A Defense of Religion

I'm not going to be so arrogant as to entitle this post "THE Defense of Religion"; there are clearly a number of ways to make the case for a particular religion, or for religion in general.

What prompts this post is a recent public conversation I had with a Secular Humanist. His main premise was that religion - any religion - represents a primitive expression of human longing by clinging to that which is illogical and unprovable. According to this chap's argument, only suspension of belief in the Supernatural - epitomizing notions that 'cannot be proven' - can lead one to the clarity necessary to see the world as if REALLY is and to begin to work towards perfecting our world. The argument against religion (in general) goes on to blame religion for most of the world's ills, for most of the violence committed by man against man, and for all manner of oppression of Human Rights.

It is irrefutable - and quite unfortunate - that much human blood HAS been spilled in the name of religion. But in the century recently completed, the 20th Century of the Common Era, far more violence, suffering, and death was caused by secular, anti-religious systems: specifically, Communism and National Socialism (Nazism). Almost-unimaginable millions of people lost their lives, often only after incredible suffering, and untold millions were displaced, losing the homes and the lives they knew, thanks to the wars waged by governments in the name of these two systems. It boggles the mind, and it really far overshadows the misery caused by all dark events perpetrated (e.g., Crusades, conquest of the Mediterranean by Islam) by all religions in previous centuries. At the same time, it was largely devout religionists (Christians more than any other group) who resisted, for example the Nazi terror by hiding and secreting away Jews and other who were in danger of being rounded up and slaughtered. Does this exonerate religion for its excesses over the centuries? Of course not! But it does point to the truth that religion, in and of itself, is far from the biggest problem facing humanity.

Religion generally, when at its best, is a force for good for the world. One shouldn't judge a religion beased on whether one accepts its dogmas; by definition, if you accepted any particular religion's dogmas, you would become a member of that religion. For example, if I accepted the basic premises of Christianity, I would (if I had integrity) become a Christian; it is therefore a given that I find the tenets of Christianity unbelievable.

Another false premise is that one should judge a religion besed on a selective reading of its holy text(s). It is easy to 'cherry pick' someone else's text for passages that one thinks would, for example, incite to violence. But, absent any proof that the adherents of the religion in question DO, in fact commit violent acts in the name of their faith and with reference to their text, that is a false premise. For example, one can point with disdain to the Torah's recording of G-d's instructions to the People Israel to wipe out the Canaanite Nations in their conquest of the Land of Canaan. But the REAL question is: is there any proof that Israel ever did, in fact commit atrocities against the Canaanites to begin with - or is there any documentation that the Jewish people have, since then, committed similar atrocities against any other people? If the answer is no (as I am asserting it is), then there is no logical reason to think of the TOrah as a bloodthisty book, used by the Jews as a rationale for committing bloodthirsty acts. (I would make the same challenge concerning anybody else's holy text.)

No, one should judge each world religion by the degree of goodness spread in its name by its adherents. My religion is as unbelievable to you as yours is to me, but that doesn't call either religion into question; it's simply the wrong question to ask. Michael Medved suggested this approach back in 2008, during the presidential primary season, when some Evangelical Republicans questioned whether Mitt Romney, a Mormon, could be the Party's standard bearer. I think it's an approach that supremely makes sense; we should not judge another person's religion based on whether we accept its tenets but based on how much goodness its members bring into the world. In that way, I can have a great deal of respect for, say, the Mormon faith (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints), even though I personally find many of its doctrines rather unbelievable...even silly.


The question of which is superior, religion (in general, or one religion in particular) or secularism, would be easy to settle if all religious people could be shown to be good, and all secularists bad (or vice-versa). But of course that is not the case: there are many good people and scoundrels who belong to each world religion, and secularists are both good and bad. My defending religion would undoubtably be easier if all religious people could be shown to be better people than the non-religious, and the opposite would make the secularist's case easier.

But life isn't that neat and orderly. We all know both religious people and secularists who are good, and both kinds of people who are bad. My recommendation, then is for those who are religious or secular to be willing to explain to others how and why their belief system spurs them to goodness.

