PARSHAT NITZAVIM-VAYELECH
(5767)
CAN PEOPLE CHANGE?
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life – if you and your offspring would live.”
(Deuteronomy 30:19)
I love the Broadway musical version of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. The score is one of the first albums I downloaded onto my new ipod, a toy I bought myself this summer. There is one line that jumps out at me as we approach the Jewish High Holidays. Inspector Javert of the Paris police has spent a lifetime pursuing Jean Valjean, who had gone to prison for breaking into a home to steal a loaf of bread. Valjean had transformed himself, becoming a factory owner and the mayor the town. But to Javert none of that mattered. In a powerful duet, he sings, “Men like you can never change!”
Can people change? This question is at the heart of the High Holidays. We Jews spend the holiday season worrying about so many things that are relatively minor. We worry about family and food, tickets and honors, where will we sit at services and how will we dress. Rabbis, myself included, have one major worry. Will I come up with High Holiday sermons that are enjoyable and inspiring, worthy for the biggest crowd of the year? Cantors have one major worry. What music will I include in this year’s service to uplift the congregation, and will my voice hold out to sing it? All of these questions ignore the one question that is at the heart of the holy days. Can people change?
The theme of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is transformation – human beings who have been walking down one path can switch direction and find another. We can change our ways. The Hebrew word is teshuva – literally return, we can return to the correct path. The term for the period from the beginning of Rosh Hashana until the end of Yom Kippur is the Ten Days of Teshuva. From a Jewish perspective Javert was wrong; people can change. The tragedy of Les Miserables was that Javert never understood that Valjean had become a new man.
The question whether people can change has vexed thinkers throughout history. In the Middle Ages theologians grappled with the question whether free will can be reconciled with God’s omniscience. If God knows everything then God knows what are future behavior will be. And if God knows our future behavior, then we are not free to change. Medieval thinkers did various mental gymnastics to find a way out of this quandary. For example, they taught that God is outside of time and therefore sees the future as well as the past. But we humans live within time and therefore we have free will. I will leave it to readers to untangle that one.
Moderns are less concerned with God’s knowledge, mostly because God has stepped back in our consciousness. We see a world that is more mechanical than our ancestors. If we are humans are machines who are programmed by our genes, how can we say that humans can change? From this perspective, the strands of DNA that are the heart of our genetic make-up determine our behavior. And even if we acknowledge some free will, we are certainly the products of environment, our upbringing, and numerous forces beyond our control.
Add to this the Freudian view that it is unconscious drives that ultimately determines who we are and what we do. The whole modern outlook seems to point towards the conclusion that we humans cannot change. Or to quote the biggest song in another hit Broadway musical with a French name La Cage aux Folles, “I am what I am.” We are who we are; we are powerless before the forces that created us. And in some ultimate way we cannot change.
If humans are unchangeable, then we really do not need the Jewish High Holidays. For there is only one question that a Jew who attends High Holiday services ought to ask – “how am I going to be a different person when this holiday season is over than I am now?” God gave us humans the ability to transform ourselves. How we do so is the only truly important question that should concern us during this season.
PARSHAT NITZAVIM – VAYELECH
(5766)
WHAT IS LIFE?
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, if you and your offspring would live.”
(Deuteronomy 30:19)
We can never know beyond a doubt that God exists. But we can know beyond a doubt that life exists. And our tradition at its most profound identifies God with life. That is why we repeat over and over in the Amida prayers during the High Holidays, “Remember us for life, O Sovereign Who delights in life. Inscribe us in the Book of Life, for Your sake, O God of life.”
What is life? Life is a force at work in the universe, which certainly can be seen and measured on our tiny planet in our corner of the solar system. Life is a force, which goes from simplicity to complexity, and from chaos to order. Life is a force, which even scientists have difficulty describing without reverting to the theologically charged term miracle. Let us look at a quick overview of this force we call life.
