The Moral Courage to
Be Our Best Selves
Rabbi Jill Perlman
Erev Rosh HaShanah
2016/5777
Tonight, I want to
talk about courage.
I don’t mean the
courage to stand up in front of a room packed with upwards of a thousand
people, but come to think of it, that’s not a bad kind of courage to have
either.
I want to talk
tonight about moral courage, and about the moral choices that we make every day
from the small to the grand to do right, despite our fear of punishment and
consequences, despite our fear of rejection and ridicule. I am talking about
the moral courage we must continually cultivate within to be our best selves.
Because sometimes we
forget those best selves, don’t we? Even those who were filled with moral
courage once upon a time forget.
Like Elijah, our
prophet who watched as other prophets of God were being killed or forced into
hiding as corruption ran rampant in the kingdom of Israel and the cult of Baal
overtook the land. Elijah stood tall, filled his heart with moral courage, and,
in a public confrontation with the priests of Baal, was victorious on behalf of
the people.[1]
However, what did
Elijah do when his own life was threatened soon after? He ran. He climbed a
mountain that may sound familiar, a mountain in the wilderness named Horeb, that
is Sinai and hunkered down in a cave. And God asked, simply, What are you doing
here, Elijah? (…As if God did not know.)
Even our greatest
victories can not squash our greatest fears. Despite his successes one day,
Elijah had his doubts the next. And so he, like us, squirrels himself away when
those fears loom too large or they cut too close to home for comfort. This
time, it was his life on the line. But God wasn’t about to let Elijah
hide.
What are you doing here,
Elijah?
Our prophet’s fears
became manifest when the wind started blowing harshly and the earth shook in a
quake and the fire erupted all around in seeming dramatic shows of power. And
the text could not be clearer here when it states that God was not in the wind
blowing or the earth shaking or the fire erupting as if to remind us that we
don’t need to look out there for the answers.
But then… then there
was the kol d’mama daka, the still small voice. And again, our text
couldn’t be clearer. God was in that still, small voice.
Sometimes, God is not
out there; God is in here. And when we can quiet the fears and the doubts
inside… when we compel ourselves to listen to that still, small voice and we amplify
it, that’s us beginning to act on our own moral courage.
We know that we don’t
need to look out there to figure out how to move morally in this world. We
don’t need to acquiesce to the demands of the popular, the common, or a
commitment only to the self. We don’t need to run and hide even if everyone
else is running and hiding. Nor do we need to scream and point fingers even if
everyone else is screaming and pointing fingers.
Now have no worries. Lest
you think this is really a preamble leading to a commentary on the upcoming
election, it is not, but I am, as we all are, influenced by what is happening
around us, wondering what the wisdom of Judaism can contribute.
We are living at a
time when questions that demand what I would call moral courage are taking
center stage.
Many are questioning
if we have reached the end of civil discourse. We’re hit seemingly daily with
video of unarmed black men dying and are left to wonder what happens what the
cameras are not rolling. We are faced with a global refugee crisis in numbers
that we have not seen since World War II. We live with the possibility that the
next terrorist bombing or mass shooting may be in our own backyard.
If there was ever a
time for moral courage, this is it.
Perhaps that which is
prompting moral courage in you right now is hitting closer to home: pursuing
love again after loss, standing up to a superior, saying no to something else
so that you can be the present parent or spouse you need to be.
I won’t presume to
know what the issues are that move your heart, but I do know our texts
and traditions tell us over and over this message: Do not run, do not hide
yourself away in a cave. Be a part of this world and get your hands dirty.
Midrash teaches us that in Sodom, this society
that had gone over the edge, there was a man, a righteous man, a tzaddik who began to teach and preach.
“We do not need to be murderers,” he cried. “We do not need to be thieves. We
must change. And we must speak up. We must not be indifferent.” He continued
teaching and preaching day in and day out – and finally someone asked him,
"Why are you doing this? Don't you see it is of no use?" He said,
"Let me tell you why: in the beginning I thought I had to protest and
shout in order to change them.
Now I know I must protest and shout so that they should not change me."[2]
The tzaddik
lived with moral courage and acted on it even in the most difficult of times
and places. I can imagine the fear that must have grown inside him and the
threat it posed to his integrity.
Fear, like nothing else, has the ability to drown hope and so we
must stay vigilant and take control of our fear. Fear is not intrinsically bad.
It helps us understand when a situation is not right; it has the potential to
get our adrenaline running to ready ourselves to act. We must give fear space
and listen to it, but we must not let it speak louder than the still,
small voice.
