Erev Rosh HaShanah 5763: “No Moving The Moral Target”
(by Rabbi Howard L. Apothaker)
This sermon is copyrighted to Rabbi Howard L. Apothaker, Ph.D.
NO REDISTIBUTION OR REPUBLICATION IS PERMITTED.
A hunter venturing into the woods came across some targets painted on different trees. He was surprised to see that all the arrows had hit the bull’s-eyes. He was so curious to meet the perfect marksman who had accomplished this that he searched far and wide. Finally he found the archer and questions him about his feats: “What is the secret behind your accurate aim? How can an archer attain such perfection?” “It’s quite simple,” replied the archer. “First I shoot my arrows, and then I paint the target.”
My sermon this evening speaks of three people, who have probably never met, and who, on the surface, seem to have very little in common. One is a college student who goes to Yale. The other two are parents who live in Marin County on the West Coast. One is Jewish, the other two are not. And yet, they have one thing in common which makes me want to speak to them and about them.
They are both products of a similar moral ethos and they both came to realize this year, not completely, but at least to some extent, the consequences of the culture in which they were brought up.
The reason I choose to speak about them is because I have the feeling that they are not the only ones who were brought up the way they were. I have the feeling that there are many of us who are sitting here today who share the education and a worldview that these three people had, and this is why I want to speak to them and about them on this Erev Rosh HaShanah and in the fallout of what we have learned this year.
Let me begin with the Jewish college student who goes to Yale.
Last September, Ms. Allison Hornstein, in defiance of her classmates and her culture, arrived at an insight. The insight was that some things are right and some things are wrong. She arrived at this insight all by herself, not because of the education that she has received, but IN SPITE of the education that she has received. Let me explain:
In December, Allison Hornstein wrote a column in Newsweek in which she tried to come to terms with what, for her and her friends at Yale, was the most troublesome question that came out of September Eleventh, namely, did anyone really do anything bad on that day or not?
This is not a question that most non-Ivy-League students had much trouble with and that is Ms. Hornstein’s point. She was surprised and bothered to find that, in the wake of the September Eleventh murders, and that is exactly what they were, murders, she was surprised and bothered to find out that in the wake of the September Eleventh murders, many of her classmates had trouble dealing with this question. Did anybody do anything objectively wrong when they murdered the 3,000 some people who were in the Twin Towers or not? Why? Because to address this question would be to make a moral judgment, and to judge others is for some of Ms. Hornstein’s classmates and some of her professors, the great taboo.
The first commandment in the “I’m okay, You’re okay” ethos is: thou shalt not be judgmental. And so, many students and professors at Yale, and at other such shrines and temples of our culture, had trouble dealing with what happened on September Eleventh.
Hornstein writes that the first response at Yale, as it was, in concert with its now most famous alum who now lives on Pennsylvania Avenue, was shock, horror and anger. But, she says that by the next week, as the shock began to fade, so did the sense of being confronted with evil. Student reactions, as they were expressed in the university newspaper and in class, pointed to the differences between our culture and that of the Islamists, as if to say that people who live within one culture have no right to judge those who live in a different culture.
Ms. Hornstein explains why she and her classmates find it so hard to judge or to condemn. It is because they were educated all their lives to be non-judgmental. Her plaint reminds me of the old story about how the teacher brings a rabbit into class, and asks the children: “Is this a boy rabbit or a girl rabbit?” And the children say: “I don’t know. Let’s vote on it.”
In second grade, she writes, we were taught that the … people in Central Africa are just like us, even though they eat human flesh. In third grade, the teacher told the class a story in which one boy kicked another and then she explained that the moral of the story was not that the kicker was bad, but that he “had feelings inside him that sometimes led him to do mean things”.
In high school, Ms. Hornstein and her classmates agreed that although they personally found the practice of female “circumcision” to be abhorrent, they must accept it as part of the culture of other societies.
But in the days after September Eleventh, as she listened to her classmates and her professors offer explanations and justifications for what had happened, as she heard them say that the reason the hijackers did what they did was because of the poverty in the Middle East, or because of US foreign policy, or because of the high value that their religion puts upon martyrdom, etc. etc. etc…
And as she listened to all these explanations, Alison Hornstein had an epiphany. It struck her like a bolt of lightening that, despite all the cultural diversity that she had been taught to value and respect all her life, some things in this world are right and some things in this world are just plain wrong!!! She wrote: “Just as we should pass absolute moral judgment in the case of rape, so we should recognize that some other actions are objectively bad, despite all the differences there may be in cultural standards and values. To me, hijacking planes and killing thousands of civilians falls into this category.”
Wow! What a bold, counter cultural, politically incorrect thing that is to say, murdering thousands of people is bad!!!! How did she arrive such a radical idea?