In the beginning the universe was so hot only quarks and leptons could exist. But the universe was expanding, and with expansion came cooling. Eventually it was cool enough that the fundamental particles could join together to form atoms. At first there were only the simplest of atoms – hydrogen, one proton surrounded by one electron. Hydrogen atoms clumped together to form stars, and eventually gravity caused these clumps of atoms to contract and heat to build up, until the process of nuclear fusion began. Two hydrogen atoms fused into helium, setting off gigantic amounts of energy. (This is how hydrogen bombs work.) Eventually bigger and more complex atoms fused together, including the atom, which is the backbone of all life as we know it – carbon. The stars exploded, sending carbon and other elements out into the universe.
So it continued through generations of stars, forming more and more complex atoms. We are literally made of stardust. Eventually, in one unlikely planet in one tiny corner of a galaxy, around one rather mediocre star, molecules came together that were just right for the emergence of life. This planet was covered with water, a unique chemical just right to allow molecules to dissolve, form a solution, and eventually create organic chemicals. Somehow in this water long chains of carbon formed. Eventually there developed molecules able to reproduce themselves and also metabolize energy. Did RNA, DNA, or proteins come first? Scientists do not know. But somehow, the most primitive form of life had begun.
Charles Darwin saw natural selection as the engine which ran life. Some see Darwin’s theory as a challenge to God. I see it as a tool used by God in the evolution of life. Life grew more and more complex, with only those forms of life best adapted to the environment surviving. First there were one celled creatures, then plants able to capture the energy from the sun, releasing oxygen into the atmosphere. Oxygen was poison to most life. But creatures developed able to metabolize oxygen for energy, eating lower forms of life for food. Animals and plants evolved in an interlocking, biotic community. But the miracle was not over.
A form of animal developed with a complicated network of nerve cells, growing more and more complex. The first brain had developed. With the development of the brain, consciousness entered the world. Even today scientists cannot explain consciousness; theologians see it as a part of divinity attached to living cells. Consciousness became more complex through lower and then higher animals, eventually leading to a unique kind of animal. For the first time, an animal existed with the ability to choose life, to live in a way that enhances the flow of life or live in a way which goes against the flow of life. Humanity has a choice to act in accordance with life or act in accordance with death.
So this week, on the last Sabbath before Rosh Hashana, we read the words “Therefore choose life.” Each of us can work against God’s purpose and be a force for death in the world. Or each of us can work with God’s purpose and be a force for life in this world. The choice is up to us.
PARSHAT NITZAVIM-VAYELECH
(5764)
CAN WE CHANGE?
AI call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your seed.@
(Deuteronomy 30:19)
I watched one of my all time favorite movies the other day - Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray. Many synagogues show this movie the evening of Selichot, the late Saturday night prayer service where we ask for forgiveness and prepare for the Jewish High Holidays. The movie is a comedy, but the theme is extremely serious. It contains wonderful discussion material to set the mood for a pre-High Holiday service.
In the movie, Bill Murray plays a newscaster who travels to Punxsutawney, PA for the February 2 Groundhog Day celebration. The whole town gathers to watch the groundhog check to see his shadow, thus guaranteeing six more weeks of winter. By a fluke, Murray keeps waking up over and over again on the same day, being forced to relive the same events over and over. He makes countless mistakes until he finally learns to live the day right. Only then is he privileged to see the next day.
The fantasy rings true. What if we were given an opportunity to live our lives over and over again until we finally get it right? Would we eventually learn to make the right choices? Would we learn to love the people in our lives who need and deserve our love? Would we learn to develop the raw talents God gave us to develop? Would we learn to be a bit more patient, a bit kinder, a bit less judgmental? If give enough chances, could we learn to live our lives the way they ought to be lived?
In the real world, we do not wake up over and over on the same day. The days slip by one after another, whether we live properly or not. And yet, we are constantly given opportunities to look at our lives and ask, are we living correctly? Are we making the right choices? We are allowed to make constant adjustments in our lives. We always have the ability to change.
The High Holidays come each and every year. The theme of the High Holidays is to awaken again prepared to do better this coming year. It is a time of serious soul searching. How can we be different people than we were? How can we change for the better?
