During our recent orientation of new rabbinical students, we sat in a circle with our fifteen new students. The session leader asked each person to share with the group one thing that they wanted the others to know about them. One student, when it came to his turn, said “While it may seem on the outside like I am laid back and confident, that’s only a cover for what is really going on inside of me. On the inside, I am panicking, not knowing how to believe it the goodness of people and of the world when there is so much evil around us.”
Within seconds, I had three different reactions to his comment. Recognizing that the person who made the comment was one of our younger students, my first response was “How sad - poor him; what a shame that he thinks so negatively”. Then I thought, “How can I rid him of that negativity?’ Finally, I found myself thinking, ‘Wow – maybe he’s right!”
Maybe he’s right. We live in a world in which we are bombarded with news of one instance after another of people hurting other people for their own gain. Six years ago, we watched in horror and disbelief as planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, shutting down New York City, crippling much of America, shattering our innocence, and killing thousands.
Would that it would be that this was the only possible proof my new student could offer that evil seems to triumph over good. We all watch the news or read the papers; we know that the stories include one after another of people murdering, cheating, abusing others; of terrorists blowing themselves up just to hurt or kill others; of women being raped in the name of religious jihad in Darfur; of parents hurting their children; of politicians, religious leaders and other public figures breaking the sacred trust we give with such faith.
Is it any wonder that my new student wonders how it is that he can believe in the goodness of people?
Even as we return to the beginning of our Torah reading cycle this week with Parashat Bereshit, we even read of God wondering about the evil that permeates the human heart, mind and action. Says the Torah: "God saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the time. And God reconsidered having made humans on earth; and he felt sad in his heart."
The idea of human goodness, it seems, is outrageous. Everyday we are confronted with mounting evidence of the great harm we so easily do to one another. And, in our daily life, we encounter people who are angry, deceitful, intent only on satisfying their own needs. As a result, many of us are more withdrawn and distrustful and more scared than ever. Through our fear, evil becomes real.
Yet this incessant display of what’s worst in us, I think, is what makes it essential that we believe in human goodness. Without that belief, there really is no hope. Without that hope, there is no life.
No one taught or continues to teach us this more than Anne Frank. For two years, between the ages of 13-15, the very age when our teenagers are running from home to home, visiting with friends and building social connections, Anne Frank and her family spent those two years in an annex room of her father’s office during the Nazi occupation in Holland. After being betrayed to the Nazis, she, her family and the others who were living with them were arrested and deported to Nazi concentration camps. Nine months later, at the tender age of 15, she died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen. In one of her last diary entries, within the worst hours of her captivity, she wrote:
It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.
It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more"
In these times of turmoil, it is so easy to forget who we can be and to let our worst natures prevail. How easy it is to take the very things that make us human – our emotions, our imagination, our need for meaning – and dismiss them as unimportant. After all, it is more convenient, is it not, to treat humans as replaceable parts in the machinery of production; to organize work around destructive motivations?
But people’s reactions to the way they are treated actually has much to teach us about the goodness of the human spirit. The horrors of the twentieth century show us the worst of human nature, and the very best. How do you feel when you hear stories of those who wouldn’t give in, those who offered compassion to others in the midst of personal horror, those who remained generous in the face of torture and imprisonment? Few of us can listen to these stories and remain cynical. We are hungry for these tales; they remind us of what it means to be human, and naturally, we crave hearing about them.
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner tells the story about his student Shifra’s great aunt Susie. Aunt Suzie lived in Munich. One day as snow was falling, she was riding the city bus home from work when SS storm troopers stopped the coach and began examining identification papers of each passenger. Most were annoyed, all were terrified. Jews were being told to get off the bus and get into a truck around the corner. Aunt Susie watched from her seat in the rear as soldiers worked their way down the aisle. She began trembling, tears streaming down her face. The man next to her, a stranger, saw that she was crying and asked her why.
“I don’t have the papers you have – I am a Jew. They’re going to take me.”
The man exploded with disgust and began cursing at her, screaming ‘You stupid idiot, I can’t stand being near you!”
The SS men asked what all the yelling was about. “Damn her,” responded the man. “My wife has forgotten her papers again! I am so fed up! She always does this.” The soldiers laughed and moved on. Aunt Susie never saw the man again, never even knew his name.
And, who can forget the remarkable stories of September 11, like the one of Michael Benfante and John Cerqueira who met a woman in a wheelchair on the 68th floor of the World Trade Center? Knowing she’d never make it out on her own, the men helped her down the stairs. Their trek ended on the ground floor more than an hour later, and only a few minutes before the tower collapsed.
Why do we crave hearing such stories? We want to hear more because whether we are conscious of it or not, the spark of goodness lives in each one of us, shining its great light in the face of evil and chaos. Human goodness does triumphs over evil and reminds us to continue living.
Kindness can accomplish much. As the 19th century American writer Ella Wheeler Wilcox writes:
So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs
The best way to overcome negativity, darkness, and fear is with love and kindness. How often during one day do you figure out an answer to a problem, invent a slightly better way of doing something, or extend yourself to someone in need? Very few people go through their days as dumb robots, doing only repetitive tasks, never noticing that anybody else needs them. Look around at your colleagues and neighbors, and you’ll see others acting just like you, people trying to be useful, trying to make some small contribution: smile, holding the door, a small gesture of welcome – trying to help someone else.
Courageous acts of kindness aren’t done by people who believe that humans are all bad. Why risk anything if we don’t believe in each other? Why stand up for anyone if we don’t believe they’re worth saving?
Believing in the goodness of people, and witnessing it, we open ourselves to true intimacy. When we allow fear to reside over our beliefs, we are more likely to invest all of our emotional energy in protecting ourselves. Ultimately, this undermines our ability to meet our need for connection and leads to feelings of fear, isolation and loneliness.
I am not so naïve to think that simple acts of kindness will automatically frustrate the designs of the likes of Osama Bin Laden or of terrorists who plot evil against us. Evil is not something to fear, much less negotiate with. Yes, there are times when we have to confront the evil face and prepare to fight it directly. Yet, while we may not yet have the formula to rid ourselves of all evildoers, our kindness can make a difference to you and to me. When we bring even a little light into the world, we help push away a tremendous amount of darkness. For every shadow of darkness we have seen, we must produce blinding light. Just as those possessed by evil did the wild and unreasonable, beyond that which the craziest doomsayer could have predicted, so, too, we must do kindness beyond reason, helping each other, offering the safety and security that comes with being treated with love.
When, like my new student, we find ourselves doubting the goodness of people, that is when we most need to remember the words of Henry James: "Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind." Surely this can counter the inhumane killing and help bring to fruition the words of the Psalm we have been reciting throughout this season of repentance: Lulei he’emanti lir’ot btuv Adonai b’eretz chayim – Would that it would be that I could believe that I would see the good of God in the land of the living.
Ken Yehi Ratzon. Would that it would be indeed!
Shabbat Shalom.