I can tell you personally that I use daily Jewish rituals as tools to remind myself of G-d's enduring presence when I let Him be in my life. I don't imagine that G-d cares, as it were, whether I pray three times daily or what text I use when I do. But the act of regular prayer helps ME...it keeps me directed toward the Holy. Likewise Jewish dietary discipline (kashrut). It isn't important to me whether G-d minds whether I eat shrimp or cheeseburgers. But when I stop and choose not to eat those things it helps me to keep my mind and heart directed to the Holy One and to think about how I'm supposed to live. Likewise the Sabbath, although keeping the Sabbath uncluttered with obligations (except such as are important to my community) also helps me directly: to unwind and de-stress as I prepare for the coming week.

Some non-orthodox Jews complain that the intricate system of practices only trips them up and makes them feel inadequate if they can't follow EVERYTHING. Some Christians claim that G-d's Law is in fact intended to do exactly that, and to teach us why we need the grace that the Christian faith offers. I personally don't find either mindset to ring true. If I sometimes slip and transgress, it only serves to remind me of my humanity and that Yetzer Hara (the selfish impulse) is always present and the thing to do is ask G-d for the strength to make our selfless and good acts outnumber the others.

The Power of the Assembly

Vayak’hel Moshe et Kol Adat B’nei Yisrael…Moses assembled the entire people of Israel.

There is an incredible energy when an entire people is gathered in one place. On the occasion chronicled in this week’s Torah portion, Moses starts his oration by exhorting the people, in the name of Adonai, the G-d of Israel, to keep the Sabbath. He then launches into a long and complex charge for the people to bring forward, as their hearts may move them, materials for fashioning the Tent of Meeting, its furnishings, and the priests’ vestments.

I don’t want to focus so much on Moese' message here, rather on the power of the mass assembly. Moses is talking to the entire assembled nation. And we can only imagine the power of such a gathering. In our lifetimes, we have seen repeatedly the power of mass gatherings to change less-than-desirable situations.

Who can forget the gathering of about 200,000 souls in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, where a certain civil rights leader eloquently told the assembled throngs about his dream for America? The power of the assembly, and the eloquence of the speaker, cannot be denied; the results speak for themselves. Who, after all, can rationally argue with Barack Obama sitting in the White House, that Reverend King’s dream has not largely been realized?

Twenty-six years later and half a world away, an equally large crowd gathered in Tiananmen Square in Beijing to rally peacefully for democracy. With the fall of the Soviet Union and most of her client states, the Peoples’ Republic of China was then the only globally-significant hold-out in the totalitarian world. Her people smelled and savored the fragrant breeze of freedom and wanted it for themselves. But the results were not comparable to those of the 1963 gathering in Washington DC. The Peoples’ Army moved in and brutally quashed the demonstration, killing many in the square. Others were dispatched by bullets to the head later, after interrogation and torture. Others still suffered – and even continue to suffer – hard labor in ‘re-education’ camps that rival the worst of the Soviet Gulag for their brutality. The People of China are still waiting for the Peoples’ Republic to offer them significant advances in liberty. But the Peoples’ Army still maintains a robust presence in the square, ready to quash any first stirrings of a reprise of the demonstration a of generation ago.

Today, we sit and watch with much consternation at waves of protest against authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. We wish to be optimistic as we watch throngs in Egypt and Libya stand tall against government forces, demanding freedom and democracy. Seeing ourselves as enlightened, rational people, we wish our Arab cousins the best. We hope that a radiant new awakening will engulf the Arab world, washing away the tyrants that we see as a holdover of earlier times. We want desperately to believe that, with the exit of those tyrants who have fomented hatred of Israel as a way to deflect criticism of their thievery and duplicity, the Arab street will be caught up in a new spirit of brotherhood. That they will join hands with their Jewish neighbors and the resulting cooperation will harness an incredible energy to address and solve the problems that beset the greater Middle East.

Before we rhapsodize of the New World dawning, we need to ask ourselves: why have some popular revolutions resulted in positive change for humanity while others did not? Why did the civil rights protests of the 1960’s lead to a sea-change in American Society while the Tiananmen Square protests did not accomplish the same for the people of China? I would like to offer what I see as the primary reason for the difference in outcomes.