Courage is choosing
to do the right thing even when we are scared, even when the consequences are
real and painful. Moral courage means accepting that it is probably going to
hurt.
So how do we do that?
How do we cultivate courage and bravery despite the risks?
An Ethiopian folk tale tells of a
woman who adopted a boy whose parents had died. The woman desperately wanted the
boy to love her, but he was not ready for his heart was still grieving. This
woman loved her adopted son and when he couldn’t return the same feelings, she
was devastated. So she went to the village’s wise healer to ask for advice.
Perhaps, she thought, there was some magic that could make the boy love her.
The healer listened to her plea and
responded, “I will make a special drink for you. When the boy drinks it, he
will love you as his mother. But to make it is quite dangerous for it requires
the whisker of a living lion.”
The woman was filled with fear, but
she took a deep breath and thought of her son. “I will do what you have asked.”
And so with meat in hand, she went
outside the village and began to follow the tracks of a lion. She put the meat down
on the path and hid behind a tree to wait. Time went by and eventually, the
lion found its way to her. She watched as he sniffed the air; he knew she was
there, but he didn’t attack. He was satisfied with the meat and he left her be.
She repeated this for several nights,
waiting behind the tree as the lion ate his fill. Until, finally, one night,
she took a risk. She put down the meat, but did not hide. She stood in full
view as the lion came near. The lion looked at her; she was frightened, but she
stayed where she was. She did this day after day, moving a little bit closer
each and every time until finally, she was placing the meat directly in front of
the lion and crouching next to him. She did not run because the boy was in her
heart.
One night after much time had passed,
she crouched next to the majestic creature and reached out to bravely pluck one
whisker from his cheek. The lion looked at her… kept eating. When he had finished, the woman
found the wise healer once again, proudly displaying the whisker she had tried
so hard to earn.
The wise healer smiled at the mother
and said, “You now have everything you need to earn the boy’s love.”
“You will make the drink?” The
woman asked.
“There is no special drink,” the
healer responded. “You have learned what to do. With your son, have courage,
have patience. Take small steps. And do not run away.”
The woman went home that night to
her son. She was courageous and she was patient. She took small steps and she never
ran away. And eventually, this boy found room in his heart and he loved her as
his own mother.[3]
Moral bravery does not mean rushing in unabashedly
demanding what you think you deserve or you think someone else needs. It is
filtered through patience and intention, through care and compassion. We often
think about courage as rushing into battle. Why need that be our only
example?
We build physical courage
by testing our boundaries. We don’t automatically go and climb the most
difficult mountain around, right? We start small. We exercise our muscles to
prepare us for the long climb. We constantly assess: Are we ready yet? Can I move
a little faster? Can I add more weight to my routine? Can I get closer tonight
to the lion than I did the night before? And we know that if we don’t keep it
up, our muscles will forget. At worst, they’ll atrophy.
It is no different with
our hearts. It is no different with moral courage.
We must make
decisions with intention. We must take steps that make sense. We must take
risks, all while accepting the possibility of failure. And sometimes… sometimes
we will get hurt, but if our actions are grounded in the greater good
and in the affirmation of life, then we will find –almost miraculously- that we
still have the strength to endure and keep standing even in the face of
failure.
Shimon Peres, may his memory be for a blessing, was laid to rest just
two days ago. A father of Israel, he held just about every political office one
could, including that of Minister of Defense, Prime Minister and President. Peres
was courageous in countless ways.
After spending the first half of his lifetime securing Israel militarily,
Peres pivoted and stretched beyond the imaginable to bring the potential of
Oslo and peace for our people to the table. To say that he was challenged in
this endeavor is an understatement. There were threats to his reputation, his
work, his life, but he pressed on because he believed that a lasting peace with
the Palestinians was the only way to solidify Israel’s security and Israel’s
standing among its neighbors. As we well know, Shimon Peres never saw that vision
become a reality, but his dream lives on.
Just last year, he shared, “The greatest mistake was that our dreams
were too small. I tell people, don’t dream small, dream of great things.” The
outpouring of so many now as we actively remember the courageous arc of his life
and the passions of his soul, I hope, are re-invigorating the dream for peace.
Even in death, he is a messenger from on high inviting us to act courageously
and dream of great things.
I find that it is
much easier to dream big and act with moral courage when I whole-heartedly accept
the notion that we are all made in the image of God, b’tzelem Elohim.[4]
Being made in God’s image reminds me that I am no better than you and you
in turn are no better than me. Even
when we disagree and even when we go to war, we must strive to live out the
truth that just as I am God’s, so are you.
