RH1: Be the change you want to see

It has been an intense transition to Brooklyn, and a good one. One of the assets I appreciate most about this neighborhood is prospect park, where I love to go biking, running, and walking. When I first started to run in the park, I noticed that although there were scores of people around, they generally kept to themselves. I am used to a neighborhood in Philadelphia where everyone says hi, but here they didn’t.

I was reminded of the saying in pirkey Avot, which mr Keisler repeats often, that we should always be the first to say hello to everyone we run across, havey makdim shalom lechol adam. So I started to say Hi. It was frustrating. People don’t even glance, make eye contact, to be able to say hi, and it feels really weird to say hi to someone who’s not looking at you.

It is very hard in a place with people who don’t even give you a glance, who walk around with a wall of separation, to be the first to break down the wall. Some of you may know about Mr. Keisler’s father that he was so friendly with everyone, that there were even nuns crying at his funeral. It takes a truly dedicated person to do this. As I have tried, I have wavered, and can only get myself to say hello when people actually look my way.

How can you be the only one to say hello? How can you be friendly, around people who are keeping to themselves?

Pirkey Avot says bemakom she-ein ish, sham teheh ish. In a place where there is no human, nobody acting in a menshlich manner, there you should act menschlich. When you are surrounded by inhumanity, act humane. When you are surrounded by coldness, act warm. Even if you would be the only person acting honestly, act honestly. In a world that does not reflect the values you believe in, at least your life can testify to those values.
being the change you believe in

There can be a great cost to going against the trends, for doing the right thing when nobody else is.

This summer, Lance Armstrong announced that he is not fighting the charges of doping. In effect, he is admitting taking steroids during his years as a champion biker. Lance had a stupendous, superhuman career, winning the Tour deFrance 7 times. His resting heart rate is 30 beats per minute, about half of a normal human. His accomplishments not only seemed superhuman, in fact they were superhuman, dependent on the performance enhancing steroids that his coach gave him.

The problem is, that in competitive sports, if everyone is doing it, you can’t win if you don’t cheat. If you are competing against other bikers who are using steroids, you can’t win without using them yourself. In a game where everyone is cheating, you need to cheat to survive.

In a recent article in Scientific American, the bioethicist Michael Shermer gave this argument a scientific shape, pointing out that moral choices such as using steroids are perceived as economic decisions, and the stakes are too high for any rational person not to cheat. Players are stuck in what game theory calls a Nash Equilibrium, where everyone’s better off if everyone changes, but nobody wants to be the first to change, because whoever changes first loses out. The lone biker to go clean loses the Tour deFrance; people only stop cheating when it no longer pays to cheat.

This same type of dilemma applies on the global scale. Think about the impasse over global warming, and America dragging its feet on the Kyoto protocol. Everyone knows that emissions needs to be capped, and that the world will suffer if we don’t cap emissions. Nobody wants to be the first country to cap their emissions, which will hinder their own economic growth without significantly affecting the climate. And America doesn’t want to cap their emissions without China also capping emissions. Under the Kyoto protocol, China gets a free pass, benefitting by being able to produce goods cheaper. America doesn’t want to be a sucker, capping her own emissions and paying the cost for being the only one to be responsible. So we stalemate, nobody caps emissions, and everybody loses.

Pirkey Avot says Bemakom She ein Ish, sham tihyeh Ish. In a place where there are no humans, there be a human. In a place where nobody is doing the right thing, go against the crowd and do the right thing. Similarly, Exodus 23:2 says don't follow the multitude to do evil.

In other words, I have to make correct moral choices, regardless of whether those around me are doing the right thing, and whether I become the sucker because of it. If I find myself in a context where I will lose out by standing out, I need to follow my values, and do the right thing regardless of the cost.

When I worked as a chaplain at a psychiatric hospital, I often encountered patients who described their path to alcohol or drugs. Invariably, they got caught up with the wrong crowd, hung out with the wrong element that brought them to abusing drugs, and then to worse things. They were never the bad crowd that brought others to irresponsible living. Nobody was. Everybody was a good individual who got caught up with a bad element.

Every crowd is made of individuals. So the principle is, never blame the crowd. The bad crowd is never an excuse—all of them are trying to use the same excuse themselves! Make moral choices independently of the crowd. If everybody did this, there would be no bad crowd. Eduyot 5:6 says better to be called a fool all your life than to be wicked for a moment. Better to be the uncool, to lose out, to be a dupe, than to follow the crowd to do wrong.

Mahatma Ghandi’s grandson quoted him as saying “be the change you want to see in the world.” The first part of the world I can think about changing, and ultimately the only part I can directly impact, is my own life. Addressing problems in the rest of the world seems overwhelming, and most of us never have a chance to significantly impact the major issues we care about, and hear about every day. Not that we should stop there. We should think about how to transform the world. But transforming our own life is the first place to start.

This approach makes it much easier to address some of the huge issues we see in the news, which concern all of us on a daily basis. I mentioned global warming, and the stalemate over the Kyoto protocol. It is one of the great tragedies of the modern era that we are destroying the ice caps and are pushing polar bears to extinction, that the legendary Northwest passage is no longer a legend. The destruction is so massive it can be overwhelming to think about.
I can’t save the polar bears. But I can walk, bike, and take the subway. I can purchase a fuel efficient car. I can be careful about my electricity usage. I can purchase my energy from renewable sources. It’s small, it may not significantly impact the environment, and at times it might be inconvenient, but at least it’s doing something. Recycling, and using products with less packaging, bringing my own bags to the supermarket. Whether or not it helps even a little bit, it’s better to do the right thing.

May God give us the courage to go out on limbs,
to be trailblazers in pursuing what is right,
to bring humanity to places and situations where it is absent.

Shanah Tova Umetukah,
May each of you have a sweet and wonderful new year,

I wanted to take this moment to point your attention to the program flyer. I mentioned a number of social issues today, and I believe deeply that we have an obligation as Jews to be concerned with these issues. In order to think about these issues as a community, we will be having a monthly movie series on Wednesday nights, primarily focused on contemporary social topics, and I want to invite and encourage everyone to attend.

The first movie, “Food, Inc,” will be this Wednesday, and we will have a brief discussion afterwards. We will also be using the Torah Breakfast Club, our Sunday morning adult education series, as an opportunity to study the Jewish sources on these topics. The first Torah breakfast club this month will be about kashrut and ecological and animal rights issues, and will take place this weekend.

Another way that we as Jews maintain social conscience is by making tzedakah a regular practice, especially on the holidays. Although it’s never been done here, it is traditional to bring in tzedakah on the way in to kol nidre, and leave it in the pushke on the way in (because of course you can’t carry money on yontiff). In that vein, we will be collecting checks on the way in to kol nidre for masbia, a local soup kitchen that regularly serves hunderds of hungry new Yorkers. Please being your checks for whatever amount feels comfortable to you.