Our Year in Review

A Sermon on the second day of Rosh Hashanah - 5754

The second day of Rosh Hashanah is the occasion of my annual year in review presentation in which I choose one theme that dominated the past 12 months and look at it again with some added distance and through the prism of the values of the High Holidays. The theme for this past year was easy to find. Anyone keeping up with the news will recall that there has been an increased conflict of ideas and ideals between those who believe in and accept traditional values and those who do not. Highlighted primarily by the "Gay Rights" issue, the conflict appears as well in the questions of "Assisted Suicide", "Definition of the Family", "Parental Rights", and "Self Censorship and Standards in Art and Literature".

When I initially thought of speaking about this topic I found myself feeling somewhat uncomfortable. I've previously spoken and written about many of these issues, particularly "Gay Rights", and it did not seem appropriate to me to use the pulpit on Rosh Hashanah for that issue. But a challenge is a challenge and a commitment is a commitment, so I began to look a little more closely at my discomfort. In doing so I discovered both the roots of that discomfort and a deeper understanding of what really is at issue in the public debate on the question of values.

I begin by describing the source of the discomfort. To do so I need all of you to take a journey with me and to make a difficult paradigm shift. I want all of us to imagine that we are pagans living in the time of Abraham. We try to make sense of our world, but it is filled with impersonal powerful forces that appear in heaven and earth, sometimes benevolently, but often with great destructive power. To seize some control of our world we personify these forces as various gods. But our gods are capricious and only occasionally interested in the affairs of human beings.

We also live with a particularly painful reality. Tragically most of our children will not live to maturity. This inflicts deep wounds on our souls as we find our basic paternal and maternal instincts repeatedly assaulted. As a pagan society we decide to do something about this wrenchingly painful state of affairs. We are determined to do something dramatic that the gods will have to notice. We decide to offer the most powerful sacrifice that we can to these impersonal gods. We take our first born child and give it back to the gods in the hope that they will thus treat the rest of our children with kindness. Even though our gods are capricious, this they most certainly must notice. We are sure they will be moved by our devotion to save our other children.

Thinking again as moderns, this ritual sacrifice strikes us as barbaric and evil. However, it only does so because of the events described in this morning's Torah reading. When G-d asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham, as a man of his times, would not have found that request surprising. In fact, when G-d then told him to cancel the sacrifice Abraham's reaction is thought by some to have been one of horror and distress. Abraham was fearful that he had somehow offended G-d, thus making the sacrifice unacceptable. The Midrash suggests that Abraham asked G-d whether he could use an alternate means of killing Isaac, or at least be allowed to injure his son in some way. It was only by standing in opposition to the common morality that Judaism eventually educated the world to accept the principle that ritual is not more important than ethics and that a human life cannot be sacrificed in this way.

Move with me now to the Greco-Roman era and imagine that we are all noble citizens of Greece or Rome. Our world is more in control. We have militarily conquered virtually all that we know of it. We have begun to think systematically and our science has produced many marvels. We strive for some underlying principle to which we can dedicate ourselves and we find it in the concept of beauty. As we produce our beautiful edifices and create our magnificent works of art, we look around our world and discover a small group of people in a backwoods area of what today is called the Middle East. These people insist on the barbaric custom of circumcision. They thus violate the natural beauty built into all of us by the gods. We persecute these people. We attempt to put a stop to the practice of circumcision when and where we can, but they remain stubborn. One of their number, a certain Paul of Tarsus, leads a group of followers who claim that it is sufficient to remain uncircumcised as long as one believes in the Messiah that he proclaims. Many of us convert to this hybrid religion and expect that we will find some compromise on the other side. Despite it all, most of these people remain stubborn and refuse to give up circumcision.

If one investigates the complete history of Greco-Roman society and its ideal of beauty one eventually discovers that abandonment of deformed children and other acts of barbarism in the name of perfection were widespread. The Jews, having never given up their circumcision were in an ideal position to morally oppose that society when it slipped from performing deeds that were constructive to perpetrating evil acts of destruction and murder.

There is a common denominator in these two historic case studies. In both situations I imagine that Jews were terribly uncomfortable opposing the contemporary values of their society. This is particularly true as the values were essentially good and represented moral principles with which Jews could agree. Presenting personally precious offerings to G-d is an important value. So, too, is striving for beauty and perfection. But any value, no matter how good, no matter how positive, can exceed its bounds and become destructive.

We face precisely that situation today. The ideals of tolerance and acceptance of diversity are ones we treasure. We feel a special affinity for them because of our tragic historic experience with their opposites. Nonetheless even such values can go too far. Specifically, when we move from tolerance of all people no matter who they are, to tolerance of all activity no matter what it is, we have crossed the boundary into taking a public posture that will, I believe, ultimately do a great deal more harm than good. The appropriateness of crossing this boundary is the crux of the debate that is going on in our society. It is that debate, wearing different clothes each time, that is so dramatically evidenced by the struggles identified as "Gay Rights", "Right to Die", etc., that we witnessed this past year. At root they are all about the limits of the value of tolerance.

It is of great discomfort to us as Jews to oppose these things, when such opposition makes us appear to also be in conflict with a value that we hold to be most precious. However, historically, as we have seen, this has been the role of the Jews. Such a role is critical to who we are as a people. We are called by the Torah to recognize G-d's morality. When a value, even a precious value, has gone too far, and is beginning to create negative consequences instead of good, it is up to us to say, "no". Difficult as it is to stand in opposition, and despite being accused of intolerance, it is a necessary aspect of Jews as "a light to the nations" to fill this role when circumstances force us to do so.

