To Foresee the Consequences of Our Actions

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Saturday, September 1, 2007

There are many traits that are important to our becoming good and upright people. It is important to be honest and just, to be compassionate and generous. One of the Torah’s goals is to teach us about these qualities both through instruction and through stories that show individuals with and without these positive qualities.

It happened once that the Rabbis whose teaching are found in the Mishnah were having a conversation about what is the best quality that a person should have. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, the rabbi who in many ways saved Judaism in the period following the destruction of the Temple, asked his outstanding students to go out and look at the world and come back and report what they have observed to him. Rabbi Eliezer went out into the community and when he returned, he suggested that having a good eye was the most important thing. Rabbi Elazar ben Arach proposed that it was having a good heart. And Rabbi Shimon said; One who considers the consequences.

What did Rabbi Eliezer mean by suggesting a “good eye”. He was not talking about not being near sighted or not having an astigmatism, or even our having a photographic memory. A good eye is an eye that can see the good in other people. Going further, later rabbis said, a good eye prevents jealousy. Ibn Ezra, an important medieval Bible commentator, discusses this with regard to the commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Covet”. He gives the example of two skilled workers, who look at each other’s tools. They might be very interested in what the other person has, they might find it fascinating to explore the qualities of the other’s tools, but they would understand they were meant for someone else. As one contemporary rabbi updated his example- if a dentist and construction worker explored each others tools, the dentist might be interested in the hydraulic hammer, but he wouldn’t try and take it back to his office to use to extract a tooth. A good eye is able to look at what other’s have and appreciate it for them without feeling deprived because we do not possess the same thing.

Rabbi Yochanah ben Zakkai considered Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh’s answer the most comprehensive as it includes other good qualities. For some of the rabbis, a good heart meant having patience and inner harmony. For others it was the source of hakarat hatov, our ability to recognize the good we experience and to feel gratitude. For Mainmonides it was the source of our actions- a good heart prompts us to good deeds. In English when we speak about a good heart, we usually mean kindliness, but in the ancient word the heart was consider the home of the intellect. A good heart, that is the ability to learn, was necessary, as the rabbis were skeptical about the ability of an ignorant person to be truly righteous.

What about Rabbi Shimon’s answer- the one who considers the consequences. In Hebrew the words used are haroeh et hanolad, the one who see’s what will be born. Rabbi Shimon posits that if we look into the future, peering beyond the most immediate consequences of our actions, we will have a good guide to our behavior. For me that is one of the important take home lessons from this week’s Torah portion with all its blessings and curses. So often our frame of reference is very short term. We do something that will save us five minutes today, that will make our personal or business balance sheet positive this month, things that are expedient for the moment. But if we took a longer term view, considered what this action teaches our children for the long haul, considered the effect of our decision not only for the month or the quarter, but for the year, the decade, for our world for future generations, we would see things differently.

Several years ago I participated in a workshop with business leaders at the Markula Center for Ethics at Santa Clara University. I remember one of the presenters involving us in a practice found among the native peoples of Alaska. When the community there faced a challenged, they engaged in a ritual in which they asked the next generation and the generations after that their opinion before making a decision. We were each to take a decision that presented itself to us and in our minds ask the next generation, and the generation after that, and the generation after that, their opinion of the wisdom of our actions.

As we as a community move towards the High Holy Day period, we consider our actions in the past year. To what extent did they reflect a good eye, a good heart, and the ability to forsee the consequences of our actions? Megan and Jacob, as you go forward may you develop these qualities, bringing good to our world and nachas and joy to all who know you.