"Good"
Legend has it that in the east Midlands of England, just outside Leicester, in the late 18th century, there lived a weaver named Ned Ludd. On the day that would seal his place in history, Ludd was either whipped for idleness (by some accounts) or taunted by some local youths (in other accounts). Either way, he got piping mad. He took the knitting frames that were essential for his craft and, in a fit of passion, he smashed them to bits. That seemingly minor incident in the life of a seemingly minor individual might have faded into well deserved obscurity. But a couple of decades later, when mechanized looms were developed in the Industrial Revolution, British textile artisans who objected to this mechanization of their work started a protest movement that involved smashing the new-fangled automated contraptions - which could be operated by relatively unskilled labourers and therefore threatened their livelihood. Their hero and their inspiration in loom-smashing was Ned Ludd, and so they started to call themselves Luddites. The term has survived, and later came to mean any one who opposes the advance of technology due to the cultural and socioeconomic changes associated with it.
Well, it's true confessions time: I'm something of a Luddite. Not a radical Luddite, mind you. I do own a computer, for example, and a few other modern gadgets and gizmos. But compared to many of you I'm sure, I'm pretty defiantly behind the times. For example, I still own a film camera, and when the roll is done I actually have to bring it to the store to be developed. When I want to record sound, I get out something called a cassette, and put it in my tape recorder and press "Record". I seem to be stuck somewhere in the 80's, or maybe the early 90's at the latest, and for some reason I resist advancing beyond that golden age.
And there's one more thing that I've been thinking a good deal about: I still don't own -- a Palm Pilot or a Blackberry. Now, in the absence of such devices you may ask, how do I keep myself organized? That - I can tell you in one word: agenda book (maybe that's two words, actually). Now before you deluge me with all the virtues of your particular PDA, and how it lets you do so many things, and how you can't imagine life without it -- let me tell you a little bit about my resistance (which may, I know, ultimately prove to be futile). Every June, when the new agenda books for the upcoming academic year come out, I trot up to the stationery store on Bloor St. and buy myself a new one. And while that task might seem very mundane, in a strange way it actually feels to me quite spiritual, which is perhaps why it brings out the proud Luddite in me. Because when I get home with my new book, and I leaf through its pages with all the dates laid out for the year ahead, and it's all clean and white and new and empty - I feel both an extraordinary appreciation for the exciting possibilities inherent in the year to come, and also a fair bit of trepidation for what lies in store. That open, blank book is kind of like -- Rosh Hashanah, the turning of the new year with everything ahead waiting to be filled in.
And so I take my new book in hand, and I start -- first by writing in the things that I know (yes, it does seem primitive when there's software out there that'll do it all for me, but bear with me). First, I write in all the parashas of the year - Shabbat Bereshit, Shabbat Noah, etc.. And the holidays - these Yamim Noraim of course, but also Sukkot and Simhas Torah and Hanukah and Purim. And the Rosh Hodeshes. I write it all in. And then I look at my shul notes, and I fill in the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and the weddings that have been booked and the board meetings that have been scheduled. And I consult my kids' school calendars and fill in things like parent-teacher interviews and pd days and whatever else I can foresee coming down the pike. But even with all those things, my agenda book as I leaf through it is still pretty empty, because of course there's a limit to how much you can know in advance.
I don't know if you have the same experience with your Palm Pilot, perhaps you do. But for me, filling in those empty white pages in my own handwriting, first with the fixed times of the Jewish tradition that we all share, and then with the individualized commitments of my particular life, even the cross outs when things change as they inevitably do - well, it feels like a good Rosh Hashanah project. We know from the Unetaneh Tokef image of the Books of Life and Death that God too opens books at the turn of each new year, and as I conceive of that metaphoric image in my mind, God isn't working with a personal electronic device. In my fantasy, it's big old-fashioned Dickensian ledger books that G-d's got open at this time of year. In these books will be written mi yihyeh u-mi yamut, who shall live and who shall die. But in a certain sense, I realize with a feeling of heavy responsibility, so too will such matters be written in my little agenda book. Not that I am the author of their fate, but because of my position as rabbi, in my little book will be written who, from our community, lives and dies -- because funerals will be inscribed in that book, and shiva calls, and hospital visitations, and brises and baby namings and weddings and aufrufs, and counseling sessions. Who knows what else? This is the stuff of a rabbi's life; this is the life of a rabbi's congregation.
It's a bit scary not knowing what will be written in that book over the months to come. That's true concerning my own life and that of the congregation; it's also true of the world outside. How will 5770 be remembered? What major events will take place this year that will affect us all? We know they'll happen; we just don't know what or when. This past year will likely be remembered above all for the financial crisis which has wreaked such devastation on so many. Last year, it had just begun right around the time when we celebrated the Yamim Noraim. This year, it's starting to feel like the man who came for dinner. An unwanted guest, who sometimes to our great relief seems to be getting up to leave, only to settle back comfortably into our living room chair. So many still out of work, so many struggling to make ends meet and pay off debts, so many at the end of their rope.