Perhaps I can alleviate some of the discomfort by discussing the roots of this clash of values. Precisely what is it that we are really fighting for? The battle that was waged this past year has its origins, not in the last twelve months, but back in the 17th century with Rene Descartes. Descartes argued that only those things that are quantifiable and empirically measurable within a scientific or laboratory setting should be allowed into the public debate. Though the Cartesian system assumed that it could reach universal values and truth, Descartes was actually planting seeds that would yield precisely the opposite result. Those seed are flowering today. What Descartes did not realize was that eventually somewhere, someday, somehow, some philosophical descendent of his, was bound to respond to some ethical challenge with the words "prove that your values are better than mine". Since values are not provable by scientific method the consequence of our society's adoption of the Cartesian standard has, of necessity, been the undermining of any universally held set of beliefs or imperatives. It is that principle, that question of whether universal moral standards exist at all, that we are fighting for.

If one insists on relying on empirical evidence there is at least one simple fact that should be considered. This fact is one that we are often loathe to articulate for fear of sounding triumphalistic. Despite this concern we should be proclaiming this reality as loudly and clearly as possible. I refer to the fact that people who live by a set of traditional universal values -- not just advocate them but truly live them -- lead happier lives than those who do not. Among the "do nots" I am not talking only of those living in poverty, but also of those living in great affluence. For example, many who live the "Hollywood" lifestyle visibly suffer from the consequences of lack of values in their lives. One's moral quality of life and one's personal sense of purpose and direction are not well served by valuelessness. Although this is not an absolute or scientific truth, it is a piece of evidence that should be considered and should be proclaimed.

There is however a more fundamental objection to the Cartesian world view. The world is not run by the ever logical Mr. Spock. Remove all non-empirically measurable experiences from the public square and love, loyalty, the family and community disappear. In short everything that we consider valuable becomes inadmissible.

If we really want to carry the argument further we can point to no less a scientist than Albert Einstein, who, insisted that intuition is absolutely essential in successfully pursuing scientific methodology. Einstein, in speaking and writing about the epistemology of science -- the scientist's way of doing scientific analysis -- claimed that no hypothesis could be formed, no thesis could be advanced, without the capacity for intuition. The scientist could not look at the available facts and conceptualize them into a theory unless he used that particular non-empirical intellectual talent. If Einstein is correct, and I believe he is, even scientific inquiry does not meet Cartesian standards. We are left, therefore, with a Cartesian universe that is fundamentally unknowable according to Descarte's own rules. Perhaps some would like to live in such a universe, but I find it to be a negation of all that is human.

It also needs to be said that belief in logic and empiricism as methods that will eventuate in truth and right behavior coming after a century that experienced the "scientific" atrocities of both Stalin and Hitler is a remarkable leap of faith. In its own way it may be a far greater leap than any affirmative claim regarding the existence of G-d and His providing a revelation to underlie the process of moral thinking.

I want lastly to define the appropriate historical model for the struggle that I have just described. We are not in Rome struggling against the "beauty" principle, nor are we back with Abraham on Moriah struggling against belief in human sacrifice. We are, sadly, back to the beginning of Abraham's call from G-d. What was Abraham's first challenge to the world, and why did he make the world so uncomfortable? It was not that he proclaimed a new G-d. In a world with a thousand gods, a thousand and first is no threat. His challenge to mankind lay in the exclusivity of his G-d's universal demands. While not requiring that all people become Jews, Abraham's G-d did expect certain standards of behavior. That claim precisely embodies the struggle that we confront today, when, as Abraham, we stand in opposition to those who see standards as never more than local or personal imperatives.

Though my formulation may sound intolerant and authoritarian to some, because it seems to limit the options for diversity of belief and approach, the reality is that without some universal standards and values there is no common social fabric. Consequently the world's social structure disintegrates into that which existed in pagan times; i.e., individual families, clans and tribes constantly at war with one another. These unconnected groups, with no shared morality will, as before, possess no moral or ethical means for limiting the barbarism that they perpetrate against one another. Absent a set of universal values there is no rational reason to constrain this type of activity. After all my god does not notice or care about your god. He's probably at odds with your god anyway, so I'm doing sacred service in perpetrating barbarism against my god's enemies. So too, in the modern parallel, my world view shares nothing with yours. If you get in my way the easiest solution is for me to remove you by any and all available means.

The task that emerges from this, for all of us, is both simple and difficult. Not coercively, and not in an arrogant fashion we need to stand up for universal traditional values. This, after all, is the message of Rosh Hashanah. This is the day on which G-d is proclaimed as King, and His rule over the universe is more visibly felt than on any other single day of the year. It is also the day on which everyone who exists in this world is judged by a set of universal standards. The people of the world are not judged on whether they keep kosher or keep Shabbos. That is reserved for Jews. They are judged instead on whether fundamental morality as embodied in the seven Noahide laws is being followed in their day to day lives. Murder, theft, sexual immorality, perversion of justice are as egregious an occurrence for gentiles as they are for us.

Taking a stand of this type is an uncomfortable challenge for the Jewish community. We Jews do not like to be at odds with the common beliefs of the society in which we live. Historically, we have occasionally found it necessary to take such a stance. It wasn't easy for Abraham. It wasn't easy for the Jews in the Greco-Roman period. It is not easy for us. However, if what we consider valuable is to continue, if our unique place in the world is to have any meaning at all, then we must carry this burden as well.

Without universal values the world turns to paganism and barbarism. With an insistence that values be proven scientifically there will be no values. It is only if we accept the fact that there is some universal wisdom within this world that calls on people to preserve life, to maintain sexual morality, and to treat with respect each one's neighbor and each neighbor's property, that we will have a chance to build the kind of world that we all hope for.

Shanah Tovah.