Often people tell me, ARabbi, it is too late for me. I already have spent too much time going down the wrong path. My life is hopeless. I can never change.@ Certainly, we must live with the consequences of past actions. But that does not mean that we are unchangeable. History is filled with stories of people who redirected their life paths in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, even eighties. I remember a letter to one of the advice columnist sisters, Dear Abby or Ann Landers; I do not remember which one. The letter said, AHow can I go to medical school? I will be in my fifties when I finish in five years.@ The columnist answered, AAnd how old will you be in five years if you do not go to medical school.@ Of course, the theme is that, it is never to late to pursue the path we were meant to pursue.
The theme of this week=s reading and the theme of the holidays is, there are always choices. It is never too late. We can choose to go down a different path than we have in the past. God sets before us life and death, the blessing and the curse, the correct path and the wrong path. Therefore choose life. And if you make the wrong choice today, there is always tomorrow. There is always next year. The High Holidays will come again.
The joy of the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day was the number of choices he had, the number of mistakes he make, before he got it right. In the end, he became the man he was destined to be. In the end, if we make the right choices, we can become the people God meant us to be. The choice is always ours.
PARSHAT NITZAVIM - VAYELECH
(5763)
LIFE AND DEATH
"I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, so you and your offspring will live."
(Deuteronomy 30:19)
This week's portion sets before us the choice between life and death. Over and over on the High Holidays, which start next week, we call God the "God of life." What is life and what is death, and what is the role of God? Allow me to share some words from a Yom Kippur sermon I delivered several years ago:
To find the answer, we must look at one more fundamental scientific law of the universe. It is known as the second law of thermodynamics, but the more popular name is the law of entropy. By looking at entropy, we get our first glimpse beyond the physical world, and begin to see the finger of God.
What is entropy? It begins with a question - Is the universe a perpetual motion machine? Does it keep going and going, like the Energizer bunny? Or will the universe eventually wear down and grind to a halt? The answer is an absolute scientific law, discovered by nineteenth century German scientist Rudolf Clausius. All systems eventually wear down. Or as the poet W.B. Yeats put it, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." All things, rocks and mountains, humans beings, planets and suns, the universe itself, eventually wears down and dies. The natural world is a dying world. The prophet Isaiah already said it thousands of years ago. "...All the heavens shall wither like a leaf withering on the vine, or the shriveled fruit on a fig tree." (Isaiah 34:4)
How does entropy work? If I hold my cold hand over a hot cup of coffee, my hand warms up and the coffee cools down. Eventually they will be the same temperature. (When I was in high school, I loved this law. If I was on a date and I wanted to hold hands with the young lady, I would tell her, by the laws of entropy I could warm up her cold hand. Heat flows from the warm to the cold.)
We can always make hot things hotter. That is how stoves work, but they require a huge influx of energy. We can always make cold things colder. That is how refrigerators work, but they require a huge influx of energy. Without the influx of energy, all things wear down, fall apart, die. That is the way the universe works.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Seattle gives one of the best examples of entropy I have heard. Leave a brand new car out in the woods for 200 years. In the end you will have a pile of rusted metal, paint, plastic, and other materials. But leave rusted metal, paint, and plastic in the woods 200 years and return, you will never have a new car. Things spontaneously fall apart, they do not spontaneous come together.
The universe, and everything in it is dying. Entropy is increasing. Given enough time, energy will dissipate, matter will fall apart, all things will become more random and disorganized, the world will go back to the description in the first lines of Genesis tohu vavohu - void and without form. That is an inexorable law of science, like gravity and the speed of light. The world of material things is a world that is dying. We live in an ever dying universe, and because we are flesh and bones, we too must die.
But, is there more? Is there anything that goes beyond the natural world, is there a spiritual dimension? I can't prove that God exists, if I could God would be measurable in a laboratory. If I could prove God exists, God Himself would be subject to the laws of entropy. God Himself would die. I cannot prove God exists. So how do I know God is there?
