Almost everybody has heard of the book When Bad Things Happen to
Good People, by Rabbi Harold Kushner.
It was a great read, and an easy read.
It was essentially a commentary on the Book of Job. Kushner set out to answer the question of why
Divine Justice sometimes seems so…unjust.
If you haven’t read it, find a copy and invest a few hours in a book
that will be life-changing.
Early in my rabbinate, one day a
package arrived in the post. It was a
publisher’s gratis copy of Kushner’s then-new book, How Good do We Have to
Be? Back then, whenever a book of
Jewish interest would be published, they would send gratis copies to Reform
Rabbis. I suppose, on the assumption
that most of us would read it. And if we
thought it was worthwhile, we would recommend it from the pulpit. The gratis copies of books don’t come anymore. It was the one fringe benefit of the
job. Oh, well…
So a new Kushner book – given that When
Bad Things Happen is one of the best Jewish books of our lifetimes – is an
exciting event! After dinner, I sat down
on the sofa and began to read.
So, I imagine the question is now
swirling about in your minds: how Good
does Rabbi Kushner think we have to be?
Don’t worry, I won’t make you read the book! I’ll give you the Cliff Notes version. Ready?
How good do we have to be?
Drumroll, please…Good Enough! That’s
the essence of Kushner’s answer. We have
to be Good Enough. Good enough
for what? Good enough…to Do Good.
Think about it. Most of us struggle throughout our lives to Do
Good. Sometimes we succeed. Often we don’t. Along the way, one cannot predict exactly how
and when they’ll succeed in Doing Good.
Nor can one predict exactly how and when they’ll fail. There’s seldom any rhyme or reason. Logically, one would think that the imperfect
person would tend to succeed in the little matters. And fail in the big matters. And there would be a sort of cut off
score, if you will. A point at which
Doing Good gets so difficult that those with lesser levels of Propensity to Good
in them would start failing to Do Good when the reach challenges at that
level. Everybody would have such a
cut-off. Smaller than that, or easier
than that, we manage to Do Good. Bigger
than that, or more difficult than that, we stop managing. It’s like math problems. Up to the level of complexity that we can
handle, we manage to solve them. Reach
our level of competence, and solving them is hit-or-miss. Above that level, we stop trying altogether.
But Doing Good is not like solving
math problems. Some people succeed in
Doing Good in really spectacular ways. And
fail in little ways. It’s not really
less logical…it’s illogical altogether!
But that’s human nature. There is
such a complex mix of influences which, at any given moment, conspire to turn
us toward The Good or not. In some ways
it’s complexity. But it’s more complex
than that.
Good Enough. That’s how Good
we have to be. Good Enough…to do Good. Which brings me to Noah.
Our Torah portion this week is Noah. It begins: Eileh toldot Noah. These are the offspring of Noah. It’s the second weekly portion in the
Book of Bereishit. Before the text
proceeds to name the offspring of Noah, it adds parenthetically: Noah ish tzadik tamim haya bedorotav. Et ha-Elokim hithalech Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his
generation. Noah walked with G-d.
The sages of the generations have
zeroed in on the phrase a righteous man, blameless in his generation. What exactly does it mean? I’ll give you the Cliff Notes version. Noah was Good Enough. Good enough to do Good. And – here’s the rub – there was no logic to
when he succeeded in Doing Good and when he failed. Asked to undertake the monumental project of
building an Ark and gathering two of each animal aboard it, he did. Okay, mostly…he somehow missed the
unicorns. But what a project! We all know and love Bill Cosby’s famous skit
about Noah. Where he portrays Noah
as a reluctant actor. Can I even mention
Bill Cosby anymore? The Torah gives
no hint that Noah resisted being drawn into this project. After G-d gives Noah a lengthy description of
the Ark and tells him what to do with it and why, the text tells us: Kein asa. So he did.
He did. He did Good in a big way. And then as soon as the flood waters receded,
he made some hooch and got drunk with his sons and they performed some, er, let’s
say abominations. So Noah was
Good Enough. He was Good Enough to
perform a monumental effort that the Torah credits as saving humanity to carry
on after the Flood. An act of
immeasurable Good. But then, he got
drunk and couldn’t keep his pants zipped up.
And we’re sometimes like that. We can come through in big ways, perform big
acts of Good. And then something small
trips us up. And then we’re no longer
Good. We’re remembered for that non-good
act. Whatever it was, small or large,
that tripped us up. The people who
matter most to us, will have a tendency to look at us and remember only that
time when we somehow, for whatever reason, failed to do Good.
And then, sadly, we stop seeing
ourselves as Good Enough. And then we don’t
see ourselves as Good Enough, then we reduce our propensity to Do Good. Because we’ve been dragged down to a lower
level, so to speak. We’ve lost the self
confidence that tells us that we can Do Good. We cease to believe in ourselves. Because others, who are aware of our failing,
no longer believe in us.
If someone who is close to you
generally Goes Good, but has failed on rare occasions, I want you to think
about how you see them. Do you look at
them through cynical eyes, knowing that they’ve failed? How about cutting them a little slack? Maybe they were like Noah. They were Good Enough. Good Enough to Do Good…until some situation
came along that tripped them up. We all
have our failings. Wouldn’t it be better
if we defined one another, not by our failings, but by our successes?
I submit to you that it would. So why is it the opposite? Why do we define others by their failings? I think it’s like this. As we struggle to Do Good, we get frustrated
at our own failings. Which are going
to happen, given human nature. And
because we have removed ourselves from our pedestals because of our own
failings, we somehow take comfort from pulling others off their pedestals. So we don’t have to feel inferior to
them. The way we relate to one another
becomes based on seeing one another’s dark side. If he has a dark side, then I can’t be
blamed for my dark side. So in
effect, we expend all kinds of emotional energy tearing one another down. Whilst instead, we should be building one
another up. Each of us can be Good
Enough. We only need to be inspired to
reach for it.
Lift one another up. A simple, yet effective strategy for
increasing the Good in the world. Help
one another to be Good Enough. And work
to be Good Enough ourselves. And always,
every day, a little more Good. Shabbat
shalom.
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