Obama, Leviticus and the Class of 2028(A sermon for Congregation Ohr Shalom, May 14, 2009)Earlier this week, President Obama delivered the commencement address to the University of Arizona . He challenged the graduates to strive toward significance rather than financial success. He implored them to measure their accomplishments by their impact rather than their titles.
How much the world is changing. We are in the midst of the most spectacular societal transformation most of us have ever witnessed. If these ideas take hold, my children will grow up with very different goals then I did. My daughter’s graduating classes of 2025 and 2028 will create very different lives for themselves then did my graduating class, the Cornell University class of 1987.
Who among us was not raised in a paradigm that exulted in financial success above all? For decades we in our society have dedicated ourselves to the ceaseless pursuit of acquiring material wealth, larger homes, fancier cars, more extravagant vacations. Only recently have we learned that not only does material wealth not insure happiness, but that our greed has led to the veritable collapse of our economic system and the disintegration of our planet.
Obama encourages us to stop chasing the dollar and start chasing our dreams. To follow our passion, to cultivate our creativity, rather than being seduced by the ceaseless pursuit of wealth.
On the one hand, for me very little has changed. As a non-congregational rabbi, I have never earned a large salary. I recognize many of the consequences of my decision. For example, Sadie and Ori will not attend the Ivy League school I did. I will not be able to afford the tuition. But, I also appreciate that although I earn less than my peers, I spend more time with my children than my colleagues do with theirs, and far less time in boring meetings.
So in some ways, for me nothing has changed. I already pursue my passion – I’m an author with a book out and more on the way! (B”H) I have already eschewed fancy titles in exchange for following my dream of combing Judaism and nature, of creating a 21st century version of Judaism that is accessible, meaningful and relevant.
But how do I measure my impact? How do I measure that significance of which Obama spoke?
This is for me where I cannot seem to shake off the old equation of achievement equals financial success. What should be the standard of measurement? How should I decide if at the end of the day I have spent my time in a worthy fashion?
Doubleday, my publisher, measures my significance in book sales, number of hits of my website, and the quantity of my appearances in the media. Not enough “significance” will mean no second book deal.
With Doubleday’s profit margin hitting abysmal lows and their parent company Random House reconfiguring, I doubt even Obama could convince them that anything other than their bottom line is important to consider.
I too have trouble breaking free from the confines of this equation.
I am of course not the first or last to struggle with this predicament. Upon reading out Torah portion this week, Behar, it occurred to me that even our ancestors struggled to find a comfortable place between striving to acquire and finding satisfaction with less. Between competitively getting out ahead of one’s peers and living as equals. Between viewing everyone as someone who can buy your product and advance your agenda in some way, and simply being amongst a community.
Our Torah portion discusses the sabbatical year. For six years the farmer is to tend to his land, and the seventh, is to be a Sabbath of the land, a year of rest for the earth. The farmer is to neither sow nor harvest his field nor tend his vineyard.
I would like to draw your attention to three striking verses. In Leviticus 25:5 we read, “Even crops that grew on their own [from the seeds of your previous ] harvest you shall not reap, and the grapes of your untended vines you shall not gather; it shall be a year complete rest for the land. “ (Leviticus 25:5)
These are seemingly simple instructions. Do not harvest anything, even that which grew on its own accord. Go to Costco, but don’t harvest the field for your food.
But in the very next two verses we read, “The produce of the land’s Shabbos year shall be for yourselves, for food, for you, your servant and your maidservant, for your hired hand and your resident sojourner who reside with you. Also for your domesticated animals and for the wild beast that are in your land, shall all of its produce be for food.” (Leviticus 25:6-7)
Wait a minute! You just told us we can’t eat it, and now you say we can? How do we make sense of this?
Rashi explains: “You shall not treat it as an owner does, but all shall be equal in it. You and your hired hand and your resident sojourner.” (Rashi 25:6)
The environmental teachings in this passage – the concept of giving the year off – is of course important and a sermon onto its own. But what I found comforting in terms of my struggle was this concept that for 6 years a man manages his land, and then on the 7th, the land in effect returns to God. In the seventh year, all the community are equal before the land -- owner, servant, Jew, non-Jew and animal.
To me the passage exhorts, “So go, pursue your riches, sow your seeds and harvest your wealth. But in that 7th year, remember that we all stand before the earth, with no titles, no wealth, we all stand – the rich the poor, even the animals as equals.
Even more extreme is the section that follows on the jubilee year. Every 50 year there shall be a jubilee year in which all slaves shall set free and all land shall revert to its original owner. Theoretically, this prevented constant striving after wealth for if one worked to amass land against land and house upon house, one would still lose it in the 50th year. All the earnings of 50 years get wiped out. So why strive?
Now the rabbis agree that this probably never was implemented. They “deregulated” the jubilee practice. But none the less, to me I see the presence, even in these ancient writings, of a struggle between our innate tendency to strive to outdo others and to gain a financial advantage, and our philosophical hope that in the end we all strive for goodness.
I don’t think the parsha fully gives me the key to release myself from judging the efficacy of my work by my book sales, but it does comfort to me to realize that even thousands of years ago, our people struggled with a similar concept.
I hope we are entering a new time. I hope that it will become as prestigious to be a rabbi or a teacher or a social worker as it is (was?), to be an oil executive or a hedge fund manager. I hope we will pursue creativity, community and meet the challenges of our day with a renewed sense of hope.
Cain yehe ratzon.