Let us look one more time at what science says about the universe. The universe started with a big bang. Cosmic dust exploded outwards. Hydrogen atoms were formed, and eventually these combined to make more complex atoms, including carbon. Carbon atoms joined together to make nuclei, and proteins. Eventually cells formed, first single celled creatures, then more complex creatures. Eventually higher organisms were formed, and these ultimately evolved into the highest form of all, human beings. It is the precise opposite of entropy! There is a force at work in the universe that seems to be directed towards the creation of life. According to every scientific law, it should never have happened. The universe should become more random, not more complex. If the material world is a world dying, the spiritual world is that which gives life.
The Bible contains a powerful metaphor that describes this life sustaining force. The prophet Ezekiel saw a valley filled with bones, a valley of death, the natural result of entropy. God said to Ezekiel, "Son of man, Can these bones live?" (Ezekiel 37:3) Ezekiel prophesied to the bones and they grew flesh and sinews. He prophesied again, and a wind came "and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great host." (Ezekiel 37:10) It is anti-entropy at work, a spiritual force that overcomes death. I cannot prove that there is a God, but I see a universe teeming with life. And that points to a life sustaining force beyond nature. If the physical universe is about death, the spiritual universe is about life.
Is there a God? Because there is life in the universe and life in each one of us, we answer yes. We say over and over on Yom Kippur, zacrenu lechaim, melech hafetz bechaim vekatveinu besefer chaim lemaancha elohim chaim. "Remember us for Life, King Who loves Life and write us in the Book of Life for Your sake, God of Life."
PARSHAT NITZAVIM - VAYELECH
(5762)
EVIL, PART 2
"See I have set before you on this day life and good, death and evil."
(Deuteronomy 30:15)
This Saturday we will be commemorating the first yahrzeit (anniversary on the Hebrew calendar) of 9/11. It is a year since we saw first hand the evil that one human being can do to another. It is appropriate for me to continue the thoughts I began last week - why is there evil in the world?
I use the word evil to refer to human beings deliberately destroying other human beings. Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, cancer cells, genetic abnormalities, natural disasters, accidents, may be tragic, frightening, sad, but they are not evil. Hurricane Andrew, which struck here ten years ago, was an overwhelming disaster, but not an act of evil. Even a rabid pitbull is not evil. Nature may seem indifferent to human endeavors. But nature is not evil.
It takes a human being to be evil to another human being. God realized this sad fact when God said, "All the inclinations of man's heart are evil from his youth." (Genesis 8:21) What gives us humans the capacity for such evil? Last week I spoke about the evil inclination. This is our animal appetites out of control, in need of discipline towards the good. Yet the evil inclination is not enough to create the kind of havoc we have witnessed.
Last week I spoke about how dehumanizing others can create an excuse of evil. The Nazis were able to carry out their evil decree by making the Jews far less than human. Laws were passed that slowly stripped Jews (and others) of their humanity. Then when the death camps were being built, Nazis and their collaborators could send Jews there without guilt.
Nationality and religion too often serve to strip others of their humanity. To many in the Moslem world, non-Moslems are dar al-harb, the house of war. When we are seen as less than humans, there is no guilt in blowing up people on a commuter bus or crashing an airplane into a building. Yet, even as we speak out against terrorism, we ought to ask ourselves, how often do we ourselves demonize or remove the humanity from others. How often do we fail to see the humanity in people of another race, another ethnic group, another religion, another political viewpoint? How do those of us who are Jewish view blacks, conservative Southern Christians, Palestinian Moslems? Do we truly see their humanity?
Evil begins with the evil inclination out of control. It continues others are viewed as less than human. Yet it takes even more to create the kind of evil we have seen in the world. It requires a mob mentality. We tend to do things to go along with the mob, even when we know they are wrong.
There is a brilliant insight in the Torah reading from a couple of weeks ago. A soldier in the midst of battle who saw a beautiful woman was not allowed to have his way with her (as soldiers throughout history including today are wont to do.) If he desired her, he must bring her back to his home, allow her to mourn for her family, wait thirty days, and only after that could he have his way with her. What can we learn from this strange, seemingly immoral law? The Torah knew that soldiers, caught up in a gang mentality, will often act in a way that is immoral. Thirty days later, after the soldier has returned to his home and family, away from the passion of the moment, when wisdom and reflection begin, suddenly the immoral behavior is no longer desirable. He would probably let the woman go home.
