5 Minute Jewish Wisdom

I’m starting a series soon on Radio Shalom, Montreal’s Jewish radio station, of short inspirational commentaries. They will comment on passages in an ancient Jewish book, Pirkei Avot (Chapters of the Fathers), and center on insights related to day to day life: on proper judgment, the pros and cons of snobbery, the importance of focus, etc. Below is a written version of the first commentary, on the first Mishna (passage) in Chapters of the Fathers.

pirkei avot

Be Deliberate in Judgment

The first Mishnah in Pirkei Avot says:

The Men of the Great Assembly said three things: Be deliberate in judgment, raise many students, and make a protective fence for the Torah."

This Mishna is primarily intended as advice for judges; deliberate carefully before rendering judgment.

But the genius of this Mishna goes beyond the jurist, and provides excellent advice for the average man in the street.

The advice is simple: Don’t rush to judgment!!

All of us, whether or not we are judges, have to make hundreds of judgments a day.

You meet someone, you have to judge their personality; you buy something, you have to judge its value; you make plans, you have to judge their usefulness. We’re constantly judging every aspect of the world around us.

The Mishna is reminding all of us to judge carefully and methodically. Snap judgments are often corrupted by preconceived notions and emotional responses.

Many people have made foolish snap judgments.

An executive director at a large charity in Toronto (who will remain anonymous) can tell you about judging someone by their appearance. An older man in a rumpled suit and somewhat gruff manner showed up in his office one day, asking to join his board. The executive director dismissed him immediately, assuming that a lack of fashion sense and social graces meant he had little to offer. Unfortunately, he soon found out that he had turned away someone who was about to become one of Toronto’s largest philanthropists. Like all snap judgments, judging a book by its cover is simply knee jerk stupidity.

Richard Jewell can tell you about preconceived notions. On July 27, 1996, during the Summer Olympics, Jewell alerted the Atlanta police about a suspicious package that turned out to be a bomb. Because some of the elements in Jewell’s life resembled a hypothetical FBI profile of the bomber, the FBI immediately assumed Jewell was guilty. Only on October 25th, 3 months later, did the FBI realize they had besmirched the reputation of the one true hero of that July evening.

Jesse Ramirez can tell you about emotional decisions made in haste. As the Arizona Republic reports:

“Ramirez suffered major brain injuries in a car accident on May 30. Doctors said the injuries could have left him blind or in a permanent vegetative state.On June 8, his wife, Rebecca, asked doctors to remove his food and water tubes….Now, he can hug and kiss, nod his head, answer yes and no questions, give a thumbs-up sign and sit in a chair...”

Luckily, Jesse didn’t die because the rest of his family stopped his wife from removing life support. But it’s not just Jesse; hasty hospital decisions affect a lot of people. I see people overwhelmed by emotion, frightened that they will have to watch a loved one linger in a permanent vegetative state, make foolish and hasty decisions about a relative’s life. Tragically, snap decisions made in an ICU have life and death consequences.

The Mishna is advising judges to be thorough in researching a verdict. But its advice goes beyond judges. It is reminding the rest of us, who make multiple judgments every day, never to rush to judgment.

"jesse ramirez"

pirkei avot

"persistent vegatative state"

You Can Do Anything

Yes, this title is a cliché. But it’s also true.

Perhaps the greatest lesson the Bible has to teach comes right at the beginning. The Bible says:

“And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him” (Gen. 1:27)

It’s a great verse. But what’s the image of God?

It’s man’s ability to create and control. Man can cure disease and build cars, invent computers and fly into outer space. This creativity, according to Rabbi Joseph B. Solovietchik, is man’s way of emulating God, the ultimate creator.

Man’s almost limitless creativity is Godlike. Yes, we can do anything. Unfortunately, we don’t believe it.

We refuse to accept our true abilities. We imprison our potential, comfortably assuming that mediocrity is our lot.

We have excellent company in our search for mediocrity. Often, well meaning friends tell us how we need to be “realistic” and do less, or to stop dreaming.

I remember telling an older colleague, a successful author, how much I wanted to start writing. He immediately belittled my dreams, saying that being a rabbi was too much work on its own, and writing is a dream best put aside. As realistic as this advice was, (and yes, I am writing this late at night), I was taken aback. But I ignored his advice.

I ignored his advice because it was wrong. Now I’m all for realism, and yes, there are people without plans who imagine dreaming is all you need to succeed. But reality is that a determined human in the image of God can accomplish astonishing things.

