This was my D’var Torah for Parashat Lech L’cha on Shabbat morning, October 28, 2017 (5778).
I have been thinking about two things this week that present in a way the same moral dilemma. For the past couple of weeks, the revelations of sexual harrassment and assault from Harvey Weinstein, the movie executive, have sparked a torrent of revelations. Some regarding famous people, and also from the grassroots. Actor Alyssa Milano sparked a response from several million women, when she asked them simply to post or tweet ‘metoo’ if something had been done to them at any time in the past. Many people told specific stories, some named names, other just wrote metoo without details. It’s a picture that is astonishing and heartbreaking but should not be startling.
The start of this, over a couple of week period, has of course started to move to the phase of what are we going to do about it, and questions about how frustrating it is to get attention about a moral issue but then not see anything being done. And being demoralized again as a result.
The other thing is Senator Jeff Flake’s decision not to run for reelection next year and the speech he gave explaining why he felt he could not work anymore within the Senate and his political party, given the behavior of the president. He talked about not wanting to be complicit anymore in a lack of basic decency in politics. Senator Flake felt that the only way he could get across his message was to speak it while announcing his exit.
I think both the #metoo campaign, and the retirement of Senator Flake, are about a particular kind of moral dilemma. Some decades ago the social scientist Albert Hirschmann called it exit vs. voice — when things are so intolerable that the only thing to do is to walk away, and when the way to deal with an outrage is to try to speak out from within and change things. These are the two options whenever there a great and even a universally shared sense of moral outrage, coupled with a frustration that there is nothing that can be done to make a difference, to make it better. Here it is, in plain sight — and yet what is the plan of action? And if nothing happens, there is just more frustration, and that much more likelihood that people will just disengage or be silent the next time.
In that kind of situation, speaking up and doing something that’s effective but small scale are obviously good — but also hard to keep going with. At some point, it’s tempting just to be demoralized, to be eaten up by frustration. And eventually to stop speaking out, to exit the arena and disengage completely.
This dilemma is exactly where the story of Avraham and Sarah begins. By looking at how they confronted the dilemma of exit vs. voice, we can learn something about what it takes to stay engaged and not be burned out in the process.
There are two midrashim that describe what this was like for Avraham. The midrash we all know says that Avraham and Sarah were fed up with their land, its culture and ideology, and even their own families — lech l’cha me-artz’cha umimoldt’cha umibeit avicha. Avraham confronted his own father, who sold idols, and King Nimrod, who believed in illusions and organized his society around them. So Avraham and Sarah first spoke out, and then decided to leave a society that was magnificent in so many achievements, in agriculture and public works, but was morally bankrupt. But it wasn’t their willingness to leave that made them our founders. It wasn’t walking away that put them in touch with God.
Their story really starts at the point where they match God’s own question about the world. The Torah, after the Tower of Babel, presents God as seriously wondering whether there is anything to do to create a moral universe on earth. And since God had decided that destroying it wasn’t an option anymore, the only other choice was basically to disengage.
Avraham and Sarah had reached that same point. They detached, and they were roaming around, but they were without any commitment or anyone to be committed to.
A second midrash describes the moment, though, when exit wasn’t enough for them.
Rabbi Yitzchak taught: Avraham can be compared to a man who was traveling from place to place when he saw a large, tall residential building on fire. He said, “Is it possible that there is a building like this and no manager?” Then the owner looked out at him and said, “I am the owner of the building.” Similarly, our ancestor Avraham said, “It is possible that the world has no leader?” The Blessed Holy One looked out at him and said, “I am the owner of the world.”
And right at that moment, it’s Lech L’cha.
Rabbi Yitzchak pinpoints a moment when Avraham is ruminating on the life he left behind in Ur, and whatever he has seen in other places in his travels. He has seen one too many outrages, one too many signs that the world is on fire, and he says to himself: “Is it possible that the world has no leader?” Is it possible that there is no possibility of a moral order here, or a path toward improvement? But before he becomes completely demoralized, he hears a voice inside that says to him: “I am the owner of the world.”
