How Good Do We Have To Be

Rabbi Melanie Aron

June 6, 2004

Los Gatos High School Baccalaureate Address

When people ask me for “The Jewish Point of View” on some subject, I want to oblige, but it’s often hard to give one definitive answer. Many times the more honest answer is, on the one hand, and on the other hand.

I feel that way about the subject I have chosen for this afternoon: “How Good Do We Have To Be”. I took this title from Rabbi Harold Kushner’s fifth book – you might be more familiar with his second: When Bad Things Happen to Good People. In this, Rabbi Kushner’s more recent book, he reminds us that we don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of the love of others or of God. How Good Do We Have To Be? he asks - perhaps not as good as we sometimes think, especially when we judge ourselves harshly. He makes a good point, especially for communities that have become so incredibly achievement oriented. Rabbi Kushner worries that “you can do better” is often heard not as encouragement, but as condemnation. It’s the mythical Jewish parents of the 1960’s , who when their child came home with a 97 on a test, asked, what happened to the other three points? It’s the judgments we make of ourselves and of others. If you can’t love someone who isn’t perfect—well what are you going to do when you discover that imperfect people are the only brand in stock.

On the other hand, I feel compelled to say that Judaism also teaches that we can’t let ourselves off the hook. In particular, we can’t use the failures of others as our own excuse for doing wrong.

The argument that another’s poor behavior excuses our wrongdoing is made in a variety of contexts. I hear it sometimes from students justifying lack of preparation or even cheating, on the grounds that the teacher acted unfairly in some way or was him or herself inadequate to the task. I hear it in work situations, where again, wrongdoing on the employer’s side in having unreasonable expectations or in not providing adequate support, or on the employee’s side in not having an appropriate work ethic, is thought to excuse wrongdoings, ranging from exaggerating on expense accounts to forcing employees to work off the clock.

I hear this kind of reasoning also with regard to national policy, where the actions taken by our enemies are used to justify our own wrongdoing. Because those who attack us are terrorists, who target civilians, attack without wearing uniforms, violating the conventions of war, we have given in to the temptation to neglect our own codes of conduct for fair treatment in times of war.

“Everyone else is doing it” didn’t work when your dad tried that excuse on your grandmother. Your grandmother responded, or at least mine did: so if everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you do it too? (Remember, there were no bungy cords in those days)

Let me try to express this more positively.

In Yiddish we have the word mensch, which literally means man, but really means much more. A mensch is a genuinely decent person, male or female. A mensch is someone who thinks and acts from the heart to help others, who takes action when others might not lift a finger.

Maybe I can explain this better through popular culture: Shrek is a mensch and Frodo, but the fairygodmother in Shrek II was not a mensch, nor was Jerry Seinfeild. Sam Seiborne on West Wing was a mensch, as is Charlie. Vice President Hoynes was not a mensch. I’d be hard pressed to think of a Survivor contestant who was a mensch, but there might be some American Idol contestants who would quality. Jack Nicholson rarely plays the part of a mensch, while Gregory Peck always played a mensch.

What the rabbis say is that in the place where no one is mensch, be a mensch. They don’t say, in the place where no one is a mensch, then you be an sob too. They quote the Hebrew Scriptures which tell us to return our enemy’s lost possessions, and lift up our enemy’s overly burdened mule. They notice that when, as a young man, Moses saw the slave master beating the slave, he looked this way and that and then struck the slave master, “when he saw there was no man there.” Moses wasn’t looking to see if there were witnesses, Moses was looking to see if there was another man, someone else who would stand up for the rights of the downtrodden and oppressed.

To the graduates of 2004 I say. You are about to go out into the world. Be gentle on yourselves and compassionate to others. But also remember Hillel’s teaching: In the place where no one is acting as a decent and caring human being, step up, and act like a mensch.