"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.  I am not a teacher, only a fellow student."  (Soren Kierkegaard)

• Home
• Professional Staff
• Board of Directors
• Calendar
• Ritual Events
• Education
  • Religious School
  • Adult Education
• Auxiliary Organizations
  • Youth Groups
  • Old Enough To Know Better
  • 50 is the New 30
  • Sisterhood
  • Men's Club
• Tikkun Olam
• Cemetery
• Volunteer Opportunities
• Donations & Payments
• Beth Sholom News
• Contact Us

A FEW PRE-SHABBAT WORDS FROM RABBI AARON

What Makes Us Tick?
Last week we started the Torah over again with Breishit. Our Bar Mitzvah, Aaron Canales, shared his insights into man's ambivalent nature. God endowed us with dominion over all the other creatures. Free will makes it possible for us to achieve staggering greatness as well as shameful ruin. And yet...despite the divine gamble humanity represents, God insisted upon creating us - even over the (midrashic) vehement objections of the angels! Well, just one parasha later, the Author of the Cosmos decides to destroy the world with a horrifying flood. Noah, his family, and all the animals [clearly, all this is way before OSHA and the fire marshall...] float through the catastrophe in their shelter. Upon leaving the Ark, Noah will offer animal sacrifice to God, who "smells the savory odor" and says to Himself: "no longer will I curse the Earth [adamah] because of the Earthling [adam], for the imagination of Man's heart is evil from his youth."

STOP.
This divine utterance is too important for us to gloss over. What can we make of it?
 
Adam (Man) was shaped from the Adamah (Earth), and it appears that while the Flood punishes all living creatures for their corrupt ways, the failings of humanity were the tipping point; God wouldn't have brought the Flood if humanity weren’t so tragically debased. Nachmanides (Ramban) says this explicitly. After the flood, God decides that the Earth should no longer be held accountable for humanity's transgressions. 
 
Rubinstein's 2 Cents
Well, that's fine, but, unfortunately, humans have become quite a force to be reckoned with, and most of us understand that our collective actions most definitely are impacting our planet and its future. God is not mucking things up; we are.
 
yetser lev ha'adam - man's inclination... How do we understand human nature? Throughout the ages, theologians, philosophers and psychologists [to name a few interested parties...] have been arguing about human character and how it functions.   In one of our morning prayers, we pray..."v'chof et yitsreinu l'hisht'abed lach..." Translation: "...bend our will; force us, compel us to serve You [!!!]"
 
Rubinstein's 2 Cents
Clearly, our sages struggled with the human proclivity to make a terrible mess wherever we go. Centuries later, with all our so-called progress, we are struggling, as well. But think about the prayer I just cited: Aren't we asking God to do something rather strange, maybe even disturbing? Do we want to be puppets on a string? I highly recommend a recent New York Times column by David Brooks,[Op-Ed Columnist:  Where the Wild Things Are ] which sketches a couple of models for human “character.” While we continue to probe the mysteries of the magnificent human brain, it is not yet clear to us just what makes us tick.

Shabbat shalom

Rabbi Aaron