I really didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I looked down and the screen did not display any familiar caller; it just flashed and rang dogmatically. Should I – or should I not? I wanted my privacy; I also really had to make my call, before it got too late.
Of course I should answer! How inconsiderate of me!
I pressed the green button and heard a very warm familiar voice: my Israeli friend Thomas (Schwedi). “Hello Ronny, we heard your sad news and wanted to menachem ovel you (to comfort a mourner). We called you from New York on the way to the airport and then again from the airport and just before we boarded our flight to Israel. We called as soon as we landed at Ben Gurion and then as we walked through the airport on arrival and on the way up to Jerusalem and just now as we arrived. How is everyone – you, your father, Dina, your children, brother and family? Just a minute please – here is someone who wants to speak with you.”
I couldn’t believe it. Rabbi Steinsaltz was on the line! Adin Even Yisrael – my soul mate – with his beautiful, soft, warm and so humane voice, with his closeness, deep understanding and heartfelt concern. Only a few weeks earlier I had been overseas myself and had heard the sad news that the Rabbi had lost his ageing mother-in-law in Paris. I had phoned him to express my love and our condolences.
Life is so strange, so full of surprises. Later that night, after I had called my friend in crisis, I retrieved all seven voice mail messages that these two amazing friends had left.
So there I was, walking around the dark room in deep conversation with one of the very few people in this world I feel so close to, as if there are no boundaries between us. We talked for nearly half an hour, but time flashed by as if it were a second. We talked about life and about parenting. We shared our feelings about losing loved ones.
This conversation – its timing, its participants, its deep, heartfelt emotions – was the most meaningful experience for me at that point. I shall never forget what the Rabbi told me then. He said that no one can ever repay a parent; the only thing that we can do is to try to be better parents to our children than our parents were to us.
Isn’t this the main message in life? Each and every one of us is given a unique opportunity to live life as a better person than we might otherwise have become. We have a special human quality called chesed (kindness) – compassion for others. We have the unique capacity – which no other living being shares – to improve the world and, by so doing, help save it.
That Divine spark within each of us enables us to activate our chesed by finding it within us, connecting with it and remaining true to it. It is not far away from us; our chesed is not in the heavens. It is very close to us as it is within each of us (see Deuteronomy 30:12).
In the Hallel5 King David first praises G-d as being all powerful, by comparing Him with man-made idols which he describes as follows (Psalms 115:5-7):
They have a mouth, but cannot speak, they have eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear; they have a nose, but cannot smell. Their hands – they cannot feel; their feet – they cannot walk; they cannot utter a sound from their throat.
5 Psalms 113-118, recited as a prayer of adulation on the Jewish festivals, the new moon and a few other occasions in the yearly cycle.
This is almost like stating the obvious. We have five senses: smell, touch, sight, hearing and taste, which enable our bodies to experience and identify external phenomena. Our brain then processes, interprets and stimulates our actions. We can choose to pay attention to the messages we receive, ignore them, or even suppress and override them.
Our freedom of choice enables us to make informed choices within a framework of absolutes. The Jewish concept of emet (truth) is Torah truth. Choosing “truth” turns our short-term decisions into long-term ones. It defines our path in life as well as our consistency – and, paradoxically, allows for much flexibility and spontaneity, adventure and contentment.
What is the alternative? The alternative is allowing ourselves to become blinded by short term “feel-goods” or instant gratification, at the expense of an absolute framework of good and evil.
What happened between Cain and Abel?
The Biblical text is very sparse. We are told that G-d forewarned Cain about the consequences of his yetzer ha-ra; but what was Cain’s real issue? And what about Abel?
The Midrash fills in the blanks. It tells us that Cain suffered from enormous jealousy, whereas Abel was full of lust. Both of these negative forces involve envy and both, in the extreme, become addictive.
Cain was obsessed with the desire to possess every material thing around him, whereas Abel had an obsessive desire to enjoy everything he perceived as his.
The difference is that Cain needed to possess externally, whereas Abel was possessed internally. Cain allowed his yetzer ha-ra to lead him to temptation and this made him unable to share anything with anyone else. Abel’s yetzer ha-ra pushed him towards the exclusive enjoyment of everything he saw.
Both brothers were possessed and neither could share. Their extreme, exclusive desires came at the expense of everything else. Therefore, both were punished so that neither could enjoy life.
The Torah offers each of us the opportunity of living life to the fullest and enjoying it, but within a framework of Torat Emet – the Torah of Truth. Our challenge is to be better than our ancestors and do everything we can so that our descendants become better than we are.
How do we do this? How do we live? How do we age?
This is a call for everyone to journey, to delve and explore and, most importantly, to ask questions and search for answers.
Time can be conceived of as time intervals which include special highlights in life as well as living life itself. We age in the same way that we live. The choices we make reflect our awareness of the availability of choice.
Towards the end of Deuteronomy (chapter 30) Moses sums up some essential issues for humanity. Before he dies in the desert, he says:
There shall come a time when you shall experience all the words of blessing and curse that I have presented to you. (verse 1)
This mandate that I am prescribing to you today is not too mysterious or remote from you. It is not in heaven so [that you should] say, “Who shall go up to heaven and bring it to us so that we can hear it and keep it.” It is not over the sea so [that you should] say, “Who will cross the sea and get it for us, so that we will be able to hear it and keep it?” It is something that is very close to you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can keep it. (verses 11-15)
See! Today I have set before you [a free choice] between life and good [on one side] and death and evil [on the other]. (verse 16)
I call heaven and earth as witnesses! Before you I have placed life and death, the blessing and the curse. You must choose life, so that you and your descendants will survive. (verse 19)
The way we feel about ourselves and those around us reflects how we have aged. And how we are seen by those around reflects who or what we have become.
The spiritual or the physical?
Our thoughts, our deeds and our actions!
If I am not for myself, who am I? If I am for myself, what am I?
The body ages.
The memories live on.
Each life impacts upon so many other lives.
2: Belief and Bureaucracy
It is May 2007. Actually, it is Sivan, 5767. Some 4,000 years of difference – apparently – and yet, these two time-frames intersect. Maybe the difference is in civilisation, but that is a matter of perception and experience.