Peaceful assembly and demonstration ‘works’ when the target of the demonstration is an entity characterized by Rule of Law, and Goodness. There is no doubt that the stain of slavery and the legacy of racial separateness sickened American society. This sickness prevented us from clearly seeing the truth of how deleterious black suffering was to the society as a whole. That is, until a series of peaceful demonstrations against the order of things, opened the eyes of America. When white America saw the gathering of Black America on the Capital Mall, and heard the eloquence of Reverend King’s plea, it opened our hearts to the truth. The creation of an equal and just society didn’t then happen overnight, or even in a year. But today, our children are growing up in a far different America, in many ways a far better America, than the one we Baby Boomers grew up in.

There can be no comparison between the America of 1963 and the China of 1989. The former was good but flawed, while the latter was – and still is – a regime of evil oppression. This is surely the primary reason for the difference in outcomes. It wasn’t that the protests did not propound equally righteous purposes. It wasn’t that the two groups of protestors were not equally ready to stand up to violence and maintain their peaceful stands.

Watching recent and continuing events unfold in the Arab world, our experience of the Civil Rights Movement of America of the 1960’s counsels us toward optimism. On the other hand, our witness of the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre leads us toward pessimism. Obviously, the protests in the Arab world are fully analogous to neither historical event. Each mass movement is as different as the respective countries that provide their backdrop. We therefore look on, from the assumed safety of our own secure and free homeland, with a certain ambiguity, with a mixture of hope and fear.

And while we look on with a layman’s befuddlement, we hope and pray that our government has a much higher degree of discernment than we private citizens. Some of us are confident in that regard, while the rest of us are deeply skeptical. Recent national polling suggests that the latter group outnumber the former. We watch the Administration’s confused response to unfolding events and wonder if the President or anyone close to him has a clue.

But there is one thing, upon which we can all agree. What is now happening in Egypt, Libya, and other Arab countries matters to us. Despite our assumption of safety, if we’re honest we acknowledge that these earth-shaking events in far away places can and will affect our own interests deeply. What sort of regime will follow the deposed Mubarak in Egypt? And what will replace the soon-to-be deposed al Qaddafi in Libya, may it happen speedily? These outcomes matter profoundly to us: as Americans, and in particular as Jews. May the Holy One grant the Arab Street – and our own President – the wisdom to work diligently for the creation of just regimes of law and Goodness, amidst the ashes of bygone autocracies.

Pirkei Avot and Evil Speak

In Pirkei Avot (1.15) Rabbi Shammai enjoins us: “Say little, but do much.” Is this ever an enjoinder we need! The air around us is dense with words. While some words do inspire and goad us to good deeds, most of the words we hear do not. So many of the words we hear are not words of inspiration or instruction, but words designed to denigrate and de-legitimize. We are not careful with our words, and the world around us is worse of for it.

Our tradition lays out very specific and detailed laws for controlling our tongues. For example, we are forbidden to speak negatively of others; this is called lashon hara (evil speak). And this even applies (in most cases) to information that is true! But isn’t it important to inform others about negative truths regarding others? In a word, no. If we’re honest, most of the time when we make negative statements about others, we do so with no particularly good end in mind. We do so in order to show ourselves as having some exclusive knowledge, to cast aspersions, or to make someone else look better, truer, cleverer.

We’re permitted to give negative information about others only in specific circumstances. For example, in order to save a life, or to prevent serious harm to somebody. For example, if a friend is about to hire a babysitter, where you have absolutely true information that he has a history of making bad decisions that would endanger a child, or even (G-d forbid) child molestation. Or when giving testimony in a criminal trial.

Therefore, unless the negative information you have meets one of these limited criteria, hold your tongue and keep it to yourself. This prevents the besmirching of someone’s good reputation. This is tantamount to stealing, but worse; a person’s property can be reinstated, but their good reputation cannot be given back once taken away.

And the corollary of holding your tongue, is doing much. If the energy that we waste in speaking negatively of others were channeled into good deeds, imagine how much better this world would be.

One can’t change the world single-handedly, but one can bring significant goodness into the world by changing one’s own behavior. If all of us practiced these simple words of Shammai, imagine the good result possible!

