of the wool go to waste. But every tailor claimed that such a feat was beyond his ability.
Finally, the king found a tailor who agreed to do the job. When the king returned to the tailor’s shop on the appointed date, he discovered that the tailor had indeed produced an exceptional suit of clothes. The king was elated.
“But have you fulfilled your promise?” asked the king. “Did you use every thread?”
“You really don’t know,” answered the tailor. “And the only way you will ever will find out is if you tear your beautiful suit apart and lay out all the pieces in the original shape of the fabric.”
Similarly, we often think that life is full of unfair knocks or is missing essential pieces. But to know for sure, we would have to see all of human history undone before our eyes. Only then would we have the right to assert that there were flaws in the slow sculpture of creation.
The days from Rosh HaShonnah to Yom Kippur — the traditional season of judgment — afford us the opportunity to strengthen our trust that the Master Tailor has done His job well, that He has stitched together the fabric of eternity according to a plan He understands far better than we do — even when bricks, or china plates, fall out of the sky upon our heads.
Should I have sued the hotel? the waiter? the school holding the event? the principal, who was speaking when I got hit? No doubt, I could have found any number of lawyers eager to take the case. If a woman could receive 4 million dollars for spilling a cup of coffee in her own lap, this should be worth at least as much.
But life is full of honest accidents resulting in superficial scrapes and bruises. It’s better for us (and better instruction for our children) to look for what we can learn from life’s bumps and knocks, not to look for whom we can blame and how much we can squeeze out of them.
The waiter returned, contrite and apologetic, perhaps more shaken than I was. “In twelve years this has never happened to me,” he said. Evidently, he also had a date with Providence. “Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”
“I wouldn’t mind a scotch on the rocks.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He did. It wasn’t four million dollars, but it was better than a knock on the head.
When we aren’t who we think we are
After several months, two babies switched in an El Slavador hospital were both reunited yesterday with their biological parents, respectively, in Dallas, Texas, and the United Kingdom.
But it didn’t have to turn out that way. Like this story from the news in 2009.
It sounds like a movie. Nurses bring a newborn daughter back to her mother after bathing. The mother insists that she’s been given the wrong baby. The nurses, who clearly know better, dismiss her concerns.
But 56 years later, DNA testing proves that Marjorie Angell, the real mother in this real story, was right.
Kay Rene Reed and DeeAnn Angell were both born on the third of May, 1953 in eastern Oregon’s Pioneer Memorial Hospital. As babies they were switched, presumably while being given baths, and grew up to become wives, mothers, and grandmothers. Less than a year ago Kay Rene’s brother discovered an old photograph of Kay Rene in middle school. Except that it wasn’t a picture of Kay Rene; rather, the schoolgirl who could have been her twin was in fact the sister of DeeAnn.
Subsequent DNA testing proved what had already become obvious. Kay Rene wasn’t a Reed, and DeeAnn wasn’t an Angell.
“I cried,” said Kay Rene. “My life wasn’t my life.”
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
Imagine waking up one morning and discovering that you were someone else. Nothing has changed, yet everything has changed. You have the same friends, the same family, the same job. But you also have another family and another past — a whole different identity about which you know nothing. A careless moment over which you had no control and an innocent mistake outside your knowledge conspired to leave you wondering how your whole life might have unfolded if not for that momentary twist of fate.
What would you do? What would you think? How would you feel?
If you have lived a happy and well-adjusted life, you’d probably wrestle with some inner confusion and then return to your friends and family. But if your life had been difficult, if you had endured an existence of hardships and traumas that had left you broken and bitter, how might you cry out against the cruelty of chance that had snatched away the happy life you might have had.
And what if, somehow, it had actually been your own fault?
THE ULTIMATE ANGUISH
The Sages teach that when a soul departs from this world, it lets out a scream that can be heard from one end of the universe to the other. Contemporary scholars have explained their meaning as follows:
Once freed from the bonds of physical existence, every soul ascends to the next world and comes before the Heavenly tribunal for judgment. Upon our arrival, each of us will witness a reenactment of his entire life on earth, as if projected upon a giant screen, with all of our good deeds and accomplishments, but also with all our carelessness and self-absorption. Recognizing the futility of excuses or apologies, we will feel the shame and remorse of a life poorly lived, with no further chance of redemption.
Simultaneously, as if on a split-screen, a different story plays out. Here we will behold the life of a tzaddik, a truly righteous and pious individual whose every thought and deed is for others and whose efforts are directed entirely toward moral and spiritual self-perfection. The contrast between the two images will be astonishing.
As the painful exercise concludes, each of us will pose a question to the court: “I recognize my own life, but who is this tzaddik that lived so perfect a life, and why was his story projected next to mine?”
“That tzaddik,” the court replies, “is the person you could have been.”
With sudden clarity, the ascendant soul will understand the consequences of a life lived in pursuit of physical pleasure and material goals. Perceiving that there had resided within him the potential to become someone else altogether and, realizing that it is too late to go back and relive his life, the unfortunate soul will emit a scream that can be heard from one end of the universe to the other.
BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
As long as we remain alive in this world, however, there is time to go back. What’s past is not necessarily past, for the Creator has programmed into his universe the extraordinary capability to go back in time and reshape what has already been done. This is teshuva — repentance or, literally, return.
The Jewish concept of repentance is not mere chest-clopping and confession.Teshuva is a process of self-transformation, of changing ourselves into the kinds of individuals incapable of ever again committing our earlier transgressions and indiscretions. Through sincere self-reflection, our genuine remorse will catapult us to new levels of spiritual and moral sensitivity. By returning to the straight path the Creator laid out before us from the moment we were born, we literally re-create ourselves and severe all connection to the errors of the past.
What’s done is now undone, and we have nothing to fear from the ultimate Day of Judgment. It is no longer our past that defines us. It is what we have made of ourselves, and what we do from this point forward, that will define our future.
The two women switched at birth have gotten on with their lives, and they have even become friends. Kay Rene introduces DeeAnn as her “swister.”
“I’m trying to move forward and look at the positive,” DeeAnn said. “You can’t look back. It just drives you crazy.”
As we approach Rosh Hashanah, the day on which all the world is judged for the coming year, it would serve us well to contemplate both who we are and who we ought to be.
Yonason Goldson 