People will act evil when they are part of a group and acting in the passion of the moment. If they took the time to separate from the gang, let their passions cool, and reflect on their behavior, they will think twice about committing evil. This is why the Torah teaches, "Do not follow after the majority to do evil." (Exodus 23:2) To separate oneself from evildoers is one of the most difficult, yet necessary paths, if one to live a proper life.
There is evil in the world. Our first job is to understand why such evil exists. Only then can we fight evil, and answer acts of great evil with acts of great goodness.
PARSHAT NITZAVIM
(5761)
CHOOSE LIFE
"Therefore Choose Life." (Deuteronomy 30:19)
What can one say? Sometimes you look at events in the world and the only intelligent reaction is silence. My prayers go out to all the victims of the terrorist attacks that occurred yesterday and to their families, including several from our synagogue. We pray that God gives them comfort.
People argue about the details of the Torah's message. But this week's portion says it all. "I set before you life and death, therefore choose life." The Torah was given to a pagan world that had no respect for human life. The message shone through like a light, every human being is of infinite value and worth, created by God, and every human being deserves life. Our job is to send that message to the world.
Long ago a potential convert went before the great sage Hillel and said, "I will become a Jew, but only if you can teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot." Hillel said, "Do not do onto others what you do not want done to you. All the rest is commentary, now go study." In other words, the essential message of the Torah is the worth, dignity, and life of every single human being. Everything else is but commentary on how to apply this idea.
In Judaism, God is called a God of life. On the days from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur, we say at every prayer service, "Remember us for life, O God Who loves Life; and Write us in the book of Life, for Your sake O God of Life." God is identified with life, particularly human life, created in God's image. When we kill or mar any human life, we are killing or marring God's image.
This is our message to the world. Obviously there are people in the world who have not yet heard the message. There are people in the world for whom mayhem and destruction, particularly of innocent victims, is their goal. The events were not single individuals working alone, but an organized human effort to destroy. The perpetrators were using their human ability to speak, plan, organize, and carry out these acts in order to wreak havoc on the world. The forces of life are fighting the forces of death, and this week the forces of death won.
However, if our tradition teaches anything, it is the fact that in the end life will win. At the end of our song chad gadya, sung at our Passover seder, God slays the angel of death. The war is a long one, but in the end a love of life will win. All humanity will recognize the value of every human. That is the dream of our tradition. Unfortunately, that dream seems so far away today.
So what do we do? We mourn for those whose lives have been lost, and we pray for comfort for those who lost love ones. And we remember the words of King David in the twenty third Psalm, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no harm, for You are with me." (Psalms 23:4) We must walk through the valley, but in the end we will get through it. In the end life will triumph.
PARSHAT VAYELECH
(5761)
HOW LONG SHOULD WE LIVE?
"I am now one hundred twenty years old and I can no longer come and go." (Deuteronomy 31:2)
The time had come for Moses to die. He had lived the Biblical length of one hundred twenty years, and now he must pass on his leadership to a new generation.
According to the book of Genesis, the Lord said, "My breath shall not abide in man forever, since he too is flesh - let the days allowed him be one hundred and twenty years." That is our maximum allotted time on this planet. From this grows the Jewish tradition of always saying "until 120" after giving one's age. I am fifty one, until one hundred and twenty, God willing." I guess there is comfort in that I am not even half way there yet.
The book of Psalms is a bit more realistic about human longevity. "The days of our years are three score and ten years, if granted the strength four score years. Their pride is but travail and vanity, for it is speedily gone and we fly away."
(Psalms 90:10) We are granted between seventy and eighty years, unless we have some unique strength and luck. My father made it until 76, my mother only until 67. My brother only made it until 37.
Our time is limited on this earth. The Bible does speak of a tree of life; whoever eats of it will win immortality. However, God has sent a special angel to guard that tree, Cherubim with a fiery turning sword. The gods may live forever, but we humans are but mortal. "For dust you are, and to dust you shall return." (Genesis 3:19) Whether long or short, each of us is granted a limited amount of time on this earth.