All the best…

Rabbi Don Levy

Sisterhood Shabbat Sermon

I'm posting this a few days later; it is my sermon from Friday, when my congregation celebrated 'Sisterhood Shabbat,' honoring the contributions to our local temple life by our congregation's women's club known as 'Temple Beit Torah Sisterhood.' Since my remarks were well-received on Friday, I thought I'd share them here.
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A famous person once said: “If you want something done, your best bet is to ask a Jewish woman to do it.”

Of course many of you here tonight know that the person I just quoted is Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman. She was shockingly cut down by the bullet of a disturbed assassin last Saturday. But she is, thank G-d, in the midst of a breathtakingly-swift recovery that has her doctors – and the entire nation – optimistic for her future prospects.

Giffords made her quip about the power of a Jewish woman during her first campaign for congress in 2006. She further said: “Jewish women — by our tradition and by the way we were raised — have an ability to cut through all the reasons why something should, shouldn’t or can’t be done and pull people together to be successful.”

It is interesting and heartening that Giffords’ words resonated with the voters in a district where Jews are relatively thin on the ground. It makes her words ring true that she was reelected three times and is extremely popular with her constituents, whatever their party affiliation. It is of course, extremely distressing that Jared Lee Loughner, who lists 'Mein Kampf' on his list of favorite books, has been obsessed with Representative Giffords since at least 2007. It is even more distressing that a chorus of voices including the Sheriff of Pima County, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, members of congress and of the Commentariat, have spent most of this week blaming Loughner’s actions on the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, both of whom had been virtual unknowns in 2007. But I digress…

Gabrielle Giffords’ claim about the power of a Jewish woman is, of course well-known to us here at Temple Beit Torah. After all, this temple has long been the beneficiary of the initiative and energy of its women’s auxiliary, the Temple Beit Torah Sisterhood which we honor this evening. Our Sisterhood has so much energy, they were not content to sit back and bask in our admiration this evening…they even insisted on leading this evening’s service as a group.

Most members of our congregation cannot begin to appreciate just how much the TBT Sisterhood has blessed us all. Yes, they undertake projects that raise significant financial support for the temple. But perhaps even more important is the function implicit in their very name – Sisterhood. Not just a quaint designator, a holdover from previous generations, the name ‘Sisterhood’ accurately describes the feeling of sisterly solidarity that our Sisterhood fosters among its members.

Men, we do well when we look at our women and see how they band together in mutual uplift. They teach us that the relationships we form and nurture, define the people we are. They provide us with an eminently emulate-able example of what is most important in life. But our women provide more than this all-important glimpse into the Good Life.

Our women provide the music that brings beauty to our lives. Yes, men can make music also. Some of us have been known to sing a bit, or to strum a ukulele. But without women in our lives, the music of life is muted – our lives are colorless and dull. Our women dance. That’s why the Torah gives us the example of Miriam and the women taking up the timbrel and dancing.

Last weekend was a difficult one for Jewish women, and for all Jews by extension. It was not only the attack on Gabrielle Giffords that created a void in our world. Last weekend saw the taking of Debbie Friedman from this world. Debbie Friedman, as I mentioned last week was an inspiration to Jews everywhere. She brought us a new era of sacred music; she revived the idea of singing out joyfully to G-d. Anyone who has attended a Union camp since the 1970’s, or who has attended a Reform congregation, has seen and heard the influence of Debbie Friedman’s music. One of Debbie’s most inspirational songs was Miriam’s Song, about the wonder that Miriam experienced at the shore of the sea, and how she led the women in dancing through the parted waters. In just a moment we shall sing this song.

Men, we must learn to fully appreciate the song, the dance that our women bring to our lives. In identifying this, I’m not trivializing women and their contributions to a caricature of a harem dancing and entertaining us. No, I’m literally talking about the music by which we dance through life, by which our lives are made joyous and worthwhile.

In honor of this music and dance, we expect that a few of the women here may feel led to spontaneously stand up and dance around our sanctuary in just a moment. Men, let’s see if we have the courage to stand up and dance with them.

Merry Christmas!

No, not the politically-correct "Happy Holidays." Our Jewish holiday that happens at this time of year, Chanukah, is long past. We lit our Menorahs for eight nights, sang songs, ate fatty fried foods, played gambling games and exchanged presents. Now it is our neighbors' turn to celebrate their own joyous festival. To all my Christian friends, colleagues and neighbors, I wish you much joy as we enter the day of Christmas Eve. May this festival uplift and inspire you as you reflect on its deepest meanings. Merry Christmas!

