Ethics, One Day at a Time

by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin

          When historians look back at the United States in the twentieth century, they probably will view the century as having been dominated by macro events, events that affected large numbers of people and that required the responses of equally large numbers. Their focus likely will be on occurrences such as World War I, the Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II and the resulting mobilization of millions of soldiers and an entire economy to defeat the Nazi peril, and the decades-long Cold War that ended only with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

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Rabbi Telushkin’s latest book, The Book of Jewish Values: A Day–by-Day Guide to Ethical Living, from which this articles was based, is available at Amazon.com.   

             And, of course, there were macro transformations and battles within our society, most notably, the civil rights movement, which began with demands for an end to segregation and ultimately led to an extraordinary increase in participation by people of color in all aspects of American life. In turn, that movement helped lay the groundwork for the enormously increased participation by women in all facets of American society.

I believe, however, that the 21^st century likely will be dominated more by micro issues than macro ones. If the 20^th century was largely devoted to answering the question, “How can we survive?” (for without a winning strategy, Nazism and Communism would have overwhelmed us), the coming years will be devoted to answering the question, “What makes our survival worthwhile?” I would like to suggest that what we most need now is to articulate a vision for the future, one that can be lived out one day at a time.

Central to this vision is the need for each of us to develop what I like to call “moral imagination.” By this, I mean the ability fully to think through the implications of our actions, particularly as to how they will affect others. Over the past century, society has made extraordinary technological advances because of the active imaginations of our scientists and researchers, but we have been slower to advance morally because of a general unwillingness to practice imagination in the moral sphere. So let me start now by offering two examples: one, of the harm that can ensue when we refuse to exercise moral imagination; the other, of the great good that can come about when we do employ it.

The first involves the late Lee Atwater, the brilliant but highly aggressive campaign manager who directed George Bush’s successful 1988 presidential bid. In 1980 Atwater was managing a congressional election campaign in South Carolina, during which his campaign released information that the Democratic candidate in the race, Tom Turnispeed, had years earlier suffered an episode of depression for which he had received electric shock treatment.

Turnispeed was mortified and outraged. None of us appreciates having his or her medical history made public, and particularly not our psychiatric history--he responded with an anguished attack on his opponent’s campaign ethics. When Atwater was asked to respond to Turnispeed’s attack, he answered that he had no intention of responding to charges made by a person “hooked up to a jumper cable.”

What a grotesque violation of privacy and what a shameful humiliation of another! Atwater’s cruel words put into the voters’ heads a vicious, graphic image that potentially poisoned not only their perceptions of Turnispeed, but also of everyone else who had undergone electric shock therapy.

This story, however, has a postscript. Ten years later Atwater was in a hospital bed dying of an inoperable brain tumor. In the last weeks of his life, while he was lying in a room connected to all sorts of uncomfortable and invasive machines, he wrote a letter to Turnispeed begging his forgiveness. I am convinced this was no phony deathbed repentance. Finding himself in this horrible circumstance, Atwater finally realized the enormous cruelty he had committed and fully regretted it.

Had Atwater had the moral imagination to realize in 1980 what he realized in 1990, he never would have released information about Turnispeed's treatment or mocked his experience. Indeed, moral imagination involves "repenting" of evil acts before we commit them, by wielding our imagination in such a manner that we act rightly towards others even when we don't have the experience or knowledge to be fully empathetic.

Consider the case of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, a leading rabbinic scholar in Jerusalem who was known as much for his warm heart as for his powerful intellect. One day, the concerned parents of a retarded boy asked him to consult on the choice of an institution for their son. They were considering two alternative facilities, each having certain advantages. The rabbi listened carefully to their description and then asked, "Where is the boy? What does he say about all this?" The parents looked at each other, abashed. Clearly, it had never entered their minds to discuss the matter with their son. Outraged, the rabbi cried out, "You are committing a sin against the soul of this child! You intend to evict him from his home and consign him to a strange place with a regimented atmosphere. He must be encouraged and not be allowed to feel that he is being betrayed."

Rabbi Auerbach instructed the parents to bring the boy to him. They hurriedly went home and soon returned with the child. "What is your name?" the rabbi asked him.