But the financial crisis wasn't the only event that cast a pall over 5769.
This was also the year of Operation Cast Lead, the IDF's incursion into Gaza, in which the civilian population of Gaza paid such a heavy price for Israel's determination to deter rocket attacks on its sovereign territory. It was the year in which the Afghanistan mission deteriorated significantly, with the Taliban getting stronger and more brazen in their violent attacks on coalition forces and on their own people. It was a year in which a new and very different kind of president was elected south of the border to great excitement and anticipation, only to get mired pretty swiftly in the polarized political world of Washington. It was a year in which Gilad Shalit continued to languish in his Gaza captivity. It was a year in which a nascent reform movement in Iran was brutally crushed, and Au Sung Soo Kyi had her house arrest extended yet again by the generals in Burma. It was a year in which hatred of Israel was on the rise in places both far away and as uncomfortably close as our own Toronto community. It was a year in which two young people at a gay/lesbian community centre in Tel Aviv were murdered and many others injured by a gunman who has yet to be apprehended. It was a year in which Bernie Madoff was sentenced to life imprisonment, and the Syrian rabbis in New Jersey were arrested on suspicion of money laundering and organ selling, and our carbon emissions continued to rise, threatening who knows what dire consequences down the road.
Yes, it's been tough out there this year, no one can deny. And many of us have struggled in our own personal lives, not just with the stresses of the financial crisis, but also with illness and loss. But here's my question for today, and it may seem almost comical after I've listed such an ignominious list of calamities from 5769 but I don't mean it that way at all, has it actually been a bad year? We can't answer that without knowing what in fact constitutes a bad year. And we can't answer that question without considering the definition of a good year. That definition is something we should think about carefully, because after all all of us are accustomed at this season to wish each other a Shanah Tovah, literally "a good year", a gut yohr. I find it interesting that in English the common phrase that is used at the turn of a new year is "Happy New Year." But in Hebrew, we don't say Shanah S'meikhah, we say Shanah Tovah - a good year. Can we learn something from this distinction? Can a year be unhappy in many ways, but still be good? I'd like to share with you now three insights about goodness that may perhaps change our attitude toward the year just past, and our perspective on how we fill in the blank pages of the year ahead as well.
The first insight stems from medieval philosophy. The medievals ascribed three basic meanings to the word "good": what is pleasant, what is useful, and what is moral. As my colleague Rabbi Debra Orenstein notes, most good things have one of these characteristics of goodness, but not all three.
For example, a good bowl of soup and a good painting is each pleasant in its own way, but they have no particular moral standing. Their goodness doesn't help a person in need, for example. In fact, it is evident that one can create or enjoy good food and good art and still be a very immoral person. While on a long car trip this summer, Linda and I listened in books on tape to Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and no work of fiction more starkly conveys this essential message about the amorality of esthetic beauty. So the soup and the painting are both good, in one particular measure of goodness, but not in all.
On the other hand, a good hammer and good chemotherapy are examples of things that can be extraordinarily useful, but are not necessarily pleasant or moral. One is loud, heavy, and can kill your thumb if you're not careful - but how could we build anything without it? The other can make you terribly sick, and make your hair all fall out, but can also save your life. So the hammer and the chemo are good, again in one aspect - but not all three.
Finally, "loving your neighbour as yourself" is certainly among the things that we would consider most moral in human conduct. It is good! But as anyone who has tried to put it into practice can testify, sometimes, depending on your neighbour, it's neither pleasant nor useful - at least not to you. Again, one dimension of goodness, morality - but not necessarily all three.
So when we wish each other a shanah tovah, we may be mostly thinking about examples which are pleasant, things that make us happy -- like winning the lottery or meeting the love of our lives. But I would like to make the case that the traditional Hebrew blessing actually encompasses all three meanings. And of the three dimensions - pleasant, useful, moral -- the one that we actually have the most control over is the moral, because while we have very little say over whether we win the lottery, and maybe a bit more influence on our health, but still ultimately quite limited -- we do have the free will to decide to make moral choices. I of course pray that we all have a pleasant, happy year ahead. I'm not knocking happiness, and it is an important element of the word "good" to be sure. But can't a year in which we have done something useful for ourselves or others also be considered "good"? Can't a year in which we act morally, in which we reach out to others who may not be as fortunate as ourselves, in which we overcome our natural indifference to the plight of others, also be considered "good"? Those good things can go on even during a very unpleasant recession, even if we've lost our job or seen our retirement savings go down the tank or gotten sick. Sometimes in fact, it is those terribly unpleasant and unhappy events that bring out the moral and the useful in us. It's not automatic, but it can happen - and in that sense a really lousy year can actually be a really good year.