Letter Supporting Clemency for Jonathan Pollard

I have thought a lot about the Jonathan Pollard case over the years. He was hired by the US Navy, gave classified documents to Israel, was arrested and sentenced while I was serving in the Navy's intelligence-gathering establishment. I actually had a professional connection to the case; I served on the damage assessment team prior to his sentencing. At the time, I was struck by two discrepancies. First, after the extensive reportage on him I wondered why he had ever been hired by the Navy in the first place. Second, when the damage assessment team unearthed that he was a minor 'desk jockey' who funnelled various intelligence summaries from other agencies to analysts within his agency, why was he touted as an 'Israeli Master Spy' and given a life sentence?

The answer to the first question became clear to me five years later when I was due a routine five-year update and background investigation. I found that I had to submit information going ten years back; because of the rapid build-up of the intelligence services in President Reagan's first term - during which Pollard was hired - the agencies investigating applicants for top security clearances were swamped beyond their capacity and often pencil-whipped the clearances if the applicant had no police record and there was no 'red flag' on the application. If my own SCI update was signed without investigation, my guess is that a new hire, a young man recently out of school, someone with some 'yichus' (his father was a prominent professor at Notre Dame who had surely done some work for the government at some point) would not attract close scrutiny. The Navy didn't know Pollard was something of a 'fruit-cake' because they didn't give him much of a look.

On the issue of the extent of the damage Pollard had done to national security, two factors certainly worked against him. The first was his, and his defense team's, own miscalculation. In jailhouse interviews to CBS' '60 Minutes' and the Jerusalem Post's Wolf Blitzer before sentencing, Pollard and his wife bragged about the high levels at which they worked within the Israeli establishment. The truth all along was that the Israeli agent 'running' Pollard was conducting something of a rogue operation. Why did the Pollards puff themselves up in the media? My guess (and this is only a guess, but I think a good one) is that they calculated they would force the US and Israeli governments at the highest levels to begin negotiations for the Pollards' release. The second factor was Secretary of Defense Weinberger's interference with the case. Weinberger, according to Lawrence Korb, his deputy at the time, seriously inflated the damage assessment to make it sound as if Pollard had made extremely damaging disclosures not only to Israel but to the Soviet Union and other states. And in an apparent attempt to manipulate the ire of the presiding judge, Aubrey Robinson who is an African American, Weinberger painted a picture of disclosures to (then Apartheid state) South Africa. Given all this, it is no surprise that the judge locked Pollard up 'and threw away the key,' and that Pollard spend some eight years in solitary confinement.

Over the years, I've had the sense that this was a very bad deal. Pollard is certainly no hero, although there are elements in Israel who see him that way. He was more like a village idiot. Given the undue meddling in the case at the highest levels, and the Navy's negligence in ever granting the guy a security clearance, I think that 25 years in prison for him is more than enough and have signed on to the effort to free him. Below is the text of the letter I recently sent to President Obama at the request of the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.

Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC, 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I am writing to you to add my voice to those requesting commutation of Jonathan Jay Pollard's sentence to time served.

I was serving on active duty in the U.S. Navy and working as a Cryptologist at the time Pollard was arrested. Working at the time for the G6 organization of the National Security Agency, the Middle East-North Africa section, I was chosen to participate on the team assessing the damage potentially caused by Pollard’s disclosures. My recollection matches those of Senator Dennis DeConcini, Dr. Lawrence Korb and Mr. R. James Woolsey, all of whom have suggested Secretary of Defense Weinberger seriously inflated the assessment of the damage done by Pollard in his report to Judge Aubrey Eugene Robinson, who presided over Pollard’s case. My own recollection is that there was nothing that we came across to indicate that Pollard gave information to any country but Israel. Further, the information he probably disclosed consisted primarily of daily operational intelligence summaries, information that is extremely perishable. It did not appear to me at the time that the information he gave Israel should have resulted in a life sentence.