"Akiva," he replied.

"How do you do, Akiva?" he asked. Then Rabbi Auerbach, who was known for his exceptional humility, said something very unexpected. "My name is Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. I am the greatest Torah authority of this generation, and everyone listens to me. You are going to enter a special school now, and I would like you to represent me and look after all of the religious matters in your new home.” As the boy’s eyes remained riveted on the rabbi’s face, he said, “ I want you to use this honor wisely.”

This story is an example of moral imagination par excellence. Had the boy been sent away in the manner his parents were planning, he would have felt rejected and betrayed. Instead, because of Rabbi Auerbach’s ability to understand what the boy most needed, he went to his new home with a sense of pride and purpose. How could he not have such a sense? After all, he was the representative of the greatest rabbi of his age. I would like to lay out for your consideration seven days of moral imagination, a weeklong curriculum of good deeds that can transform and elevate your life and the lives of all those around you, one day at a time.

 

Day l – Sunday: Raising Your Children to Love Both Themselves and Others. Many parents reserve their highest praise for their children’s intellectual and athletic accomplishments. Thus, for example, they compliment the child most effusively when he achieves intellectual distinction (“I’m particularly proud of how smart you are”) and, when speaking to others, it is this aspect of their child that they praise (“Scott’s so intelligent; it’s just amazing”).

What sort of self-image does a child develop who is not intellectually or athletically gifted, whose parents cannot go around bragging, “Scott’s so intelligent; it’s just amazing”? Furthermore, is it healthy for children who are very smart or athletic to come to believe that these talents and abilities are truly what are most important about them?

Hence, a simple suggestion, one that has the capacity to make both your children and the world happier and kinder: Reserve your highest praise to your children for when they perform kind deeds. That way, they will learn to identify having high self-regard with being a good person.

Children who grow up associating being praised and loved with the performance of ethical acts are apt to like themselves most when they’re doing good.  Think about that for a moment-a generation of people who most like themselves when they’re doing good.  What a world they would create!

Day 2 - Monday: When You Hear a Siren—How do you react when you are talking with a friend and your conversation is suddenly interrupted by the piercing wail of an ambulance siren? Do you feel pure sympathy for the person inside or about to be picked up by the ambulance or do you feel some measure of annoyance? Similarly, how do you react when you are awakened from a deep sleep by a series of clanging fire trucks or the wail of a police car?

I am embarrassed to admit that, along with many others, my initial reaction to such noises often is impatience and annoyance rather than empathy. My friend, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, suggests that whenever we hear the sound of a passing ambulance, we accustom ourselves to offering a prayer that the ambulance arrives in time. Similarly, whenever our calm is interrupted by fire trucks, we should pray to God that the trucks arrive in time to save the endangered people and home and that no firefighter be injured. And when we hear police sirens, we should implore God that the police respond in time to the emergency.

I find this suggestion profound. By accustoming ourselves to uttering a prayer at the very moment we feel unjustly annoyed, we become better and more loving people. The very act of praying motivates us to empathize with those who are suffering and in need of our prayers. Furthermore, imagine how encouraging it would be for those being rushed to a hospital to know that hundreds of people who hear the ambulance sirens are praying for their recovery.

Loving one’s neighbor is usually carried out through tangible acts, by giving money or food to those in need, by stepping in and offering assistance to a neighbor who is ill, or by bringing guests into one's home. But sometimes, loving our neighbor is expressed through a prayer, one that attached us to our “neighbor” even when we have no way of knowing just who our neighbor is.

Ethics, One Day at a Time is condensed from IMPRIMIS, the monthly speech digest of Hillsdale College.  Rabbi Joseph Telushkin is the spiritual leader of the Synagogue for the Performing Arts.  He is the author or co-author of several influential books about the history, beliefs, ethics, culture, and religious practices of Judaism. 

Rabbi Telushkin’s latest book, The Book of Jewish Values: A Day–by-Day Guide to Ethical Living, from which this articles was based, is available at Amazon.com.  If you enter here, we  receive a commission used to spread the Good News.