People who have triumphed over major disabilities are remarkable examples of man in the image of God. A recent book about James Holman (1786-1857) tells one such story. Holman, blinded in his twenties, becomes a peripatetic explorer, traveling deep into Siberia and sailing around the world. In an era when blind people were considered to be virtual invalids, Holman learned how to compensate for his loss of vision through sound, cleverness and social skills. Holman compiles the first English dictionary of an African language, and even learns how to ride a horse and hunt elephants! His travelogues, built on painstaking research, were of immense scientific value. Holman, a man truly in the image of God, transcends physical limitations through sheer creativity.

Holman showed that even a blind explorer could have insightful observations. Yet even in Holman’s own life, people argued his explorations have no value because they are the observations of a blind man. In other words, the critics were saying that because Holman was blind, he could not accomplish more than what they imagined a blind man could accomplish.

Critics will always predict mediocrity. Unfortunately, we are often our own worst critic, refusing to believe in ourselves. To unleash our potential, we must silence our inner critic, and remember that we are created in the image of God and that…

We can do anything.

soloveitchik

james holman

"jason roberts"

determination

Love is Contagious

Aiden McGuire is a Yankee fan, and an amazing friend.

Aiden and Michael Sayre are childhood buddies. They’ve grown up together, and now in their mid-twenties, they do what people in their mid-twenties do, hanging around together, drinking beer, and rooting for the Yankees.

But it’s getting harder for Michael to follow the Yankees. Michael suffers from congenital glaucoma, a condition that at 25 has left him blind in one eye, and rapidly losing vision in the other. Until recently, Michael had never seen a live Yankee game, and with his vision rapidly disappearing, it seemed probable that he’d never have a chance to see one either.

And then in March, Aiden wrote a letter to the Yankees:

“I’d like to tell you about my best friend, Michael Sayre……Michael is a 25-year-old diehard Yankees fan. He was born with glaucoma. Recently, he lost all vision in his right eye. Right now he’s hanging on to what vision he has left in his left eye, and his doctors don’t know how long it will remain healthy….”

The Yankees gave Aiden and Michael two tickets behind home plate. Before the game they were taken on the field for batting practice, and met with future hall of famers Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Roger Clemens. Truly, a Yankee fan’s dream; or perhaps Michael described it best: “I was going crazy. My head was going to explode.”

Aiden and Michael’s friendship just grabs your heart and inspires you. Pirke Avot tells us an enduring friendship is based on “love independent of ulterior motives”, and Michael and Aiden share that type of friendship. It’s impossible not to be moved by Aiden’s sincere selflessness.

And that’s precisely my point:

Love is contagious.

One sincere act of selflessness can inspires a dozen others. Aiden’s letter to the Yankees inspires the Yankees, and then, (as recounted in the Syracuse Post Standard), the Yankee's involvement inspires a whole host of other organizations:

…the Yankees responded with a couple of box seats and field passes and a tour of both Monument Park and the press box. Then, American Limousine chipped in with transportation, JetBlue offered airfare, the Peninsula New York hotel delivered lodging, Majestic Athletic pitched in a jersey, Hillerich & Bradsby shipped personalized bats.

One letter starts a kindness chain reaction. Sincerity inspires others to share in the gift of friendship.

In fact, Aiden told the New York Times he was shocked by the kindness he got:

“The fact that all of these people have come together to help a person they don’t even know has left me speechless”…

But it’s not that strange: love has always been contagious. In the Book of Ruth, one woman’s kindness changes the course of history. Ruth, a foreigner and a widow, treats her mother in law Naomi with love and loyalty. Her kindness inspires Naomi's relative, Boaz, to be kind to Ruth and Naomi. Ruth and Boaz marry, and the people of Bethlehem, inspired by their kindness, celebrate with them and bless them on their wedding day. Ruth’s baby, Oved, begets Jesse, who begets David, the future King of Israel. Kindness and love literally give birth to future redemption.

Yes, kindness begets kindness which in turn, begets even more kindness. Human hearts are open, ready to catch the “love bug”.

That’s why when good people like Aiden or Ruth or Boaz or Michael tell their story, they'll all tell you the same thing:

love is contagious.

aiden mcguire

michael sayre

friendship

kindness

Graduation Day

My twin boys Akiva and Hillel graduated in June. Graduation is a rite of passage, a moment for these 6th graders take stock of their educational achievements. But it’s also a rite of passage for parents. We marvel at how the toddlers we just dropped off at kindergarten are already at the cusp of maturity.

So please indulge me as I write out of naches!!