This combines with my sense that the Navy was seriously negligent in even granting Pollard a security clearance. Had the Navy done the required background investigation, Pollard certainly would not have been hired in the first place. But when Pollard was hired it was at a time of very rapid expansion of our intelligence services; then it was fairly commonplace for clearance investigations to be dropped and the clearances granted if the investigators saw no ‘red flags’ on the application. I was due a routine five-year update of my clearance the year Pollard was hired; five years later, the Naval Investigative Service had to go back 10 years because of the omissions during the build-up during President Reagan’s first term.

These two factors – the giving of what appears to be only extremely perishable information to an ally, and the extreme unsuitability for the work to begin with – do not erase the guilt for the crimes Pollard committed. But it does lead me, as someone with a connection to the case on the government’s side, to add my voice to those of Senator DeConcini, Dr, Korb, Mr. Woolsey and the members of Congress who have recently asked you to consider commuting Mr. Pollard’s sentence to time served.

Thank you for your prayerful consideration of this matter, and may you and your family enjoy a blessed Christmas holiday.



Donald A. Levy
Rabbi, Temple Beit Torah
Chaplain, Major, USAF (retired)

What do YOU think?

Vayechi - And He Lived

I was thinking about the recent and tragic death by suicide of Mark Madoff, the son of convicted Ponzi Schemer Bernard Madoff, while studying this week’s Torah portion. The younger Madoff, a 46-year-old father of four, hanged himself with a dog leash in his Manhattan apartment last Saturday while his wife and children were out of town. The day on which Madoff killed himself was the second anniversary of his father’s arrest. Mark Madoff and his younger brother Andrew were the ones that turned their father in, after he had confessed his crimes to his family. The entire Madoff case is a tragedy: for the Madoff family, for the many individuals and charitable foundations whose investments were lost, and for the entire Jewish community. The specter of an obviously-Jewish crook defrauding so many of billions of dollars should be a source of shame for every Jew. And one would have to be heartless to not sympathize with the many who feel the pain that his crimes spread, including his family. For an intelligent young man of 46, a father of four and apparently uninvolved in his father’s crimes, to take his life in such a way, can only be heart-rending.

This week’s Torah portion opens with the words, “Vayechi Ya’akov – And Jacob lived in the Land of Egypt 17 years.” Jacob tells his son Joseph of his wishes for arrangements after his death. He knows that his death is approaching. He is happy that he was able to live out his final years in Egypt, under the protection of his son with whom he was miraculously reunited after many years apart. Jacob doesn’t want to be buried in Egypt; he instructs Joseph that, when he dies, he wishes for his remains to be taken back to Canaan, to be interred in the burial place of his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham. Recognizing that the family will eventually leave Egypt and return to the land promised to them by G-d, Israel does not wish for his remains to spend eternity in the soil of a foreign land. Israel’s swearing his favored son to carry out his wishes as to what to do after his death, serves as a leitmotif for following generations.

Joseph himself, having taken his father’s bones back to Canaan for burial, makes the same request of his sons. Eventually, when the people Israel leaves Egypt, they carry Joseph’s bones with them for re-interment in Canaan. But the practice of making known one’s final wishes has become commonplace and normal. We instruct our loved ones as to where we’d like to be buried, or if we prefer some other method for our remains to be dealt with, we make that known. And it is an important ethical principle that one carry out your relative’s dying wishes.

But beyond expressing our wishes as to what we’d like done to our remains after we die, we also express our preferences as to he circumstances of our dying. Thanks to the incredible technology that can keep us legally alive long after we’ve reasonably expired, we often give advance notice as to our wishes with regard to so-called heroic measures being taken, or not, which will determine when and how we die. In recent years, the idea of palliative care to ease our death, rather than heroic measures to prolong our life, has become more popular and compelling. I have to say that the availability of palliative care is a good thing and has allowed so many to die with some dignity intact.

But the ultimate level of taking control of the circumstances of one’s dying, is achieved by taking one’s own life – by suicide. In recent years, there has been a movement to allow physicians to assist terminally ill patients to take their own lives. As you remember, Doctor Jack Kevorkian – dubbed ‘Dr. Death’ by some – elicited both praise and condemnation for his illegally assisting, by his own claim, 130 people to commit a painless suicide. He served eight years in a Michigan state prison for his efforts.

