| Home |
| About us |
| Calendar |
| Education: Youth | ||
| Education: All |
| Membership Donations |
| Interfaith |
| Rabbi |
| Volunteer Opportunities | ||
| Photos | ||
| Community Lunch |
Choosing As a Way of Life by Rabbi Gary M. Bretton-Granatoor The meaning of life is often found in where you place the emphasis. This is true especially in language. A little comma — a jot, a tittle, a little mark — changes the entire meaning of a text. Let us take a text from this morning’s Torah reading, for example: U'v'charta hayyim, l'ma'an t'chiyeh ata v'zar'eh'cha. If I place the comma where it is normally found, the translation would be: Choose life, so that you and your descendants will live. Now, allow me to move the comma back one word, placing it between the first two words: U'v'charta, hayyim l'ma'an t'chiyeh ata v'zar'eh'cha. We would now read: Choosing — live in such a way as to give life to you and your children. Not: Choose life. But: Choosing as a way of life. This is what I have chosen to speak about this day. Often, we find it important to discern the differences between humans and other living beings. Some philosophers have said that it is the gift of speech that separates us from the animals. Others have said that it is our ability to dream. On this day, I would like to suggest that it is our ability to make choices that places humanity as the crown of creation. Our Torah speaks in broad language, painting the picture of choosing with wide brush strokes — Arrayed before each of you are the choices between good and evil, blessing and curse, life and death. And yet, life is not lived making such easy choices. Life is lived, not in black and white, as in television sets of old; life is lived in shades of gray, and vital vibrant colors, tantalizing, attractive, and seductive. The life of choosing is not an easy life at all. Each of us is confronted with myriad choices each day. Some choices are easy: what to eat for breakfast, what clothes to wear, which route to take on the way to work.... These are the choices that take little effort, and produce little pain. But some choices are painful ones, calling into account ethics, morals, values, and areas in between. As the late Fred Friendly, moderator of a Public Broadcasting Service series on Ethics in America used to preface each show, "Our purpose is not to make up anyone's mind but to open minds: to make the agony of decision making so intense you can escape only by thinking." The choices of life, if we take up the cudgels, cause us to wrestle and squirm — they make us think, they make us doubt, and ultimately, they make us live. Yet, there is great danger in the life of choosing. Often we make the wrong choice. We choose the wrong word, the wrong tone, the wrong moment, the wrong action. How often have we tried to comfort someone, or apologize for something that we have done that has caused pain — in our best of intentions, our mouths betray our feelings. We must choose, not only what to do, but what to say, and how to say the things we mean. There is a Hasidic folk-tale about a choice in action: One day, a young man who had heard about the great powers and intellect of the Baal Shem Tov decided that he would make a great journey to see this sage on Yom Kippur. After praying with his own congregation on Rosh HaShannah, he set out on his long trek. Everything went wrong on his journey. His donkey got sick. He took a wrong turn. Finally one day's journey out of the town where the BST would be teaching for YK, his cart overturned, it started to rain and he thought that he would never get there in time. He then ran into a group of shabbily dressed men who said, "Brother can you stop, we have only nine men here and we need to make a minyan." He shouted, "Are you kidding, I'm running to see the BST." Away he went. He finally arrived and saw the great BST, but after the end of Yom Kippur, when it was the BST's habit to greet everyone, the BST ignored him. He ran over and said, "I have travelled a long and hard journey just to see you, why wouldn't you greet me?" "Don't you know," said the BST, "you were brought into this world by God only to join those nine men in prayer! Instead, you ran away!" Each of us has choices to make, and things we are to do — we must choose correctly. What is interesting about this hasidic tale is that it points out the very difficult nature of making choices. In our story, the young man wants only to gain knowledge — to sit at the feet of a great master. His concern is for the long term gain of the experience. In his rush to fulfill his wish, he decides to forego an experience that seems ephemeral — short-lived — something just of the moment. His challenge is ours — could he have known, as the BST did, that his purpose was to fill out that minyan and allow nine others to pray? Can we know when to forego one opportunity in order to pursue another? It has been said, "Kasheh l'hiyot yihudi — It is hard to be a Jew." I have often emended that text to read, "It is even harder to be a Reform Jew" for we are those for whom one of the guiding principles of our religious life is informed choice. We study the tradition, learn from the sages of ages past, and choose how to practice our faith. We take to heart the statement from Deuteronomy 6:18, "Do what is good and right in the eyes of the Eternal." Our choices must be ones that will be deemed 'good' and 'right.' But we may choose what is right and good, and decide that we can do it later. Another story. There were once three demons who gathered together to compare results of their attempts to corrupt human beings: the First says, "I tell them that there is no God. But they are too smart, they don't believe me. They look around the world and see all of the wonders and they know that I have lied." The second says: "I tell them that there is a God but that God did not give them the Torah. But they are smart. They look inside the Torah and see all of the wisdom and they know that I have lied." The third says: "I tell them that there is a God, and that God gave them the Torah — but I say to them: what's the rush? You have time to do what God wants tomorrow" and that works! Sometimes, we choose to do something that we know to be right, and rather than delay, we rush to do good. We read in Pirke Avot (4:23): "Do not try to placate your friends at the height of their anger; do not attempt to comfort them in the first shock of bereavement; do not question their sincerity at the moment when they make a solemn promise; do not be overeager to visit them in the hour of their disgrace." There are so many choices — so many options that we could be frozen into inaction. But our fear cannot prevent us from acting, nor should our fear prevent us from having faith in our actions. Living a life of choosing is living with ambiguity. We must learn to live with ambiguity: almost to revel in the tensions that the complexities of life present to us. It is these tensions — the very frustrations — in which living truly takes place. The power to choose is power indeed. Sure — it would be easier if all was laid out before us — arrayed in such a way as to make all choices disappear. But wouldn't life be boring, moving from point to point, knowing each and every step of the way. According to the philosopher Whitehead, life is a series of doors at the end of a corridor, behind each door is another corridor which ends in another series of doors. Whitehead saw life as an eternal version of the old Television game show, "Let's Make A Deal." Every moment we have a choice of Door # 1, Door # 2, or Door # 3, or the box behind the lovely Carol Miller! The command to choose gives us free will: with this we gain freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of action. Of course, there must be limits to these freedoms, but at what cost? Today, we are challenged, and challenging these freedoms— In twenty-six days hopefully every person here who is eligible will walk into a tin booth and make a choice that can impact all of our tomorrows. Some will choose based upon a need for a change, others will want to send a message, some will vote with their pocketbooks and still others will choose to not choose at all. What do we take into account when we cast our ballots, and what kind of world are we choosing to make? Cast your thoughts back over the last few weeks and let us think about the tenor of the debate — the words and tone used to sway our opinions. How sad that an election of such historic and epic import has been reduced to mud-slinging. Casual and tangential relationships with the candidates are used to sully reputations. Chance encounters or even real relationships are used to suggest that the opinions of one, like chooties can be transferred to another. Woe that any of you should be judged because of the opinions I have once held, or now express or might have espoused. We have to choose what to hear and to what we listen. And what of the tenor of our own public discourse? When confronted with an opposing point of view, how do we react? Do we listen carefully and weigh the evidence, or do we choose to become so hardened in our position that no evidence to the contrary can shake our belief. We have the ability to model responsible dialogue, but do we choose to do so? And the ills of our world are laid out before us. How long will it be before we decide to do something about Darfur? About the environment? About global warming? About the homeless in our midst? About the poor? About Israel? About peace in the Middle East? About peace in our homes? The power of choice is awesome in scope, affecting every aspect of life. We cannot shirk our responsibilities to choose the right action, the right word, the right moment, the right tone, the right gesture, the right intention.... Rabbi Gary M. Bretton-Granatoor specializes in interfaith relations and is the rabbi at the Temple of Universal Judaism in Manhattan.
|
