Grow and Allow Others to Grow

A teacher was lecturing his pupils on the story of Joseph who was sold by his brothers to passing slave merchants. 

At once, a sympathetic student began to weep listening as the tragedy unfolded.

The next year while teaching that same passage, the same student began to laugh uproariously.

“Are you insane?”  The teacher rebuked.  “Last year you were crying and now you are splitting your side with laughter?”

“Why shouldn’t I laugh?  After what happened last year Joseph should have learned his lesson!”

The stories in Torah do not change from year to year, but we do.   It is not surprising to understand them in an entirely different light with the passing years.

One year Moses may be our hero and the next, a man handicapped by all kinds of idiosyncrasies and deep flaws.  The same can be said for Rebecca or Abraham or Isaiah. 

There is one underlying concept, which undergirds the opinion we hold about the actors in the Torah: what makes a hero?  That entirely subjective question is determined by who we are.  The heroes we venerate are a reflection of our values.  For example, do you think Abraham, was fearless, unwavering in his faith to G-d?  Was he the paradigm of a religious human?  Or was Abraham too pliant, too easily moved to do evil?  After all, he was willing to murder his own son.

The answer to that question, like so many others, start with a simple question: Who is your hero?  Gandhi?  Akiva? Roosevelt?  Mao?  The next-door neighbor?  A relative? 

Why choose them?  What is it that makes them a hero to you?

We choose our heroes based on some ideal of human life.  When we know who is our hero, we understand who we wish to become.

That ideal changes as we grow.

“When I was young I admired clever people.  Now that I am old, I admire kind people,” wrote Abraham Joshua Heschel.  As we grow our priorities and wishes change.  Some become more conservative, others move to become liberal, while others change their world-view in myriad directions. 

The question burns: whom do we idolize?

A Midrash:  When Moses ascended to heaven to receive Torah the angels complained, “What is flesh and blood doing here, among us?” they wailed.

HaKadosh Baruch Hu responded, “He is here to receive the Torah.”

 “Nine hundred seventy- four generations have passed since the inception of the world.  Since that time Your word has been safe with us.  And now you want to give it to such beings??”

HaKadosh Baruch Hu responded, “They can do teshuvah.”

Hearing the clamor raging in heaven, Moses grew afraid.  What if the angels grew spiteful and destroyed him?

HaKadosh Baruch Hu soothed Moses’ anxiety saying, “Hold My throne and you will be safe.”

Even angels hold opinions. Allowing others to do likewise and respecting differences is what this midrash comes to teach.  Times change and people change along with them.  G-d trusted Moses and the people to change.  One upon a time we were radically different than we are today.  Thank G-d someone was wise enough to know we would grow out of it.

Make a Choice

“An old man sat at a crossroads.  A passerby approached and asked him how to get to the city.  The old man replied, “Both ways lead to the same destination.  That way,” he pointed, “begins in briars but ends in a smooth path.  The other way begins in smooth path but ends in briars.  Now choose.”

“So it is with us: there are some who only know peace but will come to pain in the end.  Others suffer now but their end is comfort.”  -Sifre

This passage is from an ancient source, Midrash.  Written thousands of years ago it acknowledges what we all come to learn.  There are always choices to be made.  Some we decide because they are convenient and others are chosen because they are the right ones, even if uncomfortable.

All those remarkable stories from Torah that we read are about making choices.  From the Garden, to Noah’s floating craft, to Moses each tale carries the same message.  It is about coming to a crossroads and making a decision. Some deride Noah for saving only himself.  That was a choice.  The descent to slavery was all about bad choices made by well-intentioned people.  That was a choice.  So was Abraham’s argument to save the city of Sodom as was the decision to eat the Forbidden Fruit.

Admittedly there are times when we feel compelled, like we have no choice.  When the herd runs in one direction it takes a great deal of inner strength to go opposite them.  In a concentration camp it was far easier to be a kapo, one who went along with the Nazi evils, than a person like Schindler, who valued life.  Schindler was the oddity doing what no one else dared do.  The kapo simply followed.

With this in mind Viktor Frankl, a survivor, wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s own way.”  Frankl insists that we always have a choice.  The Torah heartily agrees.  Nobody makes us do, say, or feel anything without our consent.  We decide to give tzedaka or hoard.  We make the decision to make peace or go to war with our foes.

Judaism insists on personal choice and responsibility.  That is why there is no devil or demon that is responsible for our actions.  There is only us.

The message of Haunukka is one that we usually gloss over.  You see, the real and most dangerous enemies of the Jews were…the Jews.  Those who had left the tent of Judaism and opted for the Greek modern way of life posed the greatest threat to the Maccabees because this nation was marching in lock-step in the wrong direction!  Most of the Jews had abdicated their freedom of choice and blindly followed after the masses.  A few said no.  They were the Herzls, the Schindlers, and the Kings of their time.  We celebrate their choice.  We are only alive because of their chutzpah.

God asks us to choose as well.  Every day.