Now I’m astute enough – and compassionate enough – to know that some reading this will think of Jack Kevorkian as a hero. I think I understand how painful it can be to be in the throes of a terminal illness. I watched my father die a somewhat messy death from multiple myeloma, and before that my maternal grandfather from colon cancer. A prolonged death from a terminal illness robs the dying patient of his last scraps of dignity, causes his loved ones pain to see him suffer so, and can bring financial ruin to those responsible for his care. Even so, I have to tell you that the slippery slope that assisted suicide opens up, gives me some pause. Some people have famously expressed a desire to die for what can only be termed trivial reasons. It is natural for someone facing a life of severe disability to think themselves better off dead. Someone who has lost his sight, or ability to walk, or ability to control his bowels, could be forgiven for thinking that suicide offers a release from the indignity of continuing to live. My point here is not to condemn those who would wish to take control of their life by determining the time and manner of their death. Rather, my point is to offer a contrasting viewpoint. It is only natural to feel despair when faced with a life in which one will be denied some activity, some talent that is important to one’s self-definition.

Most of us have activities that we love to do. Golf, tennis, running, skiing…our favorite sports and activities give us untold amounts of pleasure and help us through the difficult times. But while these things are fun and bring joy, we should not measure our lives by these things. If we do, then our lives will seem far more shallow and vapid after they’re over. We should be able to drift in and out of these activities, because our lives’ meanings should be far deeper than these things. If we think that our lives are no longer worth living because we’ve lost the ability to play some sport, then we’ve lost sight of what the real meanings of our lives are. We should think of those whose spirits have been able to soar despite our trials and setbacks. Of, for example, the wounded warriors who have found the emotional strength to live on despite losing one or more limbs in battle. Of those whose fighting spirit makes them see that their worth as individuals, far exceeds the sum of what they’re capable of doing. What a tragedy if someone thinks that, because they can no longer perform some accustomed physical feat, that their life is no longer worth living. Of if a terminally ill person frets over the way his protracted treatment is eating up the estate he might leave to his heirs. Another hint of misplaced priorities.

And how about a relatively-young man, with many years of health, happiness and yes, productivity ahead of him, so despairing because of his father’s crimes that he feels he must ‘check out’ prematurely? Perhaps it is unseemly to reflect on these things as we inaugurate the Shabbat, the day of rest and renewal of spirit that is G-d’s greatest gift to the Jewish people and the Jews’ greatest gift to humanity. But my purpose is not for us to despair, rather to learn an important lesson. And that lesson is that we must, while we have control of our faculties, take stock of what’s most important in our lives. Although evil surely does exist in our world, I’m guessing that just about everyone reading my words today has spread far more good than evil in his or her lifetime. Perhaps you have not given yourself the credit you deserve for the good you’ve spread. We frequently think more harshly of our lives than we should, because we focus far to much on achievements, than goodness. Mark Madoff, according to those close to him, was not a man in his crooked father’s image. Rather, he was a relatively unassuming man who helped many with his expertise in investments, who prospered at least in part because of his hard work, and who cared deeply about those closest to him. It is a tragedy that he ended his own life so ignominiously, leaving a widow and four orphans, because of the shame his father’s crimes caused him to endure. How tragic when any human being feels his life has lost its meaning, whether because of a broken relationship, because he must endure a protracted illness, or because some new disability has robbed him of some activities that brings him joy. In all these cases, from the famous to the anonymous, the tragedy is that we find it difficult to see the true value of our lives.

Jacob’s life was supremely valuable, although he had a rocky beginning. As his death approached, he might have been forgiven for thinking that he had outlived his usefulness. He might have thought he would be unduly overburdening his son by making him swear to carry his bones back to Canaan for burial. But Jacob’s greatness, through all his foibles, was that he understood the values that make life worthwhile. He therefore felt free to burden Joseph with his request to return him to Canaan for burial with his fathers. And Joseph’s greatness is amply displayed in the fact, chronicled later in this week’s Torah portion, that he indeed carried out his dying father’s request.

“Vayechi – and he lived.” May we find the strength and resolve to live out the fullness of our years. And may we be blessed to understand the true worth of our lives, and those of the ones closest to us.