The issue of our mortality is always difficult. But it is particularly painful this week when we have lost so many of our young people in the September 11th terrorist attack. It reminds us how fragile life is, how no one knows his or her appointed time to leave the world, and how important it is to live a worthy life while we are here.
On Yom Kippur which takes place this coming week, we reenact our deaths. We avoid living in the material world, going twenty five hours without food, drink, washing, comfortable shoes, marital relations, and physical work. We wear white, just as a body is dressed in white for burial. We say Yizkor prayers in memory of those no longer with us. We become spiritual beings, speaking of who shall live and who shall die. The power of Yom Kippur is that it forces us to confront our mortality.
In my new book The Ten Journeys of Life, in the chapter on mortality, I wrote: So God takes each eternal soul and gives it an embodied existence, places it in a material world where, due to the laws of physics, it must age, break down and eventually die. If God wanted our souls to do a task in this world, why did God not arrange for us to live forever? Why must we age?
Let me suggest one answer. Imagine telling your child, "Clean your room, but you have as much time as you want." The child will never clean the room. If we have forever, our tasks will never be completed. It is a different matter when you tell your child, "Clean your room by this weekend, or you cannot play outside with your friends." Given a time limit, the task is completed.
The same scenario takes place on a cosmic level. We are given a task, and a limited time to complete it. Aging is the sign that our time is not forever. We are mortal, and our bodies wear out. We must use our aging to refocus ourselves on our tasks in this world. What do we want to accomplish while we still have our mortal existence?
PARSHAT NITZAVIM-VAYELECH
(5760)
CHOOSE LIFE
"Therefore choose life."
(Deuteronomy 30:19)
In my state of Florida there was a huge controversy over the verse "choose life" from this week's portion. For a small fee, a person can have these words on their automobile license plate. The words put the state into the passionate politics of abortion. Pro-choice advocates fought to prevent the license plates from being issued. As far as I know, the case is still in court.
Certainly one can use this quote in the abortion argument. The Rabbis taught that when there is a doubt about a case involving life and death, we always lean towards life. If we are not sure how to decide a case and we are weighing issues of life and death, we always choose life. Nonetheless, the words Choose Life go far beyond abortion.
The Torah teaches that God is the source of life in the universe. On the High Holidays, which begins next week, we chant in each service "Remember us for life, King of life, and write us in the book of life for Your sake, O God of life." Life is mentioned four times in this little verse, which is chanted over and over on the holiest days of our year. God and life go together.
The Torah teaches that we humans can never know God's essence. All we can know is what God does in the universe. When we see life, we see the hand of God. And when we choose life, we are partners with God in creation.
There is something mysterious about the appearance of life on our planet. Life does not simply occur spontaneously. In nature, the laws of entropy teach that systems fall apart, become more random and less complex over time. And yet, we see life developing on earth, becoming more complex over time, more specialized. From random molecules emerge living cells, and from more and more complex organisms emerge consciousness. To the religious soul, the evolution of life on earth reflects the hand of God.
We humans have the ability to be God's partners in allowing life to flourish. Every time we use our medical resources to save a life, to extend life, to improve the quality of life, we are helping God. But we do not need to be medical professionals to choose life in our day to day actions.
Whenever we enhance the soul of another human being, we are choosing life. Something as simple as an act of kindness, a compliment, a helping hand to a fellow human being, becomes a way of choosing life. The Rabbis taught that visiting a sick person removes one sixtieth of their illness. When we stop someone from gossiping, we are adding to life. When we recognize the dignity of another, whether through acts of charity or kind words, we are choosing life. On the other hand, whenever we act in a way that removes the dignity of any human being, we are choosing death. When we let our neighbor go hungry, when we refuse to honor our parents, when we gossip or cheat, we are acting against the God of life. The Rabbis taught that to publicly humiliate another human being is the equivalent of murder. Even ethnic jokes, or acts that denigrate another race or people, undermines life.
God gave us the ability to act as partners in creation. The High Holidays are the perfect time to think about our relationship with others humans beings. It is a time to remember God's words Choose Life not simply on our license plates but in our day to day lives.