And it’s hard. We must stretch these moral muscles, most especially
at times when we feel that others are not doing the same. But saying “if they
play badly, then I’ll play badly, too” – well, that takes us nowhere.
To move into moral courage, we must rise above the very human
desire to deliver the same sneaky punch that we just received in the gut.
It’s easy to say, not so easy to do. To be brave surely does not
mean that we must be punching bags - No. Instead, to dodge, to rise above, we
must be willing to change the nature of the conversation, to alter the playing
field, to put what really matters on the table – nothing else.
And we need to be honest with ourselves and recognize when we are the ones that have the inner work
of change to do.
Each and every year,
the high holy day season thrusts us into the gap between we who are right now
and who we know we can be. Living in the gap makes us ask ourselves the big
questions like: is this the life that I was meant to lead? Who have I been
serving this year – is it myself or the greater good? Who is at the wheel in my
life – is it fear… or is it courage?
Well, tell that
courageous part of you: it is time to take the wheel.
When I was a child, I never had the opportunity
to sit where you are sitting tonight. I was told that I was Jewish, but I had
no context for what that was supposed to mean. We didn’t belong to a Jewish
synagogue; I wasn’t educated in a Jewish school. My parents were definitively
not interested, but I was.
And so,
with some courage and honestly a little chutzpah,
I began the process of choosing for myself the path that I was to walk. It was
scary, terrifying at times, to veer away from the road that my family had set before
me and to rise above the objections (You’re too religious. You’re too Jewish.
You don’t really fit in with us anymore. What about the side of our family who
isn’t Jewish? What about your dad? Are you rejecting us?).
I had to
rise above their objections to find a path of my own. And I had to figure out
how to do that with love and compassion, without judgment while also honoring
the choices that made sense for me. Sometimes I did that well… and sometimes I
didn’t.
We all go
through this in own lives in our own ways as we grow up; we all hit that period
of time when self-definition is in order.
One of the
many gifts of Judaism is the belief that the time for courageous self-definition
is not just reserved for our teenage years. It is eternal and on-going.
As a
Jewish people, we know perhaps more than anyone that our tomorrows depend on our
chutzpah today. Our courage is based
in holding onto hope even when the world is filled with fear.
After all,
we are Abraham arguing with God that it
is not right that the whole must be destroyed for the sins of some.[5] We are Yocheved defying Pharaoh and the decree of the land as we
place a basket into the water with the flesh of our flesh.[6] We are Mordechai and we
are Esther risking our very lives for our people.[7]
And we are
eternally that tzaddik, that
righteous one, wandering around Sodom, refusing to bend to moral corruption,
refusing to change the direction of our hearts, refusing to give up on the
world.
Torah is all
about learning to live with fear and grow courageously into our best selves.
Maybe the
choices we are making aren’t on the same dramatic scale as defying Pharaoh
(maybe they are), but whatever choices you have in front of you, whatever
is stirring your soul, do not be afraid to be
bold. Boldness for the greater good is our story, our gift, our obligation
– it is who we are.
Remember
that rush you felt the last time you were truly brave? Brave for something
bigger than yourself?... Now is the time to be brave again… for if not now,
then when?[8]
The words
of Rambam often accompany the blowing of the
shofar, which we will hear tomorrow, that courageous call to renewal and
re-birth. And it’s like I can hear Rambam now, on the eve of this new day, this
new life, softly trying to rouse us in a still, small voice…
He whispers to us, “Awake, awake from your sleep.”
But then, much to his dismay, we roll over and hit snooze… And this
time, the voice becomes more insistent. Now the voice is the sound of the shofar,
a tekiah for our hearts, telling us:
“Wake up! Wake up from your slumber.”[9]
Let us listen to the voice, the call before we’ve slept through the
whole day, before we’ve slept through our life.
If we’re not awake yet, it’s time. Who are we and who do we want to be?
Let us be brave and bold. Let us cultivate courage from within. Let us let
loose that inner chutzpah that we all
have inside and in-so-doing, let us bring beautiful blessing into this world.
Shanah tovah.
[1] I Kings
18 and 19.
[2]
Adapted from Elie Wiesel, “Words of a Witness.”
[3] Traditional folk tale from
Ethiopia adapted from Jennifer Armstrong’s telling at www.lionswhiskers.com/p/about-lions-whiskers.html?m=1
[4]
Genesis 1:27.
[5] As
described in Genesis 18:16-33.
[6] As
described in Exodus 2.
[7] As
described in the book of Esther.
[8]
Hillel, Pirkei Avot 1:14.
[9]
Adapted from Rambam, Hilchot Teshuvah
3:4.
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