The second insight about goodness that I'd like to share with you harkens back to the first use of the word "good" in the Torah. You know what it is. Book of Genesis, the days of creation. God created light, God created the firmament, God created the sun, the moon, and the stars, God created the grass and the animals and us. At the end of each of those days of Creation, the Torah reports Vayar Elohim Ki Tov - and God saw that it was "good". On the sixth day, God saw that it was tov m'od - very good. What can we learn from this? A precedent from the very first days of the existence of this universe of what is called in Hebrew hakarat hatov - recognizing the good, naming it. If God pauses in the middle of what She is doing to recognize the goodness in the world, then surely we too can open our eyes to the goodness which is around us, recognize it, and articulate it. This is sometimes really hard to do -- because we're so aware of the imperfections all around us. We see the beauty of God's earth, but we're also aware of natural and manmade disasters like earthquakes and environmental degradation. We see the goodness of people all around us, including our family members, our spouses, our colleagues -- but we're also supremely aware of their flaws, their weaknesses, their insensitivity, the things they do that hurt us. We're dimly aware of the things that are right with our health, but somehow we're much more aware of, and weighed down by, the things that are wrong. We see the goodness of the Jewish community to which we belong, but we're also frustrated by its internal infighting, its resistance to change, its barriers to entry. Our acute awareness of imperfection sometimes renders us incapable of appreciating the good all around us.
But here I think the language in Genesis is important - Vayar Elohim Ki Tov: God saw that it was good. Not amazing. Not perfect. Good. The fact that one of the days was described as "very good" proves that there are gradations in goodness at play here. I'm reminded of the old joke about the elderly married couple toasting one another at their anniversary party, surrounded by family and friends. "We've had 50 good years together," says the husband. "Yes," says the wife, "and that's not a bad record for people who've been married for 65 years."
The world God created couldn't be perfect, because by definition only God is perfect. In deciding to create the world, and loving it, God demonstrated that relationship is more important than perfection1. We should heed that lesson. Our relationships are more important than the ideal of perfection we dream of. We shouldn't let our awareness of the imperfection around us detract from our ability to experience hakarat hatov for the good that is all around us. A pessimist it's easy to be, given so much of what has happened in 5769. But our faith pushes us to open our eyes with hopefulness to the possibilities inherent in the still largely blank book which is the year ahead.
The final insight about goodness that I'd like to share with you comes from the preeminent Jewish story about good years and bad years - I speak of the narrative of Joseph in Egypt. We all remember the story: Pharaoh had these two dreams, about fat cows and scrawny cows, solid healthy stalks of grain, and thin, scorched, shriveled up stalks of grain. Joseph interpreted these dreams as referring to years: there would be seven years of plenty in Egypt followed by seven years of famine. So Joseph proposed to Pharaoh that an ish navon ve-haham2 , a wise and discerning man, be found who would make sure that during the good years all the grain be collected as a reserve for the bad years which would follow.
What spiritual message can we take from this story? I think this story teaches that there are going to be good years and not so good years, but that we have the capacity to store away some of what we accumulate during the good years for use during the bad. We can understand this lesson in different ways of course, and probably the most basic is material. For Joseph it was grain, for us it's money. But I'm not thinking only of money, of course. This Rosh Hashanah, I'm mostly thinking about the kind of spiritual strength that we who aspire to be anashim nevonim ve-hahamim, wise and discerning people, can squirrel away and draw on as needed. I'm thinking about the feeling of gratitude that we have experienced when someone has forgiven us for hurting them, a feeling that we can draw on when we in turn have been hurt and know we need to let it go. I'm thinking of the memories of joyful family times that can tide us over through some of the inevitably bumpier patches with our loved ones. I'm thinking of the moments that we have felt a powerful connection with God and with the spiritual -- perhaps when we've been at a beautiful or awe-inspiring spot in nature, perhaps at the hospital bedside of a loved one or when we ourselves are facing illness, perhaps in the yoga studio, or in the presence of a miracle like the birth of a child, or in shul. These are feelings which we can draw on when we're feeling alienated from the life of the spirit, or even angry at God when something we consider unfair has happened to us or someone we love. I'm thinking of those moments when we have observed mitzvot, Jewish traditions, which have made us feel moved and proud of being part of our ancient people - moments that we can draw on when the Jewish traditions and the texts we encounter are feeling antiquated, or dull, or weird, or just empty.
