This week, for the fourth consecutive year, I am conducting Jewish High Holiday services. Though not a rabbi, I spent 12 years studying in yeshivas and 35 years teaching and writing on Judaism. The following is a summary of the Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) sermon that I gave this past Wednesday night.
The purpose of the High Holidays (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) is moral introspection: What kind of person am I, and what kind of person can I become? So, every year, Jews meditate on the issue of becoming a better person.
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But how many of us do become better people the next year?
This question has bothered me for many years, and I have decided to finally address it. Why is it so hard to become a better person?
I have — unfortunately — come up with 13 reasons.
1. Most people don’t particularly want to be good
The biggest obstacle to people becoming better is that you have to really want to be a good person in order to be a better person, and most people wouldrather be other things. People devote far more effort to being happy (they do not know that goodness leads to increased happiness), successful, smart, attractive, and healthy, to cite the most prominent examples.
2. Confusion about what goodness is.
Goodness is about character — integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people.
Not everyone agrees.
For thousands of years, more than a few religious individuals have regarded goodness as being more about sexual behavior and religious piety than about character and the decent treatment of others. And while sexual behavior and religious piety are important, they are not as important as simply acting decently toward other human beings. That is what God wants most (see Micah 6:8, for example) and what we should want most.
At the other end of the spectrum, to modern progressives, goodness is all too often about having the correct political positions, not about character development.
3. Goodness is not about intentions.
Very few people have bad intentions. Even many people who commit real evil — such as true-believing Nazis, Communists, and Islamists — have good intentions. But as an ancient Jewish dictum put it, “It is not the thought that counts, but the action.” Good intentions alone produce good people about as often as good intentions alone produce good surgeons.
4. We don’t learn how to be good.
Even if you want to be a good person, where is the instruction manual? Where are the teachers, the coaches, and the schools? People spend years studying how to be good at everything — from sports to medicine to plumbing — except how to be good people.
5. We think too highly of ourselves.
Self-esteem frequently runs counter to goodness. Raising children with self-esteem sounds great, but when unearned — which it usually is — it leads to bad results. In fact, it is people who do not have particularly high self-esteem, people who feel that they constantly have to prove their worth, who are more likely to act good. And it is violent criminals who have the highest self-esteem — “I am better than others and can therefore do whatever I want.”
Since people choosing to act otherwise seems logically possible for most if not all of these, there is still a deeper mystery to the tenacity of evil. We can't avoid postulating some legend of the Fall or another, nor can we look to our own autonomous agency to overcome it because it's rooted in the core of the condition of our personhood. It's not surprising that Plato believed that true opinions about the good had to come from some divine inspiration.
We all have moods, states of mind. Sometimes we're serious. Sometimes we're angry. Sometimes we're being silly.
Ever stub your toe or get cut off by a bad driver and snap at your wife or kid? (And apologize later?) Of course you have. We're all human.
Eristic goes into the confession booth and feels the presence of God very close by. Dennis Prager enters the synagogue this time of year and feels the same thing.
None of us can be in that frame of mind all the time. But imagine if we were. We'd all be asking ourselves, with every step we took -- what does God want me to do here?
No, we wouldn't be barricading ourselves in closets and praying for salvation until we starved to death. We wouldn't be boarding the next steamer to India to take Mother Teresa's place either. But we would be acting differently. Maybe a lot, maybe just a little. But we would be acting differently.
And the funny thing is, God is right here, right now.
Reading your post brought a shiver to my spine. You couldn't be more right, or more right on point.
Virtually everything we do as human beings is rooted in our view of what is noble about us. If that view isn't clear, or isn't strong enough, we allow ourselves to go astray.
"The purpose of the High Holidays (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) is moral introspection: What kind of person am I, and what kind of person can I become? So, every year, Jews meditate on the issue of becoming a better person."
Traditional Catholicism has something like the High Holidays in intention but it is more frequent and comes by personal choice. That thing is Confession to a Priest.
I was not born a Catholic. I converted at the age of 40. I attend the Latin Mass, the Mass of al time. We have a traditional parish and that includes Confession, ideally every week.
Having been both a Catholic and a Protestant I can speak from my experience and say that the Protestants abandoning Confession was a mistake. Confession every week or two requires one to review his actions and describe, in sufficient detail, all he has done that was sinful since when last he Confessed. I like to think of it as a course correction for the soul every week or two. In my case I keep a list (sufficiently cryptic so that only I can understand it) to which I add notes during the week about what I will confess. The list is long and a sad commentary on the frequent failures of myself. But as the weeks progress and as one prepares for Confession one begins to see patterns and the proper moral perspectives that make one begin to amend his life.
When one has completed his Confession and been given, if the Priest can do so, absolution then one recites an act of Contrition. A simple but very fine prayer:
"O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen."
Many people, myself included, shorten the prayer slightly:
"O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen."
This done to show that we concern ourselves only with our love and respect for God. If one deeply loves and honors God then one should be truly and unconditionally sorry for any affront despite whatever punishments His majesty may require in recompense.
It is hard to go to Confession. Especially when first beginning to do so. Now I find confession essential but still hard. The Priest does not merely hear one's sins but also provides guidance, both spritual and practical. The most important thing is that the Priest is there to help and will not pull punches or sugar coat things. This plain speaking is so valuable.
As one becomes familiar with the Sacrement of Confession one begins to apply it to one's daily decision making process. Regular Confession starts to inform one's decisions outside of the Confessional.
I will not dare to say Catholicism made me a perfect person but Catholicism did absolutely make me a more thoughtful and I hope (and pray) at least a better person.
Recently, I re-discovered George Washington. Yes, George Washington, the father of our country, who attained a level of character that inspires me daily. So I would add 'historical figure' to your list of role models. Your essay is utterly beautiful and true, and sad.
Washington yes. He transformed from ambitious youth to a man who learned from his mistakes. Washington belived in service before self. Service in the eight years of the revolution . Service as supporter for The Constitutional Convention as silent chair of the Convention. Service as a first term President and reluctantly for another term and finally recalled from retirement to serve as General during the Quasi War with France. He sacrified sitting under his own vine and fig tree for the good of the country. King David who spared Saul because of personal respect who never repeated a sin twice and humbled himself to God and asked for wisdom above all other things.
Placing others first. The Scriptures say The first shall become last and the last in the end will become first. The id and ego must be subliminated to a higher identity. The final stage is self automomy. Rarely acheived but knowing how you fit in the scheme of things. Neither exaggerating or denigrating your worth. A purpose driven life. And finally achiving Joy over happiness. Happiness is transitory Joy eternal. Role Models like Washington and King David and many others for inspiration. For Emerson wrote. "The lives of Great men Teach us how to make our own sublime".
Brilliant essay! and so necessary. Every child old enough to read and comprehend this essay should be obligated, in school, to study it and answer a large number of questions.
