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September 10, 1955

The High Cost of Insignificance (1955)

Nitzavim
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(This sermon was announced in the Times + Bulletin, but not preached because of weather.) (Ninth of full-on + text my own.) There are many of standing before G-d. (A) Tip-toe: only an intellectual curiosity as to what religion is all about, but no attempt to take it seriously, הי׳ בצאת ה׳ על אהל יקומו כל העם ונצבו איש פתח אוהלו (שמות ל״ג-ח׳). After they removed עד ים, after sin of golden calf, they no longer experienced real religion personally.
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Can Good Come From Affluence? (1972)

The question in this title sounds strange indeed. It might be more appropriate coming from the context of Christianity, which is frank in its prejudice against the affluent, holding that the chances are indeed poor for a rich man to enter the “kingdom of heaven.” Judaism, however, has never entertained such economic discrimination. It believes in צדקה to the poor, but it does not deny גמילת חסדים (lending money) to the rich too. It holds to the ideal of absolute justice, and this may not be weighed in favor of the rich or even the poor – ודל לא תהדר בריבו, you may not discriminate in favor of the poor and thus cause a miscarriage of justice.Why, then, bother to ask the question?My explanation is that the question is based on the practicalities of sociology, not the abstractions of theology. Of course we do not discriminate against the rich – the Talmud even tells us that רבי מכבד עשירים, Rabbi Judah respected rich people. But the hard fact of life is that success often leads to failure, that material plenty is frequently the prelude to spiritual poverty. Moses already complained וישמן ישורון ויבעט, that when Israel grows fat it begins to rebel against God. Maimonides plaintively noted that in his generation when a man became wealthy or achieved social or political prominence, he began to leave his Judaism, and that the degree of his defection was in clear proportion to the degree of his rise on the social ladder. In the United States, as a general rule (but with significant exceptions), the spectrum of Orthodox-Conservative-Reform follows an ascending economic pattern. So, unfortunately, economic opportunity and social mobility, which are the pride of the United States, present a formidable challenge to Jewish tradition and continuity. The question, then, does make sense: can good come from affluence?In attempting to answer the question, let us look at our Sidra and especially at the פרשת התשובה, the portion which speaks of repentance – both the challenge to repent…
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Our Biblical portion of this morning contains one of the most eloquent and inspiring passages in a series of such magnificent verses delivered by Moses at the end of his life.The old leader speaks to his people, assembled about the Holy Ark, calling to witness heaven and earth, he says to them: “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy children; to love the Lord thy God, to hearken to His voice, and to cleave unto Him, for that is thy life and the length of thy days…” (Deut. 30:19, 20).“Choose life, that thou mayest live.” But what does that mean? People often say, colloquially, “he doesn’t know what it means to live,” or, “he really knows what it means to live.” So, what indeed does it mean “to live?”The Jerusalem Talmud (Kiddushin 1:7) offers us interpretations of these terms by two of the greatest Tannaim, Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva. However, on first blush, they seem devastatingly disappointing and apparently bring us down from the sublime to the ridiculous.Rabbi Ishmael says, zu umanut, “that thou mayest live” refers to a trade or a craft. “From this, the Sages learned that a man is obligated to teach his son a trade or craft.” Rabbi Akiva says that from this we learn that a man is required to teach his son the water-arts, how to swim, and how to row.What a letdown! How pedestrian the rabbinic interpretation sounds when compared with the majestic Biblical cadences of the verses which it purports to interpret! Is that really what Moses had in mind at the dusk of his life, at the climax of his Prophetic career, as he bade farewell to these people whom he had shepherded through forty years of the great wilderness? – that heaven and earth are his witnesses that he sets before them the way of life, in the sense of how to make a living, how to be a real estate manager or insurance salesman or shoemaker or tailor or cloak-and-suiter or stock-broker or diamond-cutter, or – according…
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