For me personally, I'm thinking of an opportunity that presented itself in 5769 as something of a surprise to me - I heard about a bike ride from Tel Aviv to Eilat to raise money for a wonderful organization called the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and, despite the fact that I've never done anything remotely like that before, or maybe because of that fact, I signed up. The fact that I succeeded at the physical challenge of completing the arduous 350 kilometer ride when I've never been much of an athlete or a sports guy is something I'll be able to draw on when I face other challenges in the year ahead. The inspiring stories of the Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians I met who are devoting their lives to improving the environment of the Middle East and demonstrating the possibility of coexistence between Arabs and Jews will give me hope during the year ahead when things are looking bleak. These are experiences that I can hang on to, store away, and draw on as needed.
Is there anything in your experience in the last year that you can store away like the grain in Egypt to sustain and strengthen you spiritually during the year to come in case you really need it? Anything that will allow you to put your current problems and challenges in a wider context, and perhaps allows you to redefine what you mean by "good". That kind of fresh perspective is something we can draw on when times are tough.
So has it been a good year? Will the year ahead be good? I hope I've shown that it's not a simple question to answer. As for the future, I can't predict it, of course. Like all of you, I hope and pray the economy turns around and all the people seeking work will find it. I hope and pray that that our Israeli soldiers will not be asked to go into battle with Hamas, with Hizbullah, or has ve-halila with Iran, to defend their country. I pray that this will be the year that Gilad Shalit at last gains his freedom. I hope that those individuals and groups in our society which have demonized Israel in the last year, like certain labour unions, church groups, filmmakers, and student organizations, will come to temper their hostility with understanding for the claims of both sides. I hope that the Israeli government and its counterparts on the Arab side take meaningful steps toward peace in the coming year, by helping to remind their respective publics that they cannot have everything they want or believe they deserve. I hope that our Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan will be safe. I hope that those suffering illness will find refuat hanefesh and refuat haguf in the year ahead, and that those who are lonely and isolated will find companionship. All those things would certainly be good, and I'll even take measured progress in any of the above, even if we don't get to the finish line on any of them.
But even if God forbid none of these positive developments comes about in 5770, there are still the other meanings of the word "good" to give us perspective on the year ahead. Will we contribute something useful to our family, our community, our society? Will we make moral decisions when faced with the inevitable ethical dilemmas which will confront us?
I hope and pray that we'll do the mitzvah of hakarat hatov this year, that we'll actively seek out aspects of our lives and our world for which we can honestly articulate gratitude. I hope and pray that the year ahead will be one of material abundance and plenty, but in case not, if it's another lean year, I pray that we'll have the spiritual resources to draw on to get through it - and that those of us who do have material resources will be generous in our tzedakah, and share with those who are struggling.
It's a tall order, what I'm hoping for, what I imagine we're all hoping for. Likely beyond reach, these dreams of mine, and that can be depressing. But there is comfort in the fact that we're not in this alone. If we're here in shul today, that means we're part of a community. And it's on that thought that I'd like to close my remarks today. There's a Hasidic story3 about a man who received a telegram telling him that a relative had died and left him some valuable property. Now talk about a good year! Who among us hasn't fantasized about getting a call like that? The man was to contact the rabbi for details. Excited, he went to the rabbi, only to be told that the relative was Moses, and the valuable property was the Torah, and the whole Jewish religious tradition. Well, you can guess his reaction. Imagining downtown real estate, his inheritance was -- religious wisdom. What kind of inheritance is that?
Well, my faith is that it is a good inheritance, and that the more effort and energy we devote to our Torah learning and our Jewish community, the more we write Jewish programs and activities and services and classes into our own blank books for the year ahead - whether paper or electronic -- , the more we come to see our own inheritance as Jews as "good", then the more we will be able to look out at the world as a whole and at our lives and see them as "good" too. Because that's what living a serious Jewish life can give us - goodness. Not perfection by any means. Not always happiness (although I certainly hope, sometimes so). But goodness, in all its senses. I hope this will be such a year of appreciation for our Jewish yerusha.
For some reason, I never throw out my old agenda books. I have a pile of them on a shelf in my office. I never look at them, they just gather dust. Sometimes, when cleaning my office, I contemplate tossing them - but I justify holding onto them because I think I might need to look something up from the past. But that rarely happens. I think I hold onto them to honour the past, even as I with great anticipation embrace the unknown future. Throwing out those old agenda books would be like saying that the past didn't really matter, and as a rabbi that's certainly not what I'm about. Now don't worry - at the end of the day Ned Ludd I'm not. I won't smash your Blackberrys (unless of course they happen to go off during services). Your 21st century gizmos are safe with me. And maybe one day, I'll succumb too. I can't stay too far behind the times. But for the moment I'm not running out to buy one either. For now at least, I'm still organizing my year the old fashioned way, with an agenda book, may its pages for 5770 be filled with all manner of good.