But wait. Allison Hornstein’s bold moral judgment is not quite so bold as it seems. Look at her conclusion again: ‘to me it is wrong’ is what she says. In other words, hijacking planes and killing thousands of people is not objectively bad after all. It is just bad IN HER OPINION. Indeed, she hurries to reassure us that she has not committed the ultimate heresy of saying some things are right and some things are wrong. She qualifies her statement by saying: ‘TO ME IT IS WRONG BUT OTHERS MAY DISAGREE’.
Others may disagree??? that murdering thousands of innocent people is wrong? Is this really a matter of opinion? Is it that she happens not to approve of murder, but that she does not want to take away the right of others to approve of it if they wish? Is it really so relative? Is it like saying: some people like broccoli and some people don’t; some people like to commit murder and some people don’t? And all are entitled to their own opinions.
I must break into myself here and note that this kind of challenge is thrown into our face daily. I arrived home late last night and flipped on an A&E-type documentary to witnesses a report about a tribe that has the following rule: If a child, when getting teeth, grows its uppers before it lowers … such a child is left to die in the bushes and the mother is put into isolation (so that she can have no more contact with men), and basically works like a slave until she dies.
I now quote Ms. Hornstein: “It is less important to me where people draw the line than it is that they are willing to draw it at all.” So if she draws the line at the murder of thousands of innocent civilians and someone else draws their line at the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, they may be just as right as she is. And anyway, no one has the right to tell anyone else exactly how many innocent civilians, have to get killed before we declare it immoral? Middle East ….
Here you have an obviously intelligent, obviously moral person, trying nobly and painfully to think her way out of the intellectual and moral cul-de-sac. She can’t go out on the limb and say it: ‘Murder is wrong!’ Say that mass murder is wrong and not just in your opinion. Others may disagree with you, but, if they do, then they are wrong!
If Ms. Hornstein is in shul this evening, I hope that she is paying attention to what the machzor says. Because the prayerbook, from its beginning to its end, is judgmental … not about little things … not about things that are a matter of taste or a matter of opinion. On those things, the machzor and the faith that it embodies is tolerant and open-minded. But when it comes to the big things, when it comes to the sins that stain, warp and spoil our lives, the ones that poison our souls, shorten our lives and harm our relationships with each other, on these, the machzor is very judgmental. So judgmental that it makes us rise and recite together Al Het shechatanu lifanecha...for the sin that we have committed against You....
Notice that it doesn’t let us get away from our responsibilities by saying: Dear God, it really isn’t my fault that I stole some money; after all, I am poor, so it is understandable that I stole. Or: Dear God, it really isn’t my fault that I gossiped. After all, I have all kinds of conscious and subconscious drives within me, I have low self esteem and I have a deep need to be liked and so it is understandable that I gossiped. It does not let us say: Dear God, I know that disrespect for elders was a sin back in the old days, but not now in the society in which we live, and so it is really not my fault that I did it.
Instead, it makes us judge ourselves, painful as that may be to do. It makes us say we have sinned, and we admit it. It makes us say, we have sinned and we are sorry. It makes us say, we have sinned, and we will try to do better next time. What the machzor teaches is the very opposite of what is taught in, among other places, the ivied towers. The machzor teaches that some things are right and some things are wrong.
And it teaches us that if other people disagree, if they deny that murder, robbery and rape are wrong, well, they have a right to be wrong, but they are wrong, nevertheless. For these things are wrong, not just wrong in my opinion. They are inherently and objectively wrong — whether the culture knows it or not.
That to me is among the great contributions that Judaism has to offer to the bewildering world in which we live. To a world that is so open-minded that anything goes; to a world that is so non judgmental that nothing is forbidden, so long as it is popular.
But Judaism comes and says: No! Some things are right, and some things are wrong! And once a year we are bidden to examine the differences and decide which we shall do.
My second story comes from a column written by Jeff Jacoby, who is a columnist for the Boston Globe.
These two parents live in Marin County, a suburb of San Francisco. The father was raised as a Catholic, and so he decided that he was not going to burden his son with restrictions the way his parents raised him. The mother dabbled with Buddhism for a while, and then she went on to try something else.
The parents sent their son to a school in which students fashion their own curriculum and meet with a teacher once a month. When he was l6, and he decided he wanted to drop out of high school. They said, “Who are we to say.
When he was l7, he decided, after reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X that he wanted to convert and become a Muslim. He grew a beard, and took to wearing long white robes, and an oversized skullcap, drawing praise his mother, who told friends that “it was good for a child to find a passion.” The proud parents paid for him to go to Yemen so that he could memorize the Koran in Arabic, and presumably supported his move to Pakistan to join a madrassah in a region that was known to be a stronghold of Islamist extremists.
There were no absolutes, no fixed truths, no mandatory behavior, no thou-shalt-nots. If they had one conviction, it was that all convictions are worthy, that nothing is intolerable except intolerance. Oh, pardon me. They did draw the line at one thing: when they insisted on the right to call him by the name of their favorite Beatle, instead of Suleyman.
Like Ms. Hornstein’s classmates and professors, the parents of Suleyman, nee John, believed that everything, almost without exception, is a matter of opinion, that there are no absolutes, that everything is relative.