Rites of passage are important. In Judaism, a child who turns Bat and Bar Mitzvah is considered personally responsible for his or her actions. (The public celebration of Bar Mitzvahs is a medieval German innovation; the garish celebration of Bar and Bat Mitzvahs is a 20th century North American mutation.) By necessity a birthday is the dividing line, arbitrarily declaring that the child is now a responsible adult.

Like Bar-Bat Mitzvahs, graduations are arbitrary dividing lines. But far more important than ceremonial graduation days are the unexpected moments that test the character of a young adult. These true graduation days always arrive unexpectedly.

David, a young shepherd, visits his older brothers at their army camp. There, he sees Goliath, a Philistine warrior, mocking the army of Israel, challenging any soldier to fight him one on one. As the soldiers cower, David the shepherd offers to fight Goliath himself.

David is ridiculed by his brothers, and even King Saul refuses David at first, saying:

"You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth."

But David, (already anointed to be a future King), insists on fighting. David’s battle against Goliath marks his true graduation day.

A true graduation day is the day when a young person rises to the occasion. Being anointed with academic degrees means nothing until one has passed real life tests.

Tony Benetatos graduated in just a few hours. A “probie”, (a new firefighter), the 21-year-old Benetatos was assigned to Manhattan's Duane Street firehouse, located seven blocks from the World Trade Center. French Filmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet were filming Benetatos for a documentary, hoping to see how the “boy turns into a man in nine months”. They follow Benetatos in his first days on the job, as senior firefighters haze him and break him in.

Then 9-11 occurs. Every man in the fire station is pressed into service. Firefighters fight on the front line, risking their lives to save the lives of others. Along with his fellow firefighters, Benetatos shows remarkable courage and compassion. On 9-11, Benetatos becomes a hero.

Benetatos passes his true graduation day with honors. As Jules Naudet puts it at the end of the documentary (aptly entitled 9-11) , “we wanted to watch a boy become a man over 9 months; turns out, the boy became a man in 9 hours.”

Every child, on the road to becoming an adult, has to pass a true graduation day. On that day there won’t be any caps and gowns, there won’t be celebratory parties, but on that day, like King David and Tony Benetatos, the boy will become a man.

I am proud to watch my children graduate, and I am proud of what they have achieved. And my blessing, to Akiva, Hillel, and all of the graduates, is that when their true graduation day arrives, they will pass with flying colors.

Mazel Tov!!

graduations

tony benetatos

"rite of passage"

Yes, I've Posted Something This Week!

I'm sorry I didn't get to post anything on this blog this week. It was a busy one.

But I did write two posts on my other blog.

One, a dvar Torah on next week's Torah reading. The other a piece on my trip to Ottawa.

Love Isn’t the Sizzle, It’s the Steak

“Love is….” Bookcases full of poetry have tried to complete this sentence. Love seems too fantastic to be experienced in daily life, too remarkable to be found in everyday gestures. To the romantic, if love is anything, it is spectacular. As the famous poem by Elizabeth Browning declares:

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight….”

What a beautiful description of love! In the poet’s hands, love is sublime and infinite, soaring as high as the lover’s soul. Indeed, this powerful image is so beautiful, it’s misleading.

Marketing 101 reminds us to “sell the sizzle, not the steak”. The sizzle is excitement itself, and people like excitement a lot more than they like steak.

Poets are the marketers of love. They are inspired by the “sizzle” of love, the drama of two hearts beating as one. They write intoxicating poems, and we are swept off our feet. And then we forget to eat the steak.

Love requires lots of small, unromantic, acts of kindness. The Mishna, when talking about true love, says:

.…any love that does not depend upon some ulterior interest will never cease….

This is setting the standard for love rather low! According to the Mishna, all one needs for true love is simple selflessness.

The Mishna is teaching a simple but profound lesson: Keep your eye on the steak, not the sizzle. Yes, love can (and must) be dramatic and sublime at times. But most of the time it’s the little things that nourish relationships. The smallest act of selflessness is a gesture of eternal love.

Love can at times be enchantment and adventure, but most of the time it’s saying thank you and taking out the garbage.

Love can be sublime and majestic, but most of the time it’s smiling and walking the dog.

Love can be passionate and dramatic, but most of the time it’s plain old admiration and sympathy.

Love can be the sizzle, but most of the time it’s the steak.

love

poetic

Article About This Blog!!!

There was an article about this blog in this week's edition of the Jewish Independent (Vancouver).

It was written by Dave Gordon, whose website is here.

(All of this promotional activity is part my "extra 1% of effort" in publicizing this blog.)