Professor Paul Mandel of Hebrew University in Jerusalem explains:
Abraham, upon seeing, throughout his journey, the discord and conflagration among the “tenants” of the world, correctly deduces that the world is lacking a manager, a leader to guide the various peoples… At just that time, God, the “owner” of the world, looks down and cries out — a cry that is more a cry for help than a revelation. God’s call to Abraham (and, through the openended character of the parable itself, to the reader!), is a call for action: Abraham may heed God’s call, stop i n his tracks, and take on the task of leader; or he may continue along his way.
To be Avraham and Sarah means to stare into the face of our doubts, about whether we can make a difference in the pervasive moral problems of our world — and to decide to walk toward the burning building. To stop disengaging. To not settle for speaking out and walking away without a plan.
Rabbi Yitzchak’s little story teaches us what changed for Avraham. It was his belief that his outrage wasn’t just his own, but God’s. He could see himself as a partner, as a vessel, as an instrument, in whatever way he was equipped for — the manager,t he superintendent to God’s ownership of the world. He reconnected, or maybe connected for the first time, to a conviction that there is a moral order even when it’s not apparent in the world.
And I think for us, there are two other ingredients that are hinted at in the midrash. Rabbi Yitzchak talks about fire, which sounds like a frightening image — we think of being burned with disappointment, or burning out, or being so fiery that other people look away. But as Rabbi Yitzchak continues to tell the story, he talks about beauty. Walking as a divine instrument makes us beautiful, in the eyes not only of God but of people. Our fires warm other people, rather than burning them.
And the Talmud reminds us that the reward for all of this, for Avraham and Sarah, was the sweetness of community, the new relationships they made. The Torah says that Avraham and Sarah began to travel with “the souls that they had made in Haran” — they didn’t burn alone with their passion. They began to create a world centered around them that was true, that was ethical, that was compassionate and just and full of good-humor. That’s what kept them going. They were creating, in their tent and in their camp, not just a critique of the outside world, but a model for a new one. not just in ideas, but in the way they lived together, the way they comfronted the challenges that their new world presented to them.
So too with each of us. At those moments when our moral outrage overwhelms us, when there are too many causes or when we wonder where our next effective action really is — we need to recognize that we are our ancestors descendents. To be a Ben/Bat Avraham v’Sarah means knowing that it’s natural, that we might indeed roam for a time. But we have to be there for each other to be that voice that says, the world has an owner, and it needs you for its new management. That’s why we come to shul. That’s why we read the Torah, with its stories of struggles against moral dilemmas that aren’t resolved so tidily. That’s why we say and sing these prayers, which map out the journey of our people in the world, which remind us to be God’s instruments for the justice and peace and compassion we always pray for.
We should by all means take advantage of opportunities to gain the skills to make a concrete difference. It’s particularly timely that we are hosting an Active Bystander training in a week and a half. The United Way and the Granite State Organizing Project are doing this training about how to respond effectively to bullying and intimidation of any kind, so we don’t feel frozen and unable to act or make a difference.
I don’t judge Senator Flake for walking away, if he will find a way to continue to use his voice — his recent book suggests that he means to find a role in creating a more decent politics. I have had my week of being frozen and overwhelmed, wondering , in response to Alyssa Milano and all the people I know who said “me too”, what to do. But now it’s clear to me that we as a shul have great educational capacity that we haven’t tapped when it comes to issues of relationships and power, and it’s time to roll up our sleeves on that, so stay tuned.
I’m not overwhelmed by the number of moral conflagrations there are. We are descedents of Avraham and Sarah, and we live in their house. We might have a phase of exit, but ultimately we find our way back to voice. We can help each other be, to paraphrase the Haftarah, people who exchange strength with each other, in the service of God and the moral order. So let’s walk toward those buildings, and get to saving and rebuilding.
Shabbat Shalom.
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