By now, you probably know whom I am referring to. I am talking about Frank and Marilyn Walker, the parents of John Walker, who went all the way from Marin County to become a member of the Taliban, and who was captured in Afghanistan, fighting against his own country.
When terrorists bombed the US Cole, and killed l7 American sailors, their son wrote to his parents that he believed the attack was justified since, by docking the ship in Yemen, the US had committed an act of war. Mr. Walker says that that message did ‘raise my concerns’, but it didn’t stop him from wiring his son another $l,200. After all, says Dad, ’my days of molding him were over.’
My days of molding him were over??? Did they ever begin? The road to jihad did not begin in Afghanistan. It began in Marin County. It began with parents who knew the lyrics of all the Beatles songs by heart, but who never learned how to spell the words, “right” and “wrong.” Such a family could never attend a High Holy Day Service. Because, if you live in a culture in which nothing is ever wrong, and everything is a matter of opinion, and the only rule is: different folks-different strokes, then how do you repent?
Several years ago, in the wake of the riots in South Central Los Angeles following the Rodney King beating, a reporter who was interviewing a nine-year old child. Many of his relatives and friends were involved in the looting, but, although he found himself on the street, he did not, out of fear of getting caught, he admitted, go into the store to steal anything. A reporter then asked, “What if you wouldn’t get caught.” “I still wouldn’t loot,” he replied. “Why not?” she asked. “Because it is in the Ten Commandments.”
Now it may not be what most well-educated Americans might want to hear. Because I suspect that, given the opportunity to answer the question why folks wouldn’t loot even if they knew that they would not get caught, the preferred response might be, as with Ms. Hornstein, “Because I think it is wrong.” It is as if a belief in a God-Who-demands-morals is a weakness. I did not say John Walker’s view of God, who believed in some politically-correct God — his politics. But a demanding God ….
A teen is not just killed, but mutilated to the point, hacked away, crushed and stomped on so that he can only be recognized by his dental records walking 200 yards from his home in an Israeli town. A 14-year old boy — not only killed, but then brutalized long after the death has occurred. Is that action just a matter of point-of view?
What does Judaism have to offer John Walker, Allison Hornstein, and us. Here are principles that are not a matter of opinion in Judaism, but brief truisms — a good beginning guide on this first day of Tishrei 5763 — a Jewish top ten for guiding our mitzvah life. It’s going to go by quickly and there is no test at the end, except by how you live.
- Jews know that we can’t be happy unless we have self-restraint.
- Jews distinguish between our freely-imagined private thoughts and our public actions.
- Jews gain a self of self-worth because of our doctrine that we can and should mend the world.
- Jews know that it a religious requirement, not simply a nice thing to do, to express gratitude.
- Jews know that there is, over one’s individual conscience, moral authority that stands outside of the individual’s choice.
- Jews agree that expressions of awe and wonder in the transcendent are crucial for our well-being.
- Even so, Jews believe that such transcendence must remain open to the musings of the intellect.
- Jews are required, notwithstanding their theology, to act with the decency that we imagine is demanded of us by … well, even if we don’t agree on its name or attributes.
- Jews feel the connection and honor the relationship with all Jews present, past, and future, and from every place on earth … and circling the earth too, as we speak.
- And finally, we believe in the power of community and the best way to honor all the above. Our holiest prayers are not uttered as an individual, but as one of a minyan — in relationship with others, carrying the fate of others, helping others with their responsibilities.
There are some truths in this world that are real, and that are binding, and that are absolute. We keep them because they are at the basis of all human civilization. We keep them because we are fortunate enough to have been taught them by our God. We keep them because they are right, true, good, beautiful and binding upon us and upon our children, and upon our children’s children.“ Others do not keep them. We have been their victims … in Europe, in the Middle East, throughout the world, even today. Let us not buy into that and be lax.
Like the archer at the beginning of my talk, if we paint the target only after we have shot the arrow, then there is no target and everything we and others hit is equally true and good.
In this past year, we have re-heard the lesson that is at the heart of our Torah, and which is at the heart of our civilization, that there are standards and that there are values and that there are obligations that are binding upon us all. Scandals, in which far too many of our co-religionists were helping to engineer, has thrown it in our faces. Happily, and I am verbally applauding, the Enron (End-run) of moral relativism and no-one-is-in-control rationalizations have not deadened our senses. Thank God, we have learned something.
September 11th has reminded us that there are rules for decency and a need for a God who will help us say on the big questions, “This is wrong and this is right.” This is what Ms. Allison Hornstein, in defiance of her classmates and her culture, learned. This is what, we hope and pray, the Walkers and their son have learned. That is what we hope corporate culture may be learning. That is what — please God — we hope those who would terrorize Jews might come to learn.
May 5763 be a year of increased moral sensibility and sensitivity. As we birth this new year, we may have cause to celebrate the reinvigoration of decency and moral vision in our culture, and G-d-willing, in our ourselves. And to that aspiration, may we all